Exercises in Thought: Fashion

Sweeney: Fascism Has Its Appeal

Sure it does. It’s in the name: Fascism, fashion. Well, not actually — the Italian “fascismo” comes from the Latin “fasces,” which literally means “a bundle of wooden rods.” But for a political temperament so notoriously difficult to define, this etymological mix-up sheds more light on its character than many a revelatory tract. Fascism, like fashion, is precisely that which is all the rage. It makes its appearance before the public eye at the drop of a hat. You could explain how it got there easily enough, but that’s not the point anymore — no one needs to know where, exactly, it came from to know that it is of the times, for the times. Fascism is what, for now, is here to stay, and, like low-rise jeans and frosted tips, it is what sooner or later falls away and leaves people (if they’re lucky) wondering: “Why did we do all that?”

But to them that was the appeal: It was so obviously the thing to do that they never needed to think why they did it. You can see this in their emblems and insignias, their shoulder pads, and steam-pressed ties. Greatcoats and tunics, flag standards and peaked caps. You can see it, and seeing it you can say what it might have been about — maybe it was the endless wasted years without ambition or purpose, full of uncertainty and real fear, that seemed to vanish behind them. It could have been like stumbling out of a labyrinth into a straight and lit corridor; like knowing their lives had been righted, set on track. Or: It was hatred, clean and simple. Whatever they felt, ultimately, was for them alone. It is stowed away in the images of those men and women marching down the streets, leaning on the balconies, shining atop the scaffold.

It’s silly. Its silliness is immediately apparent to anyone who has truly hurt someone. Recently, I saw a movie by David Lynch called “The Straight Story.” Upon hearing that his estranged brother has suffered a stroke, Alvin, an old man, whose impairments keep him from driving a car, rides a lawnmower hundreds of miles along the highway to make amends. He stops at a bar and talks to a fellow veteran about his time in the war. He tells him about the scout that kept them alive through so many campaigns, and how one day, seeing movement in a far-off bush, he shot him, by accident.

The first thing he did was forget — decades of drinking, the blow-up with his brother. But that’s all in the past. You can imagine old pained Alvin looking at one of those forever proud and purposeful and shining people (maybe there’s one hanging above the bar) and thinking, “Who is that? Who could be that? That’s not someone I could be.”

There is a kind of individuality that is essential for fascism and a kind that is essential for any fight against fascism. The kind of individuality that is essential for any fight against fascism is the kind that everyone might come to suspect they possess — that is, an individuality like the one James Baldwin says comes when “one has begun to suspect that one is not, and never will be, innocent, for the reason that no one is.” Baldwin tells us that, once we begin to suspect this, “some of the protective veils between oneself and reality begin to fall away.” This is the sense Alvin gives me. He walks out of the bar and looks at the trees and stars, and while he is doing this, it occurs to me that it occurs to him that he might be less like whatever he thinks he is or ever wanted to be, and that he is more like a tree, or that star over there. And it occurs to me that this is not a small, or stupid, or mean thing to think, and to think that it is any of those things is what is small, and stupid, and mean.

I was talking to my brother the other day. Four years ago he dropped out of fashion school because it was a stupid waste of money and time. We talked about movies we’d watched recently. He lives in LA and so I asked how he’d been affected by the fires and he said he was OK. I asked him if his friends were alright and he said, “Yeah … I don’t really know many people like that though.” I said, “Damn,” and we laughed. I asked him how his job was going and he said, “Still good.” He told me he wanted to make a movie with me one day. This is something he has told me many times. I told him I’d be calling again soon, and I hung up. It goes without saying that I love my brother.

Carroll: The Difficulty of Dressing Well

One of the handful of things I am known for is “dressing well.” I have “dressed well” for quite some time, ever since my sophomore year of high school. At first, it came from two desires. One was as a sign of respect for the school faculty — that I am taking myself, and by extension their coursework, and the school environment, seriously. But, of course, people express respect in different cultural ways. Assuming and propagating the view that Western business attire is the only acceptable way to show respect is just short of fascism (also, see above). Yet my second desire to dress well remained: a belief that my clothing was one key ingredient in my success, built upon some scientific hearsay that people perform better when “dressed up,” combined with my personal superiority felt upon strolling into my 9 a.m. exams in a button-down shirt and sweater while my peers came in pajamas.

In college, I thought of dressing well as a way to link myself to the academic tradition, in the same way that judges wear robes to link themselves to the judicial tradition, and perhaps how religious figures wear their own garb to do the same. The judge’s cloak hides their flesh behind a uniform black curtain, signaling the retreat of their flesh into the background, so that their reason shines forth. Donning the cloak turns one from a human sack of meat into a judge with the office to develop the common law. Their bodies are not the things that matter.

At this moment in my life, I may have taken this idea far off the deep end to address what I’m struggling with. I’m going to try to show you with a few examples. Hopefully you’ll get a sense of what I mean.

If you walk into Pemberton Lounge in Chapin, you’ll see various potted plants. Each of them displays a pronounced heliotropism, a turning towards the sunlight from the window. Plants do this because they photosynthesize from the sun’s light, so they grow towards that light to increase the surface area for them to catch light. The plants in Pemberton are tall. Maybe they have been there a long time. One plant’s broad, flat leaves strain towards the window. Another plant is between two windows and is struck with indecision about which window to reach for. One plant is so short on the ground I wonder if it will ever grow tall enough to get a direct view of the sunlight.

These plants are living, striving beings too. In fact, that snake plant looks like it could use some water. Who is responsible for maintaining these plants? Walk around the Science Center and you’ll find more plants, further dehydrated. I watered one plant. As I pushed aside its stems to access the dirt below, some leaves disintegrated and fell off. I saw that the base of its stems looked necrotic. How many neglected plants are there around campus? In America? In the world? I already experience horror at the death and destruction that humans deliberately wage on nonhuman animals. Staring at these plants has just about horrified me more.

Another time, I decided to try an extended fast. You can (and should) consume electrolytes in some form while fasting so your body can continue functioning properly, which can be accomplished by drinking water with dissolved table salt or a commercial electrolyte mix. I was sipping some salted tea in Val during lunch with a friend just after I had approached the 18-hour fasting mark. At that point, I was thoroughly not hungry as my body had gone into ketosis and was converting fat cells into energy. All around me, people ripped into their bulgogi bowls, cackling with rice in their mouths, chomping, chewing, and so on. I was not even horrified at the content of what people were eating per se, but witnessing the veritable barracks of humans stabbing forkfuls of rice was unsettling from the perspective of a non-participant. Each grain of rice was entirely at the mercy of its human master. At the level of the college dining hall, so much food, so much life passes through this place every day.

Sometimes, I think about these things, and I am overcome with a desire to put everything on pause. The scale of violence at almost every level in this world is sickening if you direct your attention anywhere for long enough. But putting everything on pause is not only impossible, it is self-defeating, for doing so would halt life. Life is an active process that occurs over time that requires energy. While humans happen to source it from animals and plants, plants suck up energy, too. They just do it from the soil and the sun. Biologists, tell me: What violence occurs within a plant cell wall?

A part of me tries to escape this difficulty of material, embodied life by dressing in a wide range of appearances. The mutability in my outfits attempts to demonstrate to myself that “I” am not my material embodiment, that I can wear a blue suit jacket and pants, or a pink sweatsuit, or a tank top and jeans, and none of those things will be me, or have anything to do, really, with me. I hope that doing so will somehow distance me from the violence of embodied life. But it’s not really working. So, compliments are fine, I guess. But I won’t be expecting any.