Sine Nobilitate

Snobry is classless. Its values may be adopted by anyone who has the inclination. Anyone with a genuine desire for a polished existence can apply themselves unto its cultivation; here Snobry is neither exclusive, nor contemptuous*.

Its exclusivity is a by-product, rather than a conscious objective in the way the quotation implies. It is however a significant aspect. For it is in the exclusion of the vulgar that it most pragmatically declares, asserts and defends its ideals.

In the realisation of a cultivated life it automatically separates itself from that which is mundane, for the mundane dehumanises. It concerns itself with the higher aspirations of mankind, not the carnal; it strives to promote the former and to control the latter.

It opts for the dignified and snubs what is vile; it recoils at the shameful, in others and in itself; it averts its gaze when faced with the crude, it frankly denounces whatever insults human dignity.

In fine Snobry is the search for nobility in a world which is increasingly without it.

* — I refer of course to the cheeky quotations of the Duke of Bedford and J. Russell Lynes given in How to be a Snob which (and this applies also to the others given) do not in essence convey the sentiments of “Snobry”, but serve as a starting point towards its definition.