[lbo-talk] Contemporary forms of female self-objectification

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Sep 18 22:27:52 PDT 2005


On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, Mike Ballard wrote:


> From what I can determine, makeup, jewelry and so on--fashion in other
> words--has been with the human race since at least the dawn of class society.

I can't resist. This is one of my favorite passages from Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_ from 1831. (This is supposed to be Carlyle explaining for English readers the ideas the late great and by him discovered German Professor Teufelsdroeckh, whose masterwork was "The Philosophy of Clothes." That is of course all made up and it's Carlyle speaking in a style all his own.)

<quote>

The first purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or decency, but ornament. "Miserable indeed," says he, "was the condition of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round him like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caldeonian, squatted himself in morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements, without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge once satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration. Warmth he found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves, in his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for Decoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among wild people we find tattooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries."

<unquote>

Michael



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