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The Joys of Snobbery
Is it possible to be “discerning” and have “refined” tastes without being a grump? Can a person be sharply critical of art and entertainment without being constantly annoyed by mediocre works?
In seeking what is good and beautiful, should we readily dismiss lesser works? Should we try to overlook flaws in order to appreciate as much as possible? Or is that settling?
Published in General
Appreciating the finest does not rule out accepting the good or even adequate. I love the finest coffee, but can cherish a decent cup on a cold day. I can get lost in the best writers but enjoy a good basic mystery tale well told. I can drive the finest cars and love a reliable old pickup still giving good service at 300,000 miles.
Without the decent average, there is no best.
To only cherish the finest is to suffer from the dread disease of High Pretention.
The difference between being discerning and being a snob is the difference between having a preference and denouncing all other options as universally inadequate.
Aaron, may I suggest the parable of the dragnet [Mt. 13:47-50]?
Throughout the history of music composers have used folk songs in symphonies and other works. Bela Bartok and Aaron Copeland come to mind. High art is often influenced by lower forms of art. Noting wrong with enjoying an infectious pop song. Every morning when I comb my hair I sing Brittney Spears Hit Me Baby One More Time into my hair brush. I don’t have much hair and don’t really need a hairbrush but still.. It’s important to have the discretion to know what great art is but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a few empty calories.
Damn, you beat me to Bartok! I was about to say how he proves refinement to be an appreciation of high and low art, that the two aren’t such discrete categories.
Though I do love the awful grumpiness that can come with snobbery. That infectious miserabilism that Martin Amis exudes is kind of borderline snobbery I can’t help but adore. Maybe it’s just the fact I’m English.
Similarly, “high culture” also influences “low culture”. What is avant-garde in the art world today becomes tomorrow’s wallpaper design.
This is precisely why it is beneficial to promote the best possible “high culture”, because the result of allowing bad art to become accepted as “high culture” is being confronted with no good options the next time you head to the store to buy wallpaper.
Metaphorically-speaking.
Being a snob is a form of insecurity for a lot of people. They only like what they have heard is good because they don’t want to be thought of as lowbrow. It’s better to just like what you like. I have noticed that usually when I learn a piece, on an instrument or as a singer, I tend to like it as it becomes more familiar, but some I just like right away. As far as art goes–well some work is obviously great, but beyond that, it’s what appeals to you. It’s fine to learn to appreciate art though study and all, but I get really tired of reverence for artists. They don’t generally deserve it, and if they demand it, they really don’t deserve it. Divas are pretty darned annoying.
I don’t know how one cannot be annoyed by mediocrity. In fact why is that a problem, at least in theory? I do understand that it would be nice to go through life oblivious to the mediocre–enjoying every Obama press conference and supermarket song list–but I haven’t found a way to do this without becoming a hermit. (See Moliere’s Misanthrope.) It does mean suffering in silence a good bit of the time, though.
If you don’t like something, don’t spend time or money on it. Try new things; no harm in that. Educate yourself in artists you are unfamiliar with, but don’t obsess that other people “get” it and you don’t.
It became fashionable to bag on Kipling some time ago – Evil Bard of Imperialism and all that rot. I like Kipling and don’t much care. Opera is “high art.” Okay, fine, but I like the instrumental parts better than the arias, and the arias better than the interstitial recitative crap. Librettists should be chased by small rude children hurling clods of dirt. But good people can like that stuff. Jay Nordlinger probably likes that stuff, and Jay seems nice. And as for the visual arts, give me the Impressionists or give me the Arms & Armor section of the Chicago Art Institute. Jackson Pollock was a hack.
From Despair.com , w/o permission
One sentence and you said it all.
I’m a little disappointed that we don’t have more snobs on here fighting their corner.
My extended family includes both extremes. Some can enjoy just about anything, while others are quick to call most of it crap.
I figure one reference to Amis fils is snobbish enough :) A Scot friend of mine really hates the guy though.
I think to be or not to be a snob depends on how you treat others. I really have no interest in ever buying PBR, but if thats what you’re into then I won’t treat you with disdain and derision.
Most things most people like are just that. You need to find someone who talks about refinement of taste without those quotation marks. Nietzsche, for example.
Snobs are not people who understand the difference between the great & the rest. A snob is a person who says, standing on the shoulders of giants. A man of sense is one who knows it is not the business of giants to have dwarfs perched on their shoulders–at best, the dwarfs can sit at their feet.
But I’d say most people who are called–or call themselves, if any such there be–snobs are really philistines. Snobs are, in fact, rather rare, even in academia these days…
As to the business about enjoying mediocrity–if you know what’s what, you can see in mediocre attempts something of what is a great achievement. I do not know what else mediocrity has to be said in its favor.
In the Screwtape Letters, Uncle Screwtape contrasts “the gluttony of excess,” with “the gluttony of delicacy.” Everybody recognizes the former, but the latter is harder to detect. In short, the gluttony of delicacy is…
The example in the book is one of food, but for a long time I have wondered if the general concept can be applied more broadly. Does the demand for an exact, and refined, object fit the general concept?
I was raised in extremely affluent communities. At some point I noticed that some people seem to spend a lot of energy proving to others how refined they are. They did so by buying only the best (or most popular) foods, products, etc. Even living in a particular community was proof of refinement.
Then there were others who often bought the best quality foods, products, etc., but they did so because it was a good value, not primarily to prove their refinement. Not that these wanted to be thought of as unrefined, but it didn’t seem to be their primary motivation. There were other “tells” as well.
