Fancy things
I have mixed feelings when it comes to doing fancy things. By fancy things, I mean things that are fancy. Or rather, things that people think of as fancy, like fine dining, attending the the-A-ter, or that perennial South Australian pass-time: wine tasting.
On the whole, I mostly enjoy these fancy things, particularly when undertaken with good company, as my most recent foray into wine tasting was, but I can never shake the feeling that I don鈥檛 belong there, or more accurately, that I don鈥檛 really want to belong in these rarefied settings.
What I put this down to is largely my own personal politics, but I think there is an aspect to 鈥榝ancy鈥� things that is deliberately exclusionary but in a much more nuanced, softer way than traditional notions of exclusion.
It鈥檚 about social cues, or social etiquette. The way everyone at a wine tasting speaks in hushed tones, and the jargon they use to describe various types, blends, vintages, and varieties of wine (I鈥檓 doing it, too!). If I was being generous, I would say that 鈥榝ancy鈥� places don鈥檛 intend to exclude people. They just like things to be 鈥榥ice鈥� and, above all, to develop and then maintain a reputation for 鈥榚xcellence鈥�, or something like it.
What that means is a code of conduct that is learned through social interaction, as most are, between similar people who all wish to present themselves with some degree of status, displayed by their mastery and understanding of the intricacies of whatever task is at hand.
It means that, while the act of wine tasting might not be prohibitively expensive, the cultural cues that surround it mean that only certain types of people feel comfortable being there. As a result, I take great pleasure in somewhat gently transgressing the boundaries of these cues in order to try to expose their very existence and their hollow nature. That鈥檚 my way of dealing with the internal conflict that swells inside me at 鈥榝ancy鈥� places, which is I suppose some sense of class betrayal.
Ultimately, I think that everyone should feel comfortable visiting anywhere and taking part in any experience they may wish to. The wines might drink quite nicely, but I find snobbery pretty hard to stomach.