[lbo-talk] prescription

Tayssir John Gabbour tjg at pentaside.org
Thu Oct 5 01:40:30 PDT 2006


Something Bertrand Russell wrote made me notice that often, such dress codes are an attempt at cultural regression: "formal manners are most fully developed among barbarians, and diminish with every advance in culture." http://www.zona-pellucida.com/essay-russel.html

Guessing wildly, perhaps the decisionmakers found that people were getting out of hand. Maybe someone quoted Chomsky in a not-critical-enough-way or something.

Tayssir

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:

> Doug:

>

>

> What was I thinking? It's way too early in the morning. It must be

> that the Master class has lost some of its bearings. Why does the

> Yale Club have to tell people what to wear? They should know,

> shouldn't they?

>

>

> [WS:] You got it all wrong, Doug. It is not about discipline, master class

> or kindred populist rubbish. It is all about a sense of belonging and

> identity politics - no different than, say, the hip hop crowd, the hippies,

> New York intellectuals, or the orthodox Jews. Nobody forces them to wear

> baggy pants, Birkenstock sandals, black turtlenecks, or yarmulke - they do

> it because the garb is an integral part of their separate collective

> identity. Without the garb, they as a group would be indistinguishable from

> the rest of the humanity.

>

> Wojtek

>

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>



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