90 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: Are there any philosopher that talked about fashion? Or that were interested in it?
External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. [...] As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.
Karl Marx, Estranged Labor
By the same token, however, he becomes—through the abstractness of labor—more mechanical, duller, spiritless. The spiritual element, this fulfilled self-conscious life, be- comes an empty doing [leeres Thun). The power'of the Self consists in a rich [all-embracing] comprehension; this power is lost. He can leave some work to the machine, but his own activity thereby becomes more formalized. His dull work con- stricts him to a single point, and his work becomes more consummate the more one-sided it becomes. Yet this multiplicity creates fashion, mutability, freedom in the use of forms.
These things—the cut of clothing, style of furniture—are not permanent. Their change is essential and rational, far more rational than staying with one fashion and wanting to assert something as fixed in such individual forms. The beautiful is subject to no fashion,- but here there is no free beauty, only a charming beauty (eine reitzende Schon- heit)* which is the adornment of another person and relates itself to [yet] another, a beauty aimed at arousing drive, desire, and which thus has a contingency to it.
G.W.F. Hegel, Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit (1805-1807)
As fear and resistance dwindle, as the social bases of the family change, sexuality in the form of love becomes less and less able to structure the entire life in all its detail toward one end, the tie with a single other person. The bond thus created loosens; the past is no longer carried as fully into a future, and the future becomes more nuanced as a result. A motive for sublimation, an element of civilization, falls by the way- side. The increasing likeness and changing functions of dress among the sexes are an outward sign. They symbolize the liquidation of the sexual taboo itself. The backward nations, the bushmen of Africa who are about to repeat this process at greater speed, dress up; the whites undress. They are moving toward a kind of monogamy which proba- bly differs from promiscuity by its greater convenience under prevail- ing conditions, not because it is a more intense experience. It will be easy to make it an element in the controlled traffic in which the Chinese are being trained in our time. The only difference is that it is a beginning there, a regressive phenomenon here. What seems a circle when viewed in isolation and from this continent may be a moment in a development. The European Enlightenment might be fulfilling a historical function which is no longer visible from Europe where we seem to have come full circle.
Max Horkheimer, Dawn and Decline
The human being has a natural tendency to compare his behavior to that of a more important person (the child with adults, the lower ranking person with those of higher rank) in order to imitate the other person's ways. A law of this imitation, which aims at not appearing lower than others, especially in cases where no regard to utility is paid, is called fashion. Fashion therefore belongs under the title of vanity, because there is no inner worth in its intention; and also oifoolishness, because in fashion there is still a compulsion to let ourselves be led slavishly by the mere example that many in society give us. To be in fashion is a matter of taste; he who clings to a past custom that is out of fashion is called old- fashioned; and he who even places a worth on being out of fashion is an eccentric. But it is always better, nevertheless, to be a fool in fashion than a fool out of fashion, if we want to impose such a harsh name on this vanity at all; a title that, indeed, the mania for fashion really deserves if it sacrifices true utility or even duties to this vanity. - All fashions, by their very concept, are mutable ways of living.' For when the game of imitation is fixed, it becomes custom, and then taste is no longer considered at all. Accordingly, it is novelty that makes fashion popular, and to be inventive in all sorts of external forms, even if they often degenerate into something fantastic and somewhat hideous, belongs to the style of courtiers, especially ladies. Others then anxiously imitate these forms, and those in low social positions" burden themselves with them long after the courtiers have put them away. - So fashion is not, strictly speaking, a matter of taste (for it can be quite contrary to taste), but of mere vanity in giving oneself airs/' and of rivalry in outdoing one another by it. (The élégants de la cour, otherwise called petits maîtres, are windbags.)
Splendor can be joined with true, ideal taste, which is therefore some- thing sublime that is at the same time beautiful (such as a splendid starry heaven, or, if it does not sound too vulgar, a St. Peter's church in Rome). Even pomp, an ostentatious display for show, can also be joined with taste, but not without firm objection by taste; because pomp is calculated for the masses, which include a great deal of rabble, whose taste, being dull, calls more for sensation than the capacity for judging.
Immanuel Kant, Anthropology form a Practical Point of View
Origin and Utility of Fashion.—The obvious satisfaction of the individual with his own form excites imitation and gradually creates the form of the many—that is, fashion. The many desire, and indeed attain, that same comforting satisfaction with their own form. Consider how many reasons every man has for anxiety and shy self-concealment, and how, on this account, three-fourths of his energy and goodwill is crippled and may become unproductive! So we must be very grateful to fashion for unfettering that three-fourths and communicating self-confidence and the power of cheerful compromise to those who feel themselves bound to each other by its law. Even foolish laws give freedom and calm of the spirit, so long as many persons have submitted to their sway.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All-Too-Human
The fact that fashion expresses and at the same time emphasizes the tendency towards equalization and individualization, and the desire for imitation and conspicuousness, perhaps explains why it is that women, broadly speaking, are its staunchest ad- herents. Scientific discretion should caution us against forming judgments about woman "in the plural." At the same time it may be said of woman in a general way, whether the statement be justified in every case or not, that her psychological characteristic in so far as it differs from that of man, consists in a lack of differentiation, in a greater simi- larity among the different members of her sex, in a stricter adherence to the social aver- age. Whether on the final heights of modern culture, the facts of which have not yet fur- nished a contribution to the formation of this general conviction, there will be a change in the relation between men and women, a change that may result in a com- plete reversal of the above distinction, I do not care to discuss, inasmuch as we are con- cerned here with more comprehensive his- torical averages. The relation and the weak- ness of her social position, to which woman has been doomed during the far greater por- tion of history, however, explains her strict regard for custom, for the generally accepted and approved forms of life, for all that is proper. A weak person steers clear of indi- vidualization; he avoids dependence upon self with its responsibilities and the neces- sity of defending himself unaided. He finds protection only in the typical form of life, which prevents the strong from exercising his exceptional powers. But resting on the firm foundation of custom, of what is gen- erally accepted, woman strives anxiously for all the relative individualization and per- sonal conspicuousness that remains.
Georg Simmel, Fashion
Comment by Raskolnikov101 at 05/06/2020 at 21:57 UTC
25 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So, as a novice, I'll try inquiring further to see if I got the quotes right:
-Marx is pretty much saying that "dressing" is nothing more than a "vital" function? Which is basically all what's left of him after alienation from his work in the fabrics, correct? And that's in a way dehumanizing, because it's in essence something animalistic, something that you derive pleasure from only because you've alieneted yourself through external work?
- I didn't catch what "multiplicity" refers to in Hegel's quote. I think in the second quote he's saying that the "beauty" achieved through fashion is different from "free beauty" and is aimed not at achieving a concept of !Beautiful" but more at alluring the other and is therefore restricted by the interaction between two people?
- Horkheimer here is talking about how the traditional concept of family and monogamy is changing, and how that is reflected in the way we dress - which become in a way less gender specific, and in another more fit to the new "purpose", the new way to view relationship - more as a commodity than a meaningful experience. I hope I got that right. But for the second part, I think I lack to much context to give it any significance.
- So Nietzsche is saying that in a way fashion is liberating from anxiety, and self doubt, as it provides a "socially" approved way of presenting oneself for both the masses and the individual and is therefore, all things considered a positive phenomenon, since even the dumbest "rules" (which I think fashion could be one of?) provide comfort. Got that close enough?
- So Simmel here is