I am a snob and an elitist, and I am not inclined to be apologetic for it.
I do not, for the record, give a damn about how much money you have, your social class of origin, or your race, ethnicity or religion.
I do, however, give a damn about how you comport yourself in public, how you communicate and how you perceive and execute your place in the world.
I have absurdly high standards that I, myself, largely do not live up to -- I curse too much, speak informally often, and am a sloppy typist. Read that again. Can you pick out the key word? It's sloppy.
Sloppiness and laziness in these sorts of realms make me as insane as cowardice does -- BECAUSE I THINK THEY ARE THE SAME THING. I loathe it in myself and I loathe it in others. it's as if peopel are afraid to stretch outside of their comfort zones, to stand out, to be called a nerd or a conformist or whatever, simply for bhaving with appropriate grace. It boggles my mind. I'm often rather outrageous and reasonably appropriate to most occassions, and I know when to play and when not to. It's not that hard, and it's not that expensive ($10 tango dress I wore to La Boheme, hello). That peopel could possibly be embarassed by speaking or behaving properly boggles my mind, but I suppose we are all fourteen forever sometimes.
Someone in the conversation on the New Yorkes forum didn't understand why saying "Me and Heidi went to the movies" was not just grammatically wrong, but rude. While I'm sure I make this mistake often, it's a bad habit, and I shouldn't do it. The difference between "Me and Heidi" and "Heidi and I" here is huge -- it's not just grammatical, and it's not, as the poster implied, a matter of pretension. It's a matter of courtesy, not just to Heidi, but the world at large.
Also in this discussion people raised a number of social niceties as outdated courtesies, and I mustdisagree.
Traditionally, a man should walk curbside to a woman -- to shield her from traffic, splattering mud and the like. While the gender basis of this is certainly outmoded, it is not outmoded to walk curbside of a paramour, friend, child or family member towards which you feel protective.
Traditionally a man removes his hat when going inside. If you are wearing the sort of hat this would apply to, regardless of your gender, REMOVE YOUR HAT. Not doing so is disrespectful to your hosts -- hosts can include people you are visiting, the owners of an establishment you are patronizing or those who organized a social event in a public place. Removing your hat indicates that you are staying, making eye contact and a full-participant in events.
Traditionally, a man opens and holds a door for a lady. Are you playing host in a social situation? Then open the door for your guest. If it's not that type of scenario, at least hold the door after you so it doesn't shut in someone's face.
Person after person in that thread asked how not dressing up for an event is rude, saying it should be behavior that matters. The choice of clothes to honor, dishonor or disregard an event IS A BEHAVIOR. Even if I or others disagree with your choices, choose consciously.
I come by my snobbery honestly. I went to private school, studied French and Latin from the time I was very young, Spanish later, and persued classical Greek in college. I learned about art, music and dance, social behavior, and perhaps more regrettably, social roles.
I am also not wealthy, nor are my parents. We've much more than many and much less than as many -- in New York it's a strange plae to be. Neither of my parents has a college degree. My father's father was a shoemaker. My snobbery is not about cash or origin, nor is it about entitlement or the idea that some people are just innately better than others by virtue of the social status that happens to be conferred upon them at birth.
My snobbery is about the idea that education, grammar, abd social graces are not beyond anyone inately. Certainly, economic class often has a huge role in what people have access to or time to worry about, and that's a shame -- and yes, I, of course, think putting food on your family's table comes before grammar or owrrying about what you wear to the theatre.
But if you have time to argue with me on LJ about how you consciously choose to have poor grammar because it doesn't matter and it's pretentious? Or you think it's unreasonable to be asked to dress neatly (just neatly, not even up, just neatly) for an event most people pay at least $100/ticket to see? Then you do have the time and resources to choose to comport yourself better, and you choose not to, and I will not be an apologist for my snobbery in such cases.
Quite frankly, more people should be snobs. Neither standards nor idealism are a sin.
The subject line, by the way, is from the very beginning of a ridiculously long thing called Decorum I had to memorize as an Alpha Theta Beta pledge.
And for the newer people here, yes, I am totally for real.
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