Thursday, June 6, 2013

Decline of civilization expressed in decline of appropriate dress!

 by fwdude

This weekend, I will be attending the high school graduation of a young relative, as tens of thousands of others likely will as well. Though these events are a dime a dozen, and a high school graduation doesn't seem to carry the weight of importance that it once did, it seems appropriate to regard the attendance of such an event as a special occasion, special enough to don at least a clean shirt and pants without holes.
But what I expect to see will probably be trumped by even what I've witnessed in past years - people wearing shorts, theme t-shirts, muscle shirts, holey jeans, and flip-flops. At a graduation. Even at college graduations.
What I've noticed over the past several decades is a drastic trend toward an anything-goes attitude toward dress. The last time this drastic a shift seems to have occurred is in the late sixties, when the hippie, commune-living attitude made inroads into society and youth wore whatever they pleased, wherever they pleased, if anything at all.
Today, I see church-goers wear what look like pajamas, short shorts, tube tops, muscle shirts and worse. It's almost like they're defying the traditional "rules." And not only congregants, but pastors and participants seem to be in a contest to see who can dress down the most radically, usually by those who want to be "relevant" to today's youth. (See Ed Young as an example.) I attended a wedding - A WEDDING!!! - several years ago and with very few exceptions, the only people wearing a tie or dress were the marrying couple. Most wore golf shirts, "nice" jeans and tennis shoes. I (wearing my suit) was almost speechless.
Today, there seems to be no venue, no ceremony, no establishment, where manner of dress is any longer important at all. And I see this attitude as directly related to, and caused by, the voracious consumption of society by the rabid, morally-anarchist secularists. Children used to aspire to wear what grownups wore - in Great Britain, young boys were only allowed to wear shorts as appropriate, slacks being a man's attire, and were only allowed to wear such upon attaining "the King's commission." Now, adults seem to want to emulate children, with sagging waistbands, "bling," tatoos and hyper-oversized pants that can't seem to decide if they're shorts or not shorts.
My question is this: is there ANY event or occasion when it is appropriate to dress in other than ordinary, daily apparel, without undue coercion? Or, put another way, is there any occasion when daily, casual wear is inappropriate?
I can already hear the rebuttals by cultural relativists: "but every era has its trends which fly in the face of tradition!" True, but there were still differences in the manner of dress according to occasion. Now, there appear to be none whatsoever. A standardless society when appearances are concerned. Once, even the poorest farmer owned at least one suit, a tie, and a good pair of dress shoes. Everyone was expected to have the ability to look presentable at the most elegant occasion, and all but the poorest (by real poor standards of the day, not today's "opulent poor") could satisfy this minimal standard. Today, I know scores of people who own not one suit, tie, or dress shirt.
I truly believe this attitude mirrors the standardless "morals" we are seeing sweep across every institution which once stood for something. The military might be one last holdout, but even that will see changes - be certain of it.

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