Indulging in tyranny of taste

Bay Area is fertile soil for cultivating snobs

Vicki Haddock, Insight Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, May 23, 2004

We like to tell ourselves that we live in the most egalitarian country on Earth, and that the Bay Area is the epicenter of unpretentiousness. It is rather like our halo. No caste system here, barely a blip on any snob-o- meter. Mutual respect, our mantra. Diversity, our virtue. Tolerance, our sacrament.
Mais, au contraire! We actually may live in one of the snob centers of the universe.

The reason is not that the social hierarchy here is so rigid -- indeed, snobbery thrives precisely because it is so elastic. Unlike the inhabitants of many countries, we are not sorted into permanent categories at birth based on bloodline. When someone in San Francisco is said to have had a "coming out," no one envisions a debutante ball.

We are not so blatant as the Brits, who are characterized in the new British bestseller "Snobs" by Julian Fellowes, Oscar-winning author of "Gosford Park," as "addicted to exclusivity. Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them."

Nor are we like our fellow Americans in the Deep South, assessed by "What's your family name?" or the Northeast, where it's "What school did you attend?" or even Los Angeles, where it's "How svelte are you and how successful was your last cosmetic surgery?"

No, the Bay Area practices the tyranny of taste. People are more inclined to size up the suitability of others based on critical distinctions such as how they lubricate their daily bread (tub margarine on Wonder, bad -- McEvoy olive oil on artisan Pugliese, good), what they're reading ("Glorious Appearing," bad -- "The Great Fire," good) what they do for sport (bowling, bad -- snowboarding, good) or what they drive (Dodge, bad -- Mini, good).

Or wait, maybe all those bad things actually journeyed so far out of style that they've boomeranged back in again, while the latest good things have become passe. There's the rub in an egalitarian world -- to retain social status when status is so fluid, you must be ever-vigilant or risk being "so five minutes ago."

It's that nervous state of unease that provides fertile soil for the cultivation of snobbery.
"I would say more than any other region of the country, in the Bay Area you're assessed based on 'Are you living a tasteful life?' And the tyranny of taste is where snobbery is always at its most intense," observed self- proclaimed snobographer Joseph Epstein, a lecturer at Northwestern University and author of "Snobbery: The American Version."

Epstein, whose regular visits to San Francisco have persuaded him that we all think we're really Tuscans, confesses to having "a little thing" about San Francisco, "which, despite all the virtues of its climate and topography, is one of the great centers of snobbery in America. The boosters of the city, who seem to include everyone who lives there, imply by their manner that they, above all their countrymen, have found the secret of good living.

"And, with their insistence on their good taste in daily life, San Franciscans can be richly, profoundly off-putting. I find myself sufficiently put off by them to have come to think of their extolling of their own city as unbearable 'Bayarrea.'.''

Largely devoid of bona fide religion, people in San Francisco tend to imbue lifestyle choices with a spiritual reverence. We are churchlessly holier- than-thou, hipper-than-thou and most definitely more-virtuous-than-thou. Among our temples is Chez Panisse, the church of Alice Waters, a pilgrimage for those spreading the gospel of "slow food" and nourishing their very souls on organically grown chard and heirloom Brandywine tomatoes while rescuing the endangered Blenheim apricot. We may have more varieties of virgin olive oil here than actual virgins.

How many among us feel the impulse to reassure listeners that we recycle, save the redwoods, have gone vegan, work out at the gym five days a week, boycott Nike, listen only to NPR or KPFA, trust only "The Nation," prefer all- wood Waldorf-sanctioned toys for our kids, would never set foot in Wal-Mart and naturally eschew the multiplex in favor of art house films by Lars von Trier.

Doesn't everyone?

Actually no. A good many targets of such snobbery reciprocate in kind, feeling superior to those they've named the Bay Area's latte liberals, a breed they regard as having yogurt for brains and the eating proclivities of rabbits -- people who protest on cue, spend the equivalent of an emerging nation's GDP on bottled water, and wax effusive about obtuse films on suicide (with subtitles).

"If I'm meeting somebody at a party and they tell me they can't wait to go to the multiplex to see "American Pie Part III," I'll say, 'Excuse me, I have to go get a drink' ...and I won't be back," said Julie Bennett of San Francisco, a trainer for the hospitality industry and proud subscriber to "Film Comment."

"If you don't know the work of John Sayles, don't even talk to me about movies.''

While she's at it, Bennett also avoids the capri-pants Marina crowd, and anyone who drinks white wine drops down a notch or two in her estimation. When she travels, she confessed, "I can't wait for the flight to land at SFO to know I'm back with the good people with the good ideas, the good restaurants, bringing in the good food, the good art."

