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Summary of Aldous Huxley’s Selected Snobberies

The essay, Selected Snobberies, consists of seven paragraphs in which Aldous Huxley discusses the interesting subject of snobberies. The essay does not teach any moral principle but familiarises with a new subject that is applicable to most people of the world.

Summary

There are all kinds of people and all kinds of snobberies so that there is nothing in the world about which people cannot be snobbish. There is however one exception to it. It is not possible to find a leprosy snob as none wants to suffer from it. But there are a good number of people who are disease snobs. There are examples of young men and women who are T.B.snobs. They think that it would be quite romantic to die of tuberculosis while they are in the prime of their youth. The regrettable part of it is that the end of these T.B. snobs is not as romantic as they seem to imagine. But there are many rich people who seem to think that they suffer from many diseases and they run from one fashionable doctor to another to seek cure for their imaginary diseases. The only disease that these snobs suffer from is none else but that of over-eating. They eat more than they can digest and so they think that they are suffering from several diseases.

There are fashions in snobberies also. Old snobberies become out dated and the new ones take their place. Earlier people used to be snobbish about their families but now family snobbery is on the decline. New culture snobbery is on the increase though it is resisted by low class people. The latest in our times is the booze snobbery and most young men and women also from fifteen to seventy are seen drunk in at least private parties. France has been famous for its fine wines and its fine tastes but such is the influence of these low class people that the taste for fine wines is being substituted for strong wines and cocktails.

Modernity snobbery is not wholly new for it existed in the past also. Modernity snob sthrow away old things and buy the latest that have been created or invented by machines.These snobs are the best friends of the modern industry producers. The producer produces the latest things that do not last long. This modernity snobbery is fast increasing in our times.

Art snobbery is another. These art snobs are of two kinds : The platonic and the unplatonic. The Platonic ones only appreciate and admire art without buying art objects; but the unplatonic art snobs actually purchase art objects and for them an art object is not a piece of art but actually a commodity, a money symbol which they must possess just as they buy and posses motor cars. Some of these art snobs happen to be modernity snobs also and they claim to be the patrons of modern art. Without understanding anything about art they just buy the paintings of modern painters. In this way these modern art snobs are a great source of the livelihood of the new art painters.

As for the value of snobberies it all depends on the attitude of its practitioners. If they think that all activities are good then all snobberies are also good. But if they think that all activities are bad then all snobberies are not good. If they think that all the world is illusion then all snobberies are meaningless. All depends on our attitude and approval of what is good activity and what is bad. But most people take the middle position between these two extremes. Those who regard some snobberies as good activities they will promote only those snobberies and they will advise all people to acquire those very snobberies which they think promote good activity. Every snob in this way is the promoter of one snobbery or the other at a time.

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