At some point I wondered if it was the difference between old money and new money.
When I read the Screwtape Letters years later, I wondered if what I had observed as a younger person was a form of “gluttony of delicacy.”
I don’t know if I’m explaining it very well.
Aaron in #12 is looking for more snobs, so I’ll do my best (until Vicryl chimes in) on Opera. Other than being written earlier, Opera is no different than the great Broadway musicals like West Side Story and Oklahoma. Bizet’s Carmen has as many catchy tunes as The Sound of Music. Before the Opera boom of the 1800’s, you had Oratorios like Handel’s Messiah. When you include what came before and after, you can usually discern what is worth appreciating. But yes, Jackson Pollock was a hack.
Yer way too articulate and informed in your bashing of opera and painting.
Elitist!
Good questions. I would say you should not dismiss lesser works. All honest art that approach the true and the beautiful have some merit. Appreciate what has merit. It does not take away from the great art. Do you turn your nose on a simple coffee cake or pound cake if it’s not a Black Forest Chocolate cake?
Come here–this is not going to hurt at all–first, if you already know the truth & what is beauty, there’s little trouble & no real need for what you call art, honest or otherwise.
But what if you’re a human being & you do not really know or you’re not for sure. How do you know if it’s honest? How do you know if it’s art! How do you make sure you’re not led into some error, not to say false beliefs by persuasive, compelling art that is nevertheless mistaken or dangerous? Also, how do you account for the fact that you can spend your life appreciating mediocrity & then you’re dead–should not you be encouraging people to spend their uncertain life aspiring to & appreciating the truth & beauty?
Jennifer, that’s a really good point. There’s a difference between liking quality because it is well-made and useful and name-brandism, wanting something for the prestige, which is a form of buying, not earning, respect. I think most of us are susceptible to this to some degree, which is why C.S. Lewis brought it up! There are so many ways our pride and desire for kudos from others can get in the way of our loving and respecting our fellowmen. Because let’s face it, we all tend to look down on the person who, in our opinion has bad taste in whatever way. We certainly have to learn to look beyond that. Thanks for the reminder.
I’m here to save the day! I think I qualify as a snob- I once counted, and Aaron called me a snob four times in one day, so it must be true ;)
I think being a snob about a couple things is perfectly fine. People develop high levels of understanding and appreciation for particular things, and they become a snob on the matter. The problem, I believe, comes when one lets the snob persona extend to all aspects of life, and now one is unable to communicate and form relationships with people that aren’t also snobs of the same caliber.
I’m a snob about three main things (Aaron, please add to the list, since you know me better than anyone here):
1. Music- I have a degree in music and I sang professionally, so I’m qualified to be a snob on this topic.
2. Perfume- if you can buy it at Walgreens or JC Penny’s it’s crap not worth wearing. If it cost less than $100, throw it away- it’s crap.
3. Food- Wine, butter, and garlic make everything taste better.
Those are very good questions Titus. I’m not sure I can answer them except with this: if a work is aesthetically whole, then at a minimum it approaches truth and beauty. Now that opens up a bunch more questions. Who decides what is high art? I’m confident that experts over time – even a century or more – with back and forth debate put their finger on what is quality art. That doesn’t mean you have to accept their judgement. But it’s an informed judgement, with personal and time era biases teased out.
I’m feeling the urge to release my inner snob as well.
I too am very qualified in music. (Through the UK grading system, however, which I believe Americans don’t have?) That I’m capable of understanding and playing in 13/8 quite effortless, and that I’ve a spent tedious hours writing bach chorales and doing things like learning how to construct modes on the double harmonic minor; and, most importantly, that I have spent so much of my life exploring and listening to and appreciating music — this means, I would think, that I’ve earned the right to look down on the wealth of terrible music out there.
And I have to be a snob on food too. Butter and garlic are as you say essential. And I personally will always extol the virtues of adding sherry to virtually every sauce. I also so cherish wild boar or venison or ostrich or other similar meats. Oh, and give me sauteed potatoes over chips any day.
God, I know this all sounds awful. But I think the key to being a successful snob is to recognise your superiorities while also being very self-mocking about it and to never let it bleed into your overall judgement of other people.
And also, I guess, to recognise where one is clearly not a snob. I know nearly nothing about visual art and certainly nothing about clothes or fashion or anything similar. On these, I’m quite happy to be uncultured.
Hat tip, from one snob to another. ;)
They are a little different. It’s only a matter of taste anyway, which is what I was trying to say. I like most everything that Rossini wrote and Carmen is a marvel. I prefer musicals over opera because they don’t rely on singing to advance the plot.
It’s just the recitative you object to?
Welcome to Ricochet, Steven! And there is a lot of terrible music out there.
Well, not all operas are created equal, but it is the one thing that I lose patience with fastest. This is due in part to not speaking the language in question. If the words are unintelligible, and the music is only meh, why am I listening to this?
Well, if I must trot out my snob cred to satisfy Aaron….I bake with butter, generally unsalted, and “good” olive oil, and garlic is a favorite. I’m constantly searching for good recipes and tend to turn my nose up at grocery store cookies as not worth the calories. I’m a bit of a music snob, but I love Bluegrass. I decorate eclectically and, I think, creatively, but I don’t put anything in my house or generally even on my body or for that matter in my body that I don’t love. So yeah, I’m a snob, but I try to keep it under control.