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The status show, old style, still trudges on, to be sure, but it is most noticeable nowadays among the rich and most amusing to notice in Washington, which displays in concentration the social mode that reflects the country's ascendant mood. Says Diana McClellan, who closely monitors the status chase as the Washington Post gossip columnist: "There's more of a polarization now between the really rich and everybody else. These people are plastered with rubies and things to the point where you don't think you've got a chance. How can you hope to top $700,000 worth of Bulgari jewels around somebody's neck? You don't—you give up and go with plastic Scottie dogs or something."
Status, as notion or fact, is inseparable from the human condition. Given the nature of the U.S. as an open society cherishing the premise that anybody is free to rise, a good deal of status chasing was inescapable from the outset. If the chase had indeed rigidified the lines of class in the society, the symbols of status could only have become ever more clear. Reflecting upon that fact, one contemplates the present symbolic (and hierarchical) muddle with a light heart. —By Frank Trippett