Fashion – More Important than We Think

When someone talks about the fashion industry, a few images probably come to mind: hipster teenagers spending their parents money on overpriced sweatshop products; Hollywood stars wearing exorbitantly priced dresses and shoes that will be worn all of once, and in the public eye for all of one hour; or, absurdly impractical garments that the average person could never (and probably should never) wear. While the first two items in the list are symptoms of a larger cultural disease that I will address in the coming days, I take no particular point of contention with the third. Sure, to the uneducated bystander (me) it may seem pointless. After all, what’s the purpose of a fashion show, where the designers force wafer-thin models to wear clothing that will never be seen in a retail store and that, frankly, often looks ridiculous? I suppose the same could be said about car shows, where auto makers display their latest concept vehicles.  But both fashion shows and auto shows are important because they establish a forward-looking trendline. And that’s why they’re relevant.

Fashion, like art, is misunderstood by a majority of the “average” American. We tend to look at things in a pragmatic way. Unfortunately, clothing is something that can have a pragmatic esthetic: young women competing to stay at the top of their social circle; young men trying to establish a rugged-yet-sincere look, hoping that their appearance can portray what their personalities cannot. And for this, we look at fashion using a “well what is that for” mindset. Anyone who varies from the mean will be met with thoughts of “why is he wearing that?” or “oh-my-god I can’t believe she’s wearing that!” and, once an opinion like that is formed, it’s difficult to break. That’s the dangerous part. That mentality establishes a social order and creates rules that are predicated upon no authority. It permits the creation of social outcasts without any valid causal motivation why. And in the times we’re having now, that is the most dangerous and damaging mindset to have.

Creation of a false authority allows people to avoid responsibility by assigning blame and duty to the social construct that claims authority. It allows us to think that we’re off the hook for the problems facing our nation. It allows us to think, “well, why should I worry, I’m just going along with the crowd? It can’t be my fault, I’m living well within the accepted norm!” This is the core that needs to change. This is the plague affecting American society. This is the source of our economic woes.

Fashion, like art, isn’t about what you do with it. It’s about what you think about it. It’s about what people think about it. Artists have been banished, executed, persecuted and arrested throughout history because powers were afraid of the impact that they would have on people. Art can inspire a population. So too can fashion. But art is something you put somewhere and then you walk away. Fashion is something that stays on you all day. And as such, you can’t avoid the confrontation — implicit or explicit — if you deviate. But that’s the risk that needs taking. Ordinary, average people need to start affecting the way that other ordinary, average people think. The rule breakers can’t be a bunch of eccentrinc famous people. It’s too easy to write off. It’s too easy to ignore, or laugh about. Instead, people like you and me need to start the process to change how people think.

Don’t just make a statement to show you’re different. Make a statement to show you’re the same. Make a statement to say, “hey, I don’t have to follow these bullshit rules, because they’re not real!” but make it without changing who you are. Because I guarantee, many people change who they are to fit in with the group, and these are the people we need to start having the courage to be themselves.

In the coming days I will be addressing this particular topic in more specific ways.

Screw the Whales

A recent Wired Magazine cover said it best. And I’m going to reinforce it. Screw the whales. Forget the Grey Wolf. The whales aren’t curing cancer. The Grey Wolf isn’t developing alternative energy sources. Sure, global warming has been talked about since the Seventies, and the Islip Garbage Barge incident painted a very visceral picture of the coming environmental crisis in 1987. There’s certainly no shortage of “I told you so.” During the 90s, recycling was a big thing, but its overall efficacy has never really been investigated. We all just assume we’re doing something noble by throwing our soda bottles into this can instead of that can. Perhaps we are. Perhaps we aren’t.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter.

We’ve been witness to a whole lot of talk about a host of environmental warnings, policies, discussions, bombings, etc. When the word “environmentalist” is mentioned, who doesn’t think of PETA, or the ELF, or the hassle of gaining building permits for inland wetland areas, or other of a host of generally negative concepts? Sure, we all want to save the planet. We just don’t want to be inconvenienced in doing so. So we’ve made our small concessions along the way. We all have recycling bins, and some of us buy the Sierra Club calendar, and maybe we’ll toss a few bucks around to buy a bumper sticker about saving the whales.

Waste of money, waste of time.

We’ve had thirty solid years to figure out a solution. We’ve gone through one oil crisis. The concept of peak oil was first introduced in 1956. Who cares whether Hubbert was wrong or right? It’s all irrelevant! The key thing to bring from this is we’ve had plenty of time to develop an alternative. And we sat on our collective asses, because it was easier to let someone else fix the problem than it was to sacrifice to solve the problems ourself. Instead, we squandered our time with saving the whales, the owls, and the wolves. We’ve dumped countless financial resources into a largely unregulated recycling industry. We’ve attacked all sorts of relatively irrelevant little problems. But we ignored the elephant in the room. Oil, and our addiction to it.

The only thing that matters right now is drastically reducing our oil dependence. Driving a hybrid isn’t enough, but it’s a start. It would be better to start making alternative energy a national priority. Obama wants to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. That’s not good enough.

We’re in triage mode right now. America has to find a solution, and it needs it now. If $5 a gallon is what it takes to wake people up, then so be it. I’ll pay it if it means that we’re going to be doing what should have been done fifteen years ago. Alternative energy needs to be our single national goal. That means diverting money from other sources. That means ending the war in Iraq. It means saying screw the whales. We can’t afford to play games anymore, and playing games is exactly we’ve been doing. Drop a couple dozen million into protecting some fish in some pond in some forest to placate the voters. Just a game.

It’s gotta change, and it’s going to require sacrifices. Your roads might have to have a few more potholes. Your community probably doesn’t need that skate park. All those species near extinction? They’ve had their chance. We ruined it. We need to accept that blame, and we need to take measures so it doesn’t happen again. That means we have to feel guilty. That means we have to say, “ok, I’m going to repent for what I’ve allowed to happen, and I’m not going to allow it to happen again.”

Sure, the whales might not be here to thank us. But our children just might be.

Welcome

I’ve never been much for the blog thing. Many years ago, before the concept of blogging came into the public scope, I had written a personal webpage that contained snippets of my thoughts of the moment, but it was unguided, consisting largely of emotional rants. I was young, what can I say?

My aim here is to be somewhat more focused on my topical content. Sure, I’ve got a broad catergory listing of stuff to talk about, but I want to separate myself from the typical punditry of the internet. Personally, I don’t care about the majority of the garbage that the media deems important. I’m more interested in the stuff that they’re afraid to say.

I firmly believe that America is heading for a crisis that we don’t know how to handle. Things are not going to be OK. Things are not going to get better until they get much, much worse. The stuff we’re looking at today: gas prices, energy policy, Iraq; that’s all just the tip of the iceberg. We’re in a much deeper hole than we think, and we’re looking to the next president to fix it.

I’m sorry, but one person cannot, and will not fix the problems we face. The problems we face are congenital. I believe we need a cultural shift to fix things. We need to change the way we think, not just the way we act. We can’t go back to our old way of life, at least, not easily. My goal is to make the reader take some personal responsibility for where we are, and where we’re heading. Because the only way for us to get to where we need to be is for individual, nameless people, to start going there under their own power. If we want life to continue to be good, we need to get there from the bottom up, not the top down. Hopefully, I can translate my perceptions and my feelings into words convincing enough that people can see that there is still promise, that there is still potential, and that it resides within each of us.

Thanks for reading.