I recently found a term used by John F. Fitzgerald aka Honey Fitz aka JFK’s grandfather.
Snobocracy.
I think it’s one of my new favorites.
Boston Brahmins
Honey Fitz used “snobocracy” to jab at Boston’s Brahmin class—the city’s old-money elite, descended from Puritan stock and proud of it. These were the Cabots, Lowells, Lodges, and Adamses… people who, as the saying went, “talked only to God, and God talked only to them.”
They prided themselves on manners, breeding, and restraint, which in practice often translated to exclusion. To the Brahmins, Irish immigrants (with their Catholicism, working-class accents, and musical politics) represented the noisy, uncouth new world crashing the gates of the old one. We must also recall that this was the age of NINA signs, i.e., No Irish Need Apply.
By the late 19th century, Boston was sharply divided: Beacon Hill versus Southie, Harvard Yard versus City Hall. The Brahmins controlled the universities, newspapers, and banks, while Irish immigrants clawed their way into city government, labor unions, and eventually Congress.
John Francis Fitzgerald embodied that uprising. The son of Irish immigrants, he had the charisma and humor that the Brahmins found vulgar but the people adored. He sang at campaign rallies, worked the crowds, and winked at his own underdog status. When he mentioned snobocracy, it was with that mix of Irish mischief and defiance, a word that laughed the Brahmins right out of their marble parlors.
Sounds Familiar…
Spend enough time around Dag’s name and you begin to see another variation of snobocracy: the (perhaps) well-meaning but faintly superior class of gatekeepers who patrol the borders of his legacy like genteel customs officers. Their motto might as well be, “You may admire the great Daaaahg Hammarskjöld—but only through the proper channels. And only behind a glass case. And only in the way we see fit, regardless of what Dag himself would actually think.” 🤦🏻♀️
In their world, footnotes are a moral compass, conferences a kind of court etiquette, and originality something best locked inside an asylum.
Sorry, you beastly American. One doesn’t feel Dag; one analyzes him.
Literary Fiefdoms
Trouble begins when admiration turns into literary landholding—when the fields of research are fenced off and new arrivals are told to keep to the road. Or go jump in the nearest lake.
The irony, of course, is that Dag wouldn’t have made the guest list! The first time he cracked a wry joke, sneezed into a tissue, or felt uncomfortable with the crowd and wished to seek solitude, they’d be tired of him. Ken Atchity once wrote that people hate to be deified. Indeed, they do. It strips them of their humanity. Can anyone who truly understands Dag’s essence imagine him gliding to the center of a stage to preen like a peacock? Really?
Dag’s not a relic or a fossil to be placed on display in a dusty museum. Nor is he a secular saint, a religious zealot, or a mystical sorcerer incomprehensible to mere mortals. A unicorn, yes, but not an indecipherable riddle to be turned around and around like an intellectual Rubik’s cube.
If viewing Dag as a human with strengths, flaws, quirks, and—dare I say it—a sense of humor is oh so terrible, so be it. I’ll happily step outside the snobocracy.
The air’s better out here anyway. 😉
Explore more:
- 5 Surprising Things You Didn’t Know About Dag Hammarskjöld
- Remembering Dag Hammarskjöld: His Life, Legacy, and Enduring Relevance
- The Tender Side of Dag Hammarskjöld
- Dag Hammarskjöld’s Baptism by Flashbulb
Stay tuned for more.
New to Dag’s life and legacy? Start here.
You can purchase Sara’s award-winning biography Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld on Amazon by clicking here! Her forthcoming project, Simply Dag, will release globally on July 29, 2026.
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