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 wasn't criticizing the zuckerberg approach so much as using it as an analogy for how tech approaches/shapes their own version of public space
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In it’s narrow realm of hoodies and turtlenecks and vests yeah :)
Those who want to do more with fashion can always join more fashionable scenes.
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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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I think I get what you’re going for, but fashion, even in the sense of general attire, feels to be like a perverse vehicle for the argument because it’s naturally divergent and subcultural. It’s not like say respecting anti-litter norms or other unproblematic commons.
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Like advertising polluting information commons… that works. Though it implicates NY old media as much as Google AdWords or Facebook ads. I can’t think of a true commons Tech uniquely disrespects in an abuse of power. Pot-kettle ones mostly.
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the divergent/subcultural nature of it is part of what makes it fascinating to me though - like littering is a more binary problem, whereas clothing seems to contain a lot of information about social conditions, and is a communication medium at that (or can be)
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i know Arendt was talking literally about clothes but i think visually seeing is tied to philosophically seeing. and more broadly it does seem that technology has altered (reduced) the broad significance of clothing since 20th century, and our use of public space is part of that
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(I assume you mean wasn’t)
I do agree with you in a very weak form, I really dislike rich people wearing obvious sleepwear on planes or out doing chores. That’s making a claim on commons others can’t opt out of as an extension of your bedroom and a sort of privilege signal.
Re divergence though… it sorta begs the question. Commons are… common! To impose a subcultural standard on a commons is to claim it for oneself/expropriate it.
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