Social pressure to conform, Part four
There is one thing I like about living in Butte County, particularly its microcosm here in Chico State. This is the first community where wearing a coat and tie would make me look different.
As I walk through the quad, the uniform of the day in this hot weather is a tee shirt and shorts, for men. A dress outfit is a polo shirt and long blue jeans. I've note a handful of men who wear a collared button-down shirt.
The fashions for women reflect what my mother told me many times, in that a woman is entitled to change her mind. That reminds me of the advertising slogan “A mind is a terrible thing to waste”. That leads me to Mr. Spock's question in Star Trek IV. When Captain Kirk mentions that he might change his mind, Spock asks “Is there something wrong with the one I have?”
Part of this uniform I see is what it seems to say about the wearer -- “I don't care about how I look. Back in the day when I was a wee one, we wouldn't be allowed to go out in public with these clothes, including trousers ripped or in tatters. In high school, my mother went off on me when I came home with a hole in the knee of my pants because I tripped over a curb.
This current uniform reflects a lack of pride, an emotion that may have purge out of the younger generation as they spent so much time in front of soulless silicon that they have lost what it means to be a human being. The computer focuses their mind much more on the task at hand. Focusing on the doing has the effect of denying attention to the being
More about this tomorrow as I conclude this series.