Virgil
Forever in Blue Jeans
by , 04-16-2009 at 10:22 PM (4867 Views)
As I was reading through my morning news items and opinions I came across a gem of a piece by George Will, one of my favorite columnists, that I thought I’d share. I will say I agree with the general thrust of his argument but I’m not sure this is the best example to make his point. Here’s the article, or most of it.
Let me jump in here. What he is railing against is this incredible ubiquitous cultural norm of wearing blue jeans. It is a great insight. I do not believe this was the case fifty years ago. When I look at pictures of people before, oh say, 1965, no one wears jeans. And yet today if you don’t wear jeans when you are at least in a non-work environment you are looked at as weird. What a reversal of custom. Will goes on.Forever in Blue Jeans
by George Will
WASHINGTON -- On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes. Father and son are dressed identically -- running shoes, T-shirts. And jeans, always jeans. If mother is there, she, too, is draped in denim.
Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, he has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.
It is, he says, a manifestation of "the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby." Denim reflects "our most nostalgic and destructive agrarian longings -- the ones that prompted all those exurban McMansions now sliding off their manicured lawns and into foreclosure." Jeans come prewashed and acid-treated to make them look like what they are not -- authentic work clothes for horny-handed sons of toil and the soil. Denim on the bourgeoisie is, Akst says, the wardrobe equivalent of driving a Hummer to a Whole Foods store -- discordant.
So what was once a badge of defiance and counter culture is now the culture. And the actual social sin is not to be in jeans.Long ago, when James Dean and Marlon Brando wore it, denim was, Akst says, "a symbol of youthful defiance." Today, Silicon Valley billionaires are rebels without causes beyond poses, wearing jeans when introducing new products. Akst's summa contra denim is grand as far as it goes, but it only scratches the surface of this blight on Americans' surfaces. Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote. In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six -- so far -- "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you). Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling -- thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism -- of believing that appearance matters. That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste.
Now he is getting to what really caught my eye. He’s making the point that the contemporary culture is refusing to grow up and wearing jeans is a perpetual hold on immaturity, immaturity today a badge of honor. Oh you lit netters, you have heard me rail against a culture that refuses to grow up.Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.Well, good old George is agreeing with me.
Hahaha, Goerge can really stick it.Do not blame Levi Strauss for the misuse of Levis. When the Gold Rush began, Strauss moved to San Francisco planning to sell strong fabric for the 49ers' tents and wagon covers. Eventually, however, he made tough pants, reinforced by copper rivets, for the tough men who knelt on the muddy, stony banks of Northern California creeks, panning for gold. Today it is silly for Americans whose closest approximation of physical labor consists of loading their bags of clubs into golf carts to go around in public dressed for driving steers up the Chisholm Trail to the railhead in Abilene.Now I know there are a few people here who truly physically labor (Motherhubbard, Kevin, Becca come to mind) who I’m sure deserve to wear jeans like they were intended. But do the rest of us? And now Will takes the logic to its ultimate conclusion:
So where George reaches to is that the slovenly dress is really a reflection of the disrespect we show our country, and he uses the father of Conservatism, Edmund Burke, as the foundation of that point.Edmund Burke -- what he would have thought of the denimization of America can be inferred from his lament that the French Revolution assaulted "the decent drapery of life"; it is a straight line from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of denim -- said: "To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely."
You can read the entire piece here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ans_96002.html.
Now I must admit that I wear jeans most of the time when casual, which is most of the time I’m not at work. I do sneak in jeans on Fridays, but usually black jeans since they really look like slacks unless you look close. There was a time when I started that if you wore jeans to work you could be sent home. It certainly was frowned upon. Then about ten years ago or so we had this revolution where we were allowed casual Fridays, and everyone started wearing jeans every Friday. Then it evolved where you pretty much could come in to work in jeans any day. The rule evolved to business casual as the dress code, but when it wasn’t enforced and people started coming in with jeans then it devolved to people wearing jeans any time they wanted. We almost have a two tiered dress code; those that want to strive to move up dress respectable and those that have no desire dress no different than when they are with their feet up watching TV in their living room. Perhaps that’s a little bit of a stretch, but not by much.
Well, certainly I agree with George that we have become a nation that refuses to grow up. Certainly I agree with George that there are a group of people who identify with a counter culture (as if it’s still the 1960’s or were even born then), and frankly disrespecting one’s country is repulsively common these days. My father never wore jeans in his life, and the one time we had him try on a pair I nearly died from laughter, so incongruous.
I think only recently has my mother worn jeans, but yuk, they do not look right on her either. I grew up wearing jeans all the time, a sort of rebel without a cause. I hadn't picked up on the tax issue yet then.
But is denim really the best emblem for it? I can’t agree with George there. Goodness the people I know down south and out west who wear jeans all the time are among the most patriotic people I know, not these New York mollycoddles or college professor elitists, despite what they wear. Goodness gracious I’ve seen President George W. Bush in jeans, granted on his ranch. Jeans are rugged, comfortable, and show off one’s derrière.
For the record, George Will typically wears a bow tie.
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