Maverick Philosopher

The Sartorial Functionalist Speaks

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Clothes and the Man

"Clothes make the man!" said the mother to the son.

"If clothes make the man, then the kind of man that clothes make is not the kind of man I want to be," said the son to the mother.

Firm is the distaff grip on the truth of Der Schein regiert die Welt. Listen to your mother if you would advance in this world of seeming. 

Is the Burqa a Mere Fashion Accessory?

William Kilpatrick:

You may look upon the wearing of the burqa as a civil rights issue, but many Muslims look upon it as key element in the Islamization process. Like the Ku Klux Klan hood or the Guy Fawkes mask, the burqa works, in part, through intimidation. Suppose a burqa clad woman (or is she a woman?) enters the bus you are riding. Do your thoughts turn to the riches of diversity, or do you begin to wonder if you just bought a bus ticket to eternity? Do you reflexively think that multiculturalism makes life more interesting, or do you think that it may be time to move to another neighborhood? Oh sure, you know that, realistically, the chances of having drawn the short straw are remote … but still.

The burqa, in short, is not just a personal fashion preference; rather, it’s one way that fundamentalist Muslims have of staking a territorial claim. Where burqas abound, sharia, no-go-zones, and virtue patrols soon follow. And non-Muslims begin to move out. So the burqa is far more than a statement of modesty. It’s a statement on the part of the Muslim community that these streets belong to us. Thus, the burqa can become an effective weapon for advancing Islamic law and culture.

Read the whole of this penetrating essay by Kilpatrick the courageous.

Camille Paglia on Pussy Hats

She approved — of all things — of the Women’s March. “I think it’s important that women rediscover solidarity with themselves,” she said. “It really wasn’t about feminism. It’s really not about Trump. It’s not about any of that. It was all of a sudden, Oh, wow, to be with all the women.”

Still, the pussy hats: She buried her face in her hands as she discussed them. “I was horrified, horrified by the pink pussy hats,” she said; the pink pussy hats were “a major embarrassment to contemporary feminism.”

“I want dignity and authority for women,” she said. “My code is Amazonism. I want weapons.”

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The Message of Visible Tattoos

All visible tattoos deliver the same message:  I am not interested in being hired for any position that involves interacting with the public. Tattoos on the neck and face deliver the message in capital letters.

Time was when tattoos were found mainly only among the demimonde of  grifters, members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, rough trade, a certain segment of merchant seamen, and other denizens of the dark side.  

I tend to take a dim view of tattoos, seeing them as the graffiti of the human body, and as yet another, perhaps minor, ingredient in the Decline of the West.  Christians who believe that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit ought to consider whether tattoos deface the temple.  But I do not dogmatize on this topic.  You can reasonably attack my graffiti analogy, and if you insist that tattoos are beautiful, not ugly, I won't be able to refute you. Or at least I won't be able to persuade you.

If you argue that there is no, or needn't be, a connection between tattoos and cultural decline, you may have a case. You might even be able reasonably to maintain that the bodily temple is sometimes beautified by judicious inking.  Leviticus 19:28 forbids the practice, but that text does not settle the matter.  I tend to think that fascination with the ugly and grotesque does not ennoble us.  The connection between the aesthetic and the moral needs to be explored.  

But I celebrate the liberty of the individual and tolerate the tattooer and the tatttoed.

I only advise caution: permanent or semi-permanent modifications of the mortal coil are to be made only after due deliberation.  You might want to consider such things as: the signal you're sending, your future employability, and, for the distaff contingent, how ugly that tattoo will look on your calf when you are 45 as opposed to 20 and the ink is cheek-by-jowl with varicose veins and cellulite.  Cute baristas in hip huggers with  tattoos on their lower backs bending over the espresso machine invite impertinent questions as to how far down the pattern extends. "Does it come up the other side?" 

If you are thinking of a career in public relations, a bone through the nose is definitely out, as are facial hardware and a Charley Manson-style swastika tattooed onto the forehead.  And if  you sport a 'tramp stamp,' keep it covered.

See here for a harsher view.

Addendum.  Astute Opponent e-mails:

Something you allude to, but don’t completely address, is the allure of fashion, and its strange nature. Fashion has a lifetime of at most ten years, usually in a way that what once conferred stature and gravitas turns into the ludicrous. Fortunately we can discard clothes, and change our hairstyle. This is more difficult with tattoos.

I.e. it’s not just that the tattoo will look ugly when the ink is ‘cheek-by-jowl with varicose veins and cellulite’. It’s that it will look ugly and ridiculous in itself.

