General Politics Thread

We seem to be jumping ahead a bit here, we’ve gone from “something other than a business suit” to “a tank top and beach trunks”, I can’t tell if this is an acknowledgment that other attire is viable (with the conversation then moving on) or a really shitty strawman, I would hope it’s the former.

We've already gotten to the point of questioning whether a dress code is even necessary here.

I'm simply pointing out that part of why we have a dress code in certain institutions is because most of us have come to expect a certain level of decorum from professionals. Especially elected representatives and leaders.

It's especially important in politics, where style does matter, even though substance should count for more.

Edited by M84 on Aug 25th 2019 at 9:17:20 PM

I’m not sure how much of this has been directed at the concept of a dress code (formal, smart, smart-casual, casual, just woke up) as regard to as the business suit specifically.

I’m okay with broad dress codes, but that’s not the same as requiring me to wear a collared shirt, tie, suit trousers and suit jacket every day regardless of the heat.

Shit even when it comes to business suits people can get weird about the suit someone wears, remember Obama and the tan suit?

That's different — people would look for any excuse to talk shit about Obama. Because racism.

FFS, they even gave him grief over a fucking umbrella.

The moment I found out about the umbrella thing was the moment I realized the next few years were going to become very stupid.

Edited by M84 on Aug 25th 2019 at 9:21:22 PM

He got shit talked about it because of racism, but it was still a noteworthy deviation from the norm (of a black or grey business suit) even outside of racist circles.

Meanwhile, there's relatively little shade thrown at Trump for wearing ill-fitting navy suits.

Edited by M84 on Aug 25th 2019 at 9:25:20 PM

Funnily enough, from my point of view, it's most of the other people who are halfway there.

In the sense that I asked for a good reason why we should expect politicians to wear business suits and all I got was reasons why they themselves do it.

We've just provided an excellent example of Kyriarchy in action, now all it takes is for people to take that final step.

The reasoning is essentially circular.

We, as a society, expect people in positions of power to wear a business suit because that's what we associate with people in a position of power and we associate the business suit with a position of power because that's what people in a position of power wear.

The reason we're much more accepting of not expecting women to wear their equivalent of the business suit is... That they don't have one (Emphasis on one). Women haven't actually been in positions of power long enough for one style of dress to become associated with power for them. And since a lot of gendered formal wear for women is associated not with power, but with being a decorative accessory for a man to show his power and the gendered formal wear for men is not associated with female power either, we're fine if women in power don't wear those. We'll still flip out collective lids if a woman in power doesn't wear something that's in some way derivative of one of those though... Or even if they do, because, you know, a woman wearing a pantsuit elicits a weird cousin of the Uncanny Valley where we recognise that the clothing is supposed to be associated with power, but it's just different enough that it's easy for us to imagine she's just pretending if we're so inclined.

But if some politician, regardless of gender, shows up to a session of the House or the Senate (or Parliament, in other countries) wearing a comfortable sweater, because that's what they prefer to wear, we're all instantly like 'What's their game? How are they trying to manipulate us? Do they really think we'll fall for their attempt to convince us of something by wearing that?'.

Surely you must see the irony there?

If you're wondering why I'm getting so caught up on business suits... I'm really not. As I said when I first brought it up, it's a relatively benign example. But it being relatively benign makes it a very good example of how easy it is to fall into Kyriarchy.

Especially since assuming that the way a politician dresses says anything about them is only inches away from assuming that the colour of their skin does.

Both are prejudices based on someone's outward appearance. Both are cases of people being Othered for not looking enough like what we're used to in the appearance of people in positions of power. The main difference is that we already know judging someone on the colour of their skin is wrong.

And no, it doesn't make a difference that you can change your clothes, but you can't change your skin. In some ways it makes it worse (but not others. I'm not saying that judging someone on their clothes is worse than racism). With skin colour it falls solely on the observer and it's a rather easy one, they can either accept them (as they should) or force them out. But since the way someone dresses is mutable, it's a lot easier to believe it's a choice they are making (or even should make), rather than something imposed on them systematically and that if they don't conform, it says something legitimately negative about them.

Edit: The Obama example above actually shows well just how closely they're linked. Obama, as a black guy, is already on the edge of the norm of what we visually associate with power, so the moment he take a single step outside that comfort zone by wearing the appropriate attire in a non-standard colour, there's an immediate kneejerk reaction to it.

Sure, it was still mainly because he was black, but it's still staggering how easy it was for people who couldn't attack that to get away with attacking how he dressed instead.

Same with Hillary Clinton and her vibrantly coloured pantsuits (though I'm sure people already caught on to me referencing that in a previous paragraph).

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 25th 2019 at 3:37:27 PM

I don’t agree with all of that but you’re very much right that a politician in a business suit is making the same conscious political choice that one in a comfortable jumper is, all clothing a politician wears (or doesn’t wear) is going to be a tactic so as to present a particular narrative about them, that’s not inherently a bad thing (I’m rather fond of the narrative “I’m a functioning adult able to dress myself and understand social context enough to dress appropriately”) but it’s a calculated choice the same as the comfy jumper is.

I can’t tell if you’re railing against the business suit specifically or the concept of formal wear and dress codes in general, but I think you may have missed my point.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a business suit or not, people in positions of power are going to dress a certain way to try and convey something about them. They aren’t going to show up to work in something disheveled or whatever because they want the visual impression of them to be one of competence and professionalism. They pick that style of dress on purpose, for what it represents.

