Nina Chandler Murray, an 85-year-old relative of the Poor family from Standard & Poor's, the investment credit rating firm, is convinced that the world of the elite was more genteel in the old days.
"Coming from a New England background, you had a honed discipline of what was expected," Dr. Murray, a psychologist, said over iced tea and chocolate chip cookies on the porch of her hillside home above the harbor. "Showing off money was a sin. It was not that status was not important, but marriage was very closely controlled and predetermined, and everyone knew where everyone else fit."
A family name alone was enough to place someone in the pecking order. Wealthy people dressed down. Women eschewed heavy jewelry. The uniform for a man was a plain shirt, faded "Nantucket red" Bermuda shorts and Topsiders. Now, Dr. Murray suggested, the rule is: If you've got it, flaunt it.
"What has happened in America is that achievement is so important that everyone wants everyone else to know what they have done," she continued. "And in case you don't know, they want to tell you with a lethal combination of houses, cars and diamonds."
Dr. Murray was appalled at a recent dinner party when a woman leaned over to her and said, "My husband paid $250,000 to join the golf club, and he doesn't even play golf."
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