What Are Clothes For?
It is astounding how much time and money our modern culture spends on clothes and astounding how much clothing most people possess. Go to yard sales and flea markets (or your own closet) if you have any doubts on this matter. In my reading of Walden this morning, I noticed that Thoreau devotes about 6 pages to clothing--the reason we have it and the superficiality of our deep concerns about it.
• “The object of clothing is first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness.”
• “We are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.”
• “Who would wear a patch . . . over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do so.” (Comment: I cannot even imagine what Thoreau would say about the modern tendency to buy worn out jeans, a behavior where “utility” has entirely disappeared and the only thing that matters is that influential people in the narrow world of the purchaser have bought them . These folk believe “their prospects for life would be ruined” if they do NOT wear them.)
• “It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes. Could you, in such a case, tell surely of any company of civilized men which belonged to the most respected class?” (Comment: Think of any assembly of older well dressed men of power sitting in the board room in the nude. Or better yet, a group of males from a variety of jobs and income levels, nude. How much power and authority would the “Suits” of the world have if they were divested of their suits?)
• “The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”
• “The object of clothing is first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness.”
• “We are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.”
• “Who would wear a patch . . . over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do so.” (Comment: I cannot even imagine what Thoreau would say about the modern tendency to buy worn out jeans, a behavior where “utility” has entirely disappeared and the only thing that matters is that influential people in the narrow world of the purchaser have bought them . These folk believe “their prospects for life would be ruined” if they do NOT wear them.)
• “It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes. Could you, in such a case, tell surely of any company of civilized men which belonged to the most respected class?” (Comment: Think of any assembly of older well dressed men of power sitting in the board room in the nude. Or better yet, a group of males from a variety of jobs and income levels, nude. How much power and authority would the “Suits” of the world have if they were divested of their suits?)
• “The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”
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