If dresses were considered the gold standard for formal wear for both men and women, politicians would mainly wear dresses.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 25th 2019 at 6:40:14 AM

Uh...what? I beg your pardon? Those are two entirely different things there.

I generally agree with your broader point about the circular reasoning justifying clothing choices, but racism and being judgey about someone's clothes aren't remotely the same and I'm shocked at that being a comparison.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Aug 25th 2019 at 9:45:47 AM

I'm going to assume Robretch isn't making an outright equivalency between the two, and merely making a slippery slope argument. To be fair, they both are a case of "judging" a person by their appearance, so there is some connection there. Indeed, I'm pretty sure it's the same neurons being used here.

The argument doesn't really work, though, for a few reasons. The most obvious counter-argument is that a person can't change their skin color, but can choose how they dress. Also, you have to keep in mind that people in general dress to advertise something about themselves. It's a form of communication.

Mind you, I do think we probably should move on, since this is a bit of a tangent here. Going back to my other point: The thing with traditions, social mores, and hierarchies is also that people do form these things, and there really isn't any means of stopping that. Even in anarchic communities like foraging bands, they have chieftains and elders that are looked up to. The only thing that can be done is to turn our tendency toward hierarchy and tribalism into something positive.

Indeed, a major failure of American culture right now is that the definition of what it means to be truly American has been lost. We've allowed ourselves to forget the cause that our greatest ancestors have been struggling for, and many in power even glorify our enemies in the open while calling their treason an act of patriotism.

Well... It's not simply 'being judgey about someone's clothes', it's classism. Worse it's frequently self-loathing classism.

People have freedom to change some of how they dress, but not everything about how they dress, a poor person can’t dress as well as a rich person, regardless of if they are just as professional and intelligent. Hell this entire conversation got started due to the societal consequences of changing how you dress to be a way society does not approve of for you (which is often tied to gender rolls).

I don’t agree with drawing the comparison that’s been drawn (I get the logic, I just think it’s bad point convention), but we shouldn’t act like there are big economic and gender barriers that prevent people from being able to use clothing to present the image they wish to present.

There is this inherent problem in that, a very large number of people choose to conform to what they think is popular, because that gives them pleasure, but which puts an inherent pressure on anyone who doesn't want to conform to a majority. Majorities, by virtue of their numbers, possess power almost by definition. So we seem to have this system of oppression almost built into human nature...

Whether it ('it' here being that kind of societally coerced conformity) is human nature or not is up for debate.

Because of that same effect, ironically, lots of people seem to think that their cultural norms and practices are 'human nature'.

But when we look across cultures and across history, there's actually a lot of variance in what people considered normal.

The reality is that we are very much shaped by our environments, so much so, in fact, that I'm halfway inclined to believe that the only thing that is actually human nature is assuming that what we're used to is nature rather than nurture.

I'm with Protagonist — this tangent has gone on long enough. This is the Politics thread, not the Dress Code thread.

Protagonist: How exactly would you define The American Dream?

My take on it is that the USA is a nation where people can seek their own meaning and freedom without having to worry about the traditional class baggage that older nations still have due to their pasts as monarchies or empires.

Edited by M84 on Aug 25th 2019 at 11:16:00 PM

'The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.'

I feel The American Dream is basically, a Place where you can make money and live a decent enough life. So, basically what you're saying.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 25th 2019 at 11:00:48 AM

I think it goes a bit deeper than that, since it's entirely possible to make a decent living in other countries too.

What sets the USA apart, in theory, is that the USA doesn't have the social barrier of an official class aristocracy system. We rejected that centuries ago when we became a new nation. We rejected our history as vassals of kings and nobility.

Mmmm...I haven't see that perspective before. I guess it's because I tend to see USA in the lens of the Modern Era, so the former European monarchies don't look that hierarchical.

Yeah the US replaced the aristocracy and so on pretty quickly with their own brand of hierarchy. "Some are always more equal" after all.

Yes, but that hierarchy is hardly unique to the USA. Other countries have those in addition to the old classist baggage.

I mean, the USA still has tons of issues concerning bigotry of all kinds, after all. But even in this, the USA is at least being forced to confront those issues. Other countries just try to sweep those issues under the rug and pretend nothing is wrong even as the marginalized populations continue to be marginalized. See: mainland China.

As Charles once put it, that was one of the (many) things wrong with the Confederacy — they wanted to establish an actual aristocracy.

Edited by M84 on Aug 26th 2019 at 12:19:37 AM

True but my point was that even if the American dream purports the US is this land free of differences and obstacles if you only try, that bit of it is patently wrong.

Then there's of course the fact that many spin this into "so if you don't succeed it's your own fault and you don't deserve to succeed."

That's part of the USA's development as a nation since its founding — making that Dream more of a reality.

We've currently hit a rather huge snag in the form of an ugly orange tumor, but plenty of people in the USA are struggling to make that Dream real despite that.

Maybe we'll never truly achieve that Dream. But at least we've got that brass ring to reach for in the first place. Even if we can never reach the limit, just trying to reach for it and getting closer to it is a good thing.

Edited by M84 on Aug 26th 2019 at 12:21:55 AM

Dunno, I really haven't feel USA is that unique socially, just that is that powerful. I actually see USA as, overall, fairly "Vanilla" (different regions have flavors, of course).

I actually dislike American exceptionalism because I feel it blinds USA from it's role in the world (TBH I actually can go with America World Police...I just call it NATO) and ironically makes people go to the opossite extreme as see USA as a uniquely evil place when they reject the original Murica is perfect view.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 25th 2019 at 11:23:11 AM