Is there a moral equivalence between racism and snobbery?

Affable

I personally believe there is. My reason being that both are looking down on people for unfounded reasons. Both are in many cases linked to prejudgement- often belief in psychological differences. For example, one race is more stupid, poor people are stupid etc. Both are based on the tribal instinct and the need to exclude.

Yet this moral equivalence does not seem to render it equally acceptable to complain about both phenomena(at least in this country). Snobbery seems to tolerated as does the tradition of 'cap-doffing' as it were.

Anyway, discuss.

Joe1919

If an enemy did not exist, it would be necessary to invent one, said Nietzsche.

I think your question is interesting in that there is a characteristic in people that unifies them when they feel threatened by a common enemy, whether that perceived enemy is a foreigner, a Jew (as in Germany), a person of a different class to ourselves or an 'inferior person'.

This unification often ends when the common enemy disappears and we seen this, for example in the case of the Irish civil war after the British pulled out and the Irish committed military crimes against one another that were far worst than the British did at that time.

Indeed, people who are overweight are often bullied and excluded in school, as I experienced with my child.

Perhaps there is a nasty side to all humans.

Of course, one could become very logical and philosophic and argue that one cant have inclusion without exclusion and that, for example, the whole idea of nationalism is exclusive to people who are not of our nationality and therefore nationalism is just another form of racism.

994

Reverse snobbery can be far stronger, you can't move in Ireland without people talking about West Brit D4 yummy mummies in Land Rovers drinking cappucinos and picking up the little darlings, Ultan and Saoirse, from fee-paying Gaelscoileanna while Daddy screws the country over for the sake of an 09 Lexus and another palace in Tuscany.

I'm not saying that wealthy people are all good, but it becomes a knee-jerk reaction at some stage. e.g. a paper publishes an article that a doctor earned €100k overtime in one year - the automatic reaction is hatred, because the article omits to mention that he was routinely working 80+ hours a week. Accountants and lawyers end up on the dole - "not so smug now, are ye?"