And on reflection, Bennett noted that she's not an insufferable snob: "I have a really good friend of mine, and I don't trust her take on movies, music and food, but otherwise she's a great person."

Pauline Kael was less tolerant. The late New Yorker film critic, who hailed from Petaluma, observed that she could simply never have a relationship with anyone who thought "Dances with Wolves" worth watching.

Similarly, the Bay Area smiles upon the kayakers and hang gliders -- but not upon, say, big bowlers, as research scientist Bill MacElroy can attest. Co-owner of a high-tech marketing research agency in San Francisco, Socratic Technologies, MacElroy noticed that when he hosted meetings, colleagues would sneak into his office to throw a drape over his bowling trophies. And they rolled their eyes and winced when he announced plans for a company outing at the alley. "Once they tried it, they had a great time. But they wouldn't consider taking up bowling," he said. "It's just not a fit with their chosen lifestyle."

A world traveler, MacElroy finds that the Bay Area has the saving grace of indulging people an untrendy quirk or two.

Still, "You go to a place like Chicago, the only thing they're snobbish about is pizza. Here our snobbery is an attitude that we're living this ideal -- this notion of 'I have a higher plane of understanding about the social good.' I think we actually proselytize our point of view more strongly that other parts of country that are more overtly religious," he said.

We all carry a unique set of parameters for judging others -- micro- snobberies and reverse snobberies that differ from Lagunitas to Los Altos, from Berkeley to Blackhawk.

Erik Ressel of Daly City confessed to being a secret snob about people who ski in jeans: "They may be good skiers, but come on, just buy some ski pants. They look like idiots out there."

Bill Drake, who retired from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and left the Bay Area for Modesto, frowns on people who drive pickups without needing them for their jobs. Pickups are common these days, "and so are the people who drive them," he said. "I see one and instantly I think there's probably a rifle rack on the back ... and, to be really snobby, their grammar isn't up to par and there's tobacco stains on the window."

Novato stay-at-home-mom Caroline Clawson steers her children away from playmates who watch the cartoon "Powerpuff Girls" and dine on Chicken McNuggets: "There are some shorthand indicators that tell me whether a family exposes their children to the finer things of life or just lets them wallow in junk. I'm sorry -- I don't choose to foster relationships with families who hold their birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese."

And Foster City resident R.A. Stewart, a round-the-world sailor, looks down his nose at "the fleets of cocktail captains navigating our lovely lagoons (who) know and care nothing about nautical traditions or propriety. All they do is have fun -- fly the wrong flags and never pull in their fenders. Unfathomable!"

Given the affluence of the area, people also judge others based on the lines of their furniture and the capabilities of their PDAs -- accoutrements that proclaim "I have style," "I have technological savvy," or just plain "I have the bucks to buy cool toys."

"In a democracy with no real aristocracy, how do you determine your identity and relativity to others? If not by your coat-of-arms, by your stuff, " said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's why consumerism thrives in our culture."

Bay Area residents are inclined to protest that we are not, after all, snobs. We merely cultivate a "culture of connoisseurship." Surely not all value judgments are rank snobbery. What is wrong with appreciating quality -- and preferring the company of others who do?

The crux of the distinction comes down to social context. True aficionados savor inherent characteristics of excellent wine and derive great pleasure from drinking it -- whether or not anyone sees or knows they do it. A wine snob would be more inclined to do an Internet search to determine a chi- chi wine, bring it to a party to impress the other guests, and publicly expound on its characteristics -- whether or not said snob actually liked drinking it.

The drive to better ourselves by belittling others has fueled great American literature, from Henry James to Edith Wharton to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Tom Wolfe. The archetypical American, as H.L. Mencken reasoned, is doomed to exist on an icy slope socially, struggling to scramble up but anxious in the knowledge that slipping can be fatal with no caste system to catch us.

"I wouldn't want to write a screed in defense of snobbery, but it's generally harmless, isn't it?" asked Eric Rauchway, professor of American history at UC Davis. "The truth is there's not a one of us who doesn't go around thinking that music I like is better than the music I don't like, or the clothes I wear are better than the clothes I choose not to wear. " At its essence, is snobbery a horrible corruption of human competitiveness, or a noble struggle to resist the lowest common denominator? Both, perhaps -- and an opportunity to star in our own delusions.



E-mail Vicki Haddock at vhaddock@sfchronicle.com.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/23/ING9T6N31V1.DTL