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There was a period during the '60s and early '70s when snobbery of the classic sort seemed, superficially, at least, in some danger of disappearing into the denim egalitarianism of the time. It never could, of course. It just changed form; and the Revolution, while it lasted, enforced its own snobberies, its own political and even psychic pretensions. Today, snobbery is back in more familiar channels. A generation of high-gloss magazines (Connoisseur, Architectural Digest, House and Garden, for example) flourishes by telling Americans what the right look is. The American ideal of the Common Man seems to have got lost somewhere; the Jacksonian theme was overwhelmed by the postwar good life and all the dreamy addictions of the best brand names. The citizen came to be defined not so much by his political party as by his consumer preferences. It might be instructive to compare the style of the White House under Ronald Reagan with that of, say, Harry Truman. One imagines the snorting contempt with which Truman would have regarded the $1,000 cowboy boots and the Adolfo gowns.
Washington, in fact, is a hotbed of snobbery. It is an essentially brainless city that runs, in the shallowest way, on power and influence and office. Access to power is the magic—access to the President, or access to the people who have access to the President, or access to lunch at the White House mess, or to Ed Meese across a crowded room, or to those chunky little cufflinks with the presidential seal. But Washington is like other cities: the snobs reveal themselves by the clothes they wear and the clubs they join and the schools they send their children to and the company they keep and the houses they buy and the caterers they call.
The English, who have flirted with Beatles music and the leveling principle, have returned to their ancient heritage of snobbism. They worship their ancestors and buy The Official Shane Ranger Handbook and dream of country houses and old money. They have a look, both wistful and satirical, at the Duke of Bedford's Book of Snobs, with its indispensable advice: "A tiara is never worn in a hotel, only at parties arranged in private houses or when royal ladies are present." They think longingly of the right public school, the right regiment, the right club (Whites, if possible, or Boodles, or Pratt's, if you must). They dread the fatal slip, the moment when they might, for example, eat asparagus with knife and fork: Use your fingers, idiot!