In chess you get letters before your name if you do well. CM, FM, IM, GM for example. Even though they are worthless outside their field, they are nonetheless a source of great pride for a great many and rightly so.
If you enter into academia instead, you also get letters but they usually come after your name -or at least they used to-, with certain exceptions such as Dr. Given that they are academic in nature, and embolden numerous transferable skills, which sounds weightier in terms of value? Should we frown upon titled players given that we have more letters than they do or should they frown upon us for having letters after our name and not before? Does anyone really care?
Which seem more cherished and why? What does that tell you? It seems to me that academics care much less about letters after their name as they tend not to be boastful about this whereas titled chess players are rightly proud of their title (even though its worthless outside of chess). Within chess, though, it is clearly advantageous on a number of levels, and generally speaking, holds greater importance than current rating, well for weaker Grandmasters most certianly, less so for the so-called SuperGMs. Whatever the answers may be amongst the very great many who do or do not play our beloved game the answer may be found in Nietzsche’s maxim ‘live by your passions’, which according to him, we all should be doing (note: not ought to be doing as that implies moral obligation which is not the point here).
Advice: should you encounter a titlted player and they point this out with statements such as I am a GM, you can always counter by saying something like, ‘no you are not, you are you, and whenever you bypass the normative aspects of what something is you invaribaly end up saying very little about it’.
As I am sure you know, there is snobbery in chess, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Ultimately though, everyone gets on just gets on fine and many refrain from defining themselves in terms of their titles, which to be fair, are identity-conferring.
All that aside, enjoy your chess. (ah, yeah and this just be me wanting to write again even though I don’t have much to say)
MJM
McCreadyandChess 
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