Prometheus18 wrote:
It's funny how those who condemn the suit and tie as an anachronism refuse to do the same for the traditional dress of non-western cultures.
Why is that funny? It is simply minding our own business, as participants in Western culture. It is up to people of other cultures to decide whether and how to change their own traditions. No need for outsiders to interfere (except perhaps in some extreme/unusual cases).
Prometheus18 wrote:
The suit and tie, along with any other sartorial tradition is of value because it marks oneself out as part of a broader social and cultural milieu, as a serious, professional adult, rather than a child who insists on avoiding anything difficult or uncomfortable.
Or an autistic person with sensory issues that make it not just uncomfortable but EXTREMELY uncomfortable? Or for whom the discomfort would be a significant distraction from productivity?
Prometheus18 wrote:
Or at least it did until the 1960s, when the tedious counter cultural movement consignned the suit to the history books as an anachronism.
I certainly do not consider the 1960's counterculture to have been "tedious." I am grateful for many (not all) aspects of it.
Prometheus18 wrote:
Yes, a tie serves no concrete utilitarian purpose - nor do computer games, music, junk food, ironing, shaving, washing - or most other things one might like to think of.
Washing does serve various utilitarian purposes, e.g. to eliminate or at least reduce bad odors and to reduce the spread of contagious diseases.
Music also can serve various utilitarian purposes, e.g. the right kinds of music can make it easier for a person to concentrate on one's work. (Unfortunately this varies from one person to another, so the use of music in workplaces can make some people LESS productive while making most people more productive.)
Prometheus18 wrote:
One cannot establish the rectitude of a cultural value in terms of first principles.
One can, however, establish the rectitude of cultural
reforms in terms of first principles. This has been done many times in the past, throughout the centuries. It didn't start in the 1960's.
Prometheus18 wrote:
The suit and tie are a value because they place one's existential position in a historical context - they form a connection with a line of ancestors practising a tradition which does back centuries.
Actually the suit and tie, in anything even remotely resembling its current form, dates back only to sometime in the 1800's. It was a radical break from the kinds of fancy clothes worn previously by men of the upper classes.
Prometheus18 wrote:
It is the lack of this sense of temporal continuity which is disastrous for contemporary man, and robs him of his birthright. It is actually difficult for most people - even the older ones - currently alive to realise that until a few generations ago, people acted in conscious awareness of the vast stretches of history that had passed before them and the vast stretches of history that would follow after their death. It wasn't like the current generation where all the earth's resources were considered fair game for everybody currently living - and nobody else. You see the consequences of this all around you.
In today's world, the idea that the Earth's resources are "fair game for everybody currently living" is OPPOSED primarily by the environmentalist/ecology movement, which received a major boost in the late 1960's and whose adherents are if anything LESS likely, not more likely, than the average person to be fond of suits and ties. In any case, wearing a suit and tie certainly does not make someone an environmentalist.
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29 Oct 2018, 12:53 pm
, had the nerve to tell me "just don't kill anyone". (He was referring to my facial expressions).
