Social Climbing
I was glancing through the entries in Arts and Letters Daily and came across an article by P. J. O’Rourke. The article is a review of several new books on etiquette, none of which are as good as Emily Post’s (at least, before other people started editing Post’s books). One, The Fabulous Girl’s Guide to Decorum, is particularly abysmal, it seems, marred by a pretty complete lack of manners or morals. The authors encourage bragging, lying on resumes, affairs with your boss, and (if you want to be traditional) waiting at least two dates before sleeping with a guy. O’Rourke’s analysis is great:
”The Fabulous Girl’s Guide” is to social climbing what Dante’s ”Inferno” would be to salvation if Dante had chosen Petronius instead of Virgil as his docent in Hades: ”The eighth circle is tough to get into. We’re talking hypocrites and evil counselors and I mean major players, not run-of-the-mill Sunday talk-show pundits. Fortunately, I got our names on the list.”
Which reminds me that I need to read Dante sometime….