I haven’t seen any theory that neatly explains the transformative power of time over fashion. Those of us who are older and have been through a few cycles of such changes are aware of it, and are somewhat, though not completely, impervious to it.  It is philosophically challenging. How can the very same thing turn almost into its exact opposite? Moreover, when you look at what is now most ridiculous about the fashion, it was the very thing which in a bygone era was the most fascinating and important.

Some things do not date, and perhaps that is the essence of great art. I also think writing dates much slower. I mean, you can read Strawson or Moore and you don’t have a strong sense that it was written 50 or 100 years ago. Then you look at pictures of the writers, and they look quite silly in tweeds or glasses or smoking a pipe.

Fascinating questions.  Why are people swayed in their sartorial choices by what is clearly ridiculous and non-functional?  Ghetto blacks strutting around in baggy cargo shorts hanging half-way off their butts; women prancing in high heels; stout lesbians stomping around in work boots at a poetry reading; Beltway boys in their bow ties.  The absurd corsets and bustles of yesteryear.  Statement-making and sexual signaling are part of what's going on.

The Opponent seems to be suggesting that tattoos will go out of fashion and come to look  ridiculous.  I don't know.

Theme music:  ZZ Top, Sharp-Dressed Man

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Going Flat

After a mastectomy, some women choose to go flat.  Should these flat chesters be allowed shirtless in public?  I can't see why not. On the other hand, there is some small case for requiring top-heavy men to wear the mansiere in public, though I won't press the point.

The Pussy Cat Bows of the Yap-and-Scribble Bow Tie Milquetoasts

Pussy Bow is elliptical for 'Pussy Cat Bow,' the latter a well-established term in the world of women's fashion.  Melania Trump sported one at the second debate. Was she out to implant some sly suggestion?  I have no idea.  But it occurred to me this morning that boy tie boys such as George Will also sport pussy cat bows.  (As you know, pussy cats are both male and female.)  And given the currency of 'pussy' in the politics of the day, it seems entirely appropriate to refer to the signature sartorial affectation of effete yap-and-scribble do-nothing quislings like Will as a pussy bow.

George Will is a good example of how Trump Derangement Syndrome can lead to cognitive meltdown.

I used to respect Will. No more.

Epictetus Advises Imelda Marcos

Epictetus, Enchiridion, tr. E. Carter, XXXIX:

The body is to everyone the measure of the possessions proper for it, as the foot is of the shoe. If, therefore, you stop at this, you will keep the measure; but if you move beyond it, you must necessarily be carried forward, as down a precipice; as in the case of a shoe, if you go beyond its fitness to the foot, it comes first to be gilded, then purple, and then studded with jewels. For to that which once exceeds a due measure, there is no bound.

Indeed, as one may observe here.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Sartorial Songs

In Chapter 42 of his Essays, Montaigne remarks that

We praise a horse for its strength and speed, not on account of its harness; a greyhound for its swiftness and not its collar; a hawk for its wing and not for its jesses and bells. Why then do we not value a man for what is his? . . . If you bargain over a horse, you remove its trappings, you see it bare and uncovered . . . . Why, when estimating a man, do you estimate him all wrapped and muffled up? . . . We must judge him by himself, not by his attire. (Tr. E. J. Trechmann)

I am tempted to agree by saying what I once said to my mother when she told me that clothes make the man, namely, that if clothes make the man, then the kind of man that clothes make is not the kind of man I want to be. (Women are undeniably more sensitive than men to the fact that the world runs on appearances. They have a deep intuitive understanding of the truth that the Germans express when they say, Der Schein regiert die Welt.)

But there is another side to the problem, one that the excellent Montaigne ignores. A horse does not choose its bit and harness, but has them imposed on it. A man, however, chooses how he will appear to his fellows, and so choosing makes a statement as to his values and disvalues. It follows that there is some justification in judging by externals. For the externals we choose, unlike the externals imposed on a horse, are defeasible indicators of what is internal. In the case of human beings, the external is not merely external: the external is also an expression of the internal. Our outer trappings express our attitudes and beliefs, our allegiances and alignments.

But enough philosophy!  On to some tunes.  We get things off to a rousing start this fine Saturday evening with

ZZ Top, Sharp-Dressed Man.  This one goes out to Mike Valle who is definitely strutting his sartorial stuff these days.

Bobby Whitlock and Eric Clapton, Bell Bottom Blues.  Sticking with the 'blue' theme:

Bobby Vinton, Blue Velvet.  Check out the Lana Del Rey version.  And of course, this from the moody & mesmerizing David Lynch flick.

