But this idyllic state is fated not to endure. By the time we have finished our education, we are forced to take our place in a world dominated by a new kind of person, as different from a mother as it is possible to be and whose behaviour lies at the heart of our status anxieties: the snob. Though certain friends and lovers will remain immune from snobbery, will promise not to disown us even if we are bankrupted and disgraced (on a good day, we may even believe them), in general, we are forced to subsist on a diet of the highly conditional attentions of snobs.
