> From: joanna <123hop at comcast.net>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 11:48:10 -0700
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] dregs and drugs
>
>
>
> snitsnat wrote:
>
>> And no one here said dressing as you describe is a virtue. If they
>> have, you need to name them. Otherwise, I'd call it a straw argument.
>> Is there some tract that uphold dressing like shit as revolutionary or
>> something?
joanna wrote:
> Well, I basically agree that taking some thought in how one dresses,
> that is, "dressing for others" and caring about beauty has virtue. Is
> dressing like shit "revolutionary"? -- lots of middle class kids think
> so -- it's partly a counter-cultural thing and partly anti-mommy thing
> -- so it plays out in Europe in the same way.
Definitely lots of people DO think dressing badly is revolutionary or somehow virtuous -- as exhibited by the fact that people of revolutionary politics, or with anti-commercial values, are far more likely than others to wear drab earthy clothing and caveman shoes, especially with a backpack or unkempt hair. You would never see anyone running for office wearing a t-shirt, badly groomed with stains on their clothes -- unless they were with the Green Party. So there is clearly some connection between people's political ideals and bad dressing.
joanna wrote:
> But i'll add that I have been a gross dress violator most of my
> life....tending to see saw between dressing nice when I feel good and
> dressing in jammies/sweats when I don't.
Me too - I am a frequent dress violator when I don't feel up to dressing. Any statements I make here on this subject are statements of ideals and aspirations, not of my own practice!
kelley:
>>> He's even noted himself that he's going to lose the ball cap. Why?
>>> What on earth is wrong with ball caps--in and of themselves.
joanna:
> Nothing wrong with baseball caps on boys or even teenagers. On grown
> men...well it's just more of a sign that the guy still identifies with
> being a boy rather than being a man. That's very common in U.S. culture
> though where the ideal is basically to stay an adolescent your entire life.
I totally agree with this. Grown men in baseball caps do not look like grown-ups.
kelley:
>> What do you accomplish by it? All you've accomplished with me is that
>> I'm gonna assume that all you'll be doing is checking out my shoes if
>> I ever date get within 10 miles of NYC. And it looks like I'll more
>> likely be moving to Hawaii!
joanna:
> No, no, no. Liza is actually one of the kindest people I've ever met.
Thank you Joanna!! Kelley, I would never ever critically "check out" your shoes or anything else you were wearing. I'm actually not even very visual, and have to see something over and over before it starts to annoy me -- the leisure suit, the baseball cap, the schlumphy unshaven guys with the big guts and well-turned-out girlfriends, the caveman sandal -- and then, these things annoy me as trends, not as individual offenses. I'm pretty unlikely to notice what an individual person is wearing unless I really like it.
Liza