Carl Perkins, Blue Suede Shoes.  The Perry Como Show (sic!), 1956.

Mitch Ryder, Devil with the Blue Dress On

Jimmy Clanton, Venus in Blue Jeans, 1962

Bob Dylan, Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Nanci Griffith, Boots of Spanish Leather

Del Shannon, Hats Off to Larry

Bobby Bare, Long Black Veil

Jane Russell, Buttons and Bows

Johnny Cash, Man in Black

Big Bopper, Chantilly Lace, 1958

But:

Can you judge a man by the way he wears his hair?
Can you read his mind, by the clothes that he wears?
Can you see a bad man by the pattern on his tie?
Then Mr. You're a Better Man Than I!

Why Saggy Pants?

Peter proffered a theory over Sunday breakfast a while back.  'Gangsta' rappers and their imitators are aping the sartorial disarray of prison inductees.  When you arrive at the slammer, the Man takes away your belt, so your pants fall down.  So 'gangsta' rappers and their imitators are preparing  themselves for prison life or else showing their solidarity with their incarcerated brothers.

Thinking that this might just be an urban legend, I headed over to Snopes, where I find Peter's theory confirmed.  The droopy drawers dudes in prisons are not advertising their availability for sodomy, as some have surmised, but expose their butts because of over-sized beltless prison garb , the belts having been taken away to keep the miscreants from hanging themselves.

The question remains, however, why the rappers and their acolytes would choose criminals as their role models. 

In all my years of blogging, this is only my third sartorial post.  The other two are lodged, appropriately enough, in the category, Sartorial Matters.  One mentions Montaigne, the other Adorno.

Why Do We Judge People By Their Attire?

In Chapter 42 of his Essays, Montaigne remarks that

We praise a horse for its strength and speed, not on account of its harness; a greyhound for its swiftness and not its collar; a hawk for its wing and not for its jesses and bells. Why then do we not value a man for what is his? . . . If you bargain over a horse, you remove its trappings, you see it bare and uncovered . . . . Why, when estimating a man, do you estimate him all wrapped and muffled up? . . . We must judge him by himself, not by his attire. (Tr. E. J. Trechmann)

I am tempted to agree by saying what I once said to my mother when she told me that clothes make the man, namely, that if clothes make the man, then the kind of man that clothes make is not the kind of man I want to be. (Women are undeniably more sensitive than men to the fact that the world runs on appearances. They have a deep intuitive understanding of the truth that the Germans express when they say, Der Schein regiert die Welt.)

But there is another side to the problem, one that the excellent Montaigne ignores. A horse does not choose its bit and harness, but has them imposed on it. A man, however, chooses how he will appear to his fellows, and so choosing makes a statement as to his values and disvalues. It follows that there is some justification in judging by externals. For the externals we choose, unlike the externals imposed on a horse, are defeasible indicators of what is internal. In the case of human beings, the external is not merely external: the external is also an expression of the internal. Our outer trappings express our attitudes and beliefs, our allegiances and alignments.

That being said, I remain a proud sartorial functionalist who pays no attention to what Thoreau’s "head monkey in Paris" is up to. Practicality and utility rule. Footwear, for example, must be such as to enable the climbing of a mountain should a mountain present itself to be climbed. Bandannas serve as handkerchiefs given their muti-utility for signalling, going incognito, protecting the nasal passages should one find oneself in the midst of an Arizona dust devil, stanching nosebleeds consequent upon overzealous cleaning operations, impeding circulation in case of snakebite . . . .

Pants in summer, that is, during seven months of the year in these parts, must be short to allow proper ventilation despite their ridiculous appearance. Belts must be sturdy enough to support a shootin’ ahrn. A shirt without pockets is worthless, and optimally comes equipped with two deep ones. One needs space for notebook, pen, compass, and what all else. Long ‘geek pants’ that are zipper-enabled for quick transmogrification into short pants are not looked at askance. And so on.

To allow fashion to dictate one's attire shows a lack of independence. Be a man, be yourself, and to hell with the Parisian head monkey.

Adorno the Clean-Shaven on the Beard

Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, p. 123:

The beard is the oppositionist costume of juveniles acting like cavemen who refuse to play along with the cultural swindle, while in fact they merely don the old-fashioned emblem of the patriarchal dignity of their grandfathers.

It seems fair to observe, however, that Adorno and the men of his generation were just as oppositionist in refusing to sport the beards that graced the jowls of their fathers.