Confronting Reverse Snobbery

Much has been written about undesirable effects of snobbery; but I have seen – both in America and in Australia – reverse snobbery. In these situations, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are abusive to people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, and nobody does anything about it.

I have known a woman in Australia who was descended from Irish royalty. She was together for several years with a country boy. She worked hard; he worked barely a day in his life. Yet he kept running her down, making case after case that she was trash, and beating her up. Many people thought that he was the good guy when he was being an absolute bully and a leech.

I have known a woman in America who was descended from English royalty. She was married for 15 years to a man who came from the rough side of town. He worked and made sizable amounts of money as an accountant; but he was an absolute tyrant. He would make her spend six hours a day cleaning the house and would come at her with fists in case that he found a speck of dust on the floor. Like many in his line of work he knew how to put on a front, so once again people thought that he was the good guy.

Apparently these people do not have a clear view of history. It was higher-born intellectuals such as Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin that created American democratic system; and without them an average American would be living in a European monarchy, tilling a two-acre plot of land, dying at age 30 and having his sons drafted into the military and daughers into domestic servitude. For people in places such as America or Australia to have an anti-intellectual attitude, or the reverse snobbery attitude, is to forget what made their arrangement possible in the first place. Both places owe vastly to intellectuals and to people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. And for these people to treat such people like dirt is completely wrong.

Are there good people in lower socioeconomic backgrounds? Of course there are. Are there bad ones in higher ones? Certainly. But reverse snobbery is as damnable as regular snobbery. To abuse a woman because she comes from a higher background than yourself is wrong absolutely. That is especially the case – as in the first example – when the woman is working harder than do you.

In these situations, the women from higher backgrounds were being treated like cattle by people who had none of their virtues. They were both talented artists; they were both beautiful; they were both compassionate and kind. Their partners were none of these things. If women such as that get treated this way in our society, then something is badly wrong with our society. And it merits the attention of people who care about such things as where the world goes to see these dynamics and counteract them.

For my part, I have seen it from both sides. I went to a private school on a full scholarship while being a son of poor immigrants, and some students were nasty to me for that reason. However I have also been with a woman from the rough side of town who kept snarling at me for having some upper-class sensibilities that I got from – guess where. So I do not see a reason at all to see either side as better or worse than the other. Nixon was as wrong to militate against the high-born as Hitler was against the Jews. Neither had chosen to be what they were. However to attack the higher-born than yourselves and treat them like dirt is damnable as well. That is especially the case, once again, in places such as America, that owe their statehood and their system to upper-class intellectuals.

So I put this forth to people's attention. Many notice snobbery; not enough notice reverse snobbery. And I believe that I owe it to the women in question as well as any number of others to confront reverse snobbery and prevent these kinds of problems from taking place.