Beware of being a snob (after all we are a bit snob)

7 August 20222 years ago babelfish

The letter of the lawyer Antonio de Grazia

Dear Director,

after an almost sabbatical period, I come back to bother her.

There are some small books, which give new pleasure to each rereading. This is the case of “ The snob in the society of mass snobbery ”, Oligo editore. The author is the writer and great storyteller Gaetano Cappelli, whimsical and elegant, also known as the Fitzgerald of Lucania (he was running around with a fascinating Jaguar), but also a lover of John Fante. One of the few authentic contemporary Italian writers.

His prose is a form of anamorphosis: with a light, ironic but sharp pen, Gaetano Cappelli takes us into the ubiquitous world of snobs. And, in the end, we who read also become a kind of snob. Nobody is saved, even we are classified as snobs.

But let's start: the etymology snob does not mean – as I also believed – sine nobilitate . The Bible of the snob, William Makepeace Thackeray, uses the word snob as derived from the English dialect, cobbler.

Let's leave the word to the author: “What really matters in a snob, in the end, is not the class they belong to, but the attitude”. And then: "The dandy is distinguished from others by excess, the snob succeeds by subtraction".

Another gem: “Radical chic is nothing more than a snob who sings Bella Ciao”.

The author then classifies the various snobberies: the pop snob, the media snob, the social snob, the mass snobbery.

Finally, the closure is of the incomparable WM Thackeray: “Don't judge snobs hastily or vulgarly: if you don't want to show that you are a snob yourself”.

So it is, if you like.

A warm greeting.

Antonio de Grazia

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/attenti-a-dare-dello-snob-in-fondo-lo-siamo-un-po-tutti/ on Sun, 07 Aug 2022 06:06:00 +0000.