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I feel attacked This feels a bit like arguing the illiterate and innumerate are that way to piss off the literate and numerate by not participating in the positive externalities of those things
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Yeah i can see that analogy with literacy/numeracy - one could maybe also argue that those also have externalities that tech platforms exploit in various ways. Clothing interested me here because it's physical/visual/tactile + more literally projected onto shared public space
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The counter argument is that fashion is just sumptuary laws at their other extreme and a means of coercive control by a social elite. Not a commons. A burden imposed in certain (usually not public) contexts. The Met gala is hardly the public square. More like a Versailles.
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i'd argue that stuff like Met Gala/high fashion has an ability to trickle down into culture that is worthwhile - there are collective benefits even if not everyone is interested in participating (like how literature has societal benefits even if many don't read books)
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i guess the word "fashion" also has elitist undertones which wasn't how i meant it in the piece - i meant more "attire" and the many ways that people use it for self-expression (i was even making the case against the more purely consumerist version of that)
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I think the appeal to Arendt’s notion of appearance doesn’t work. I don’t recall the book arguing literally about attire. It was “appearing” in a philosophical sense of being seen as a fully human free actor. So absent that pillar you’re left with basically NY vs SF war of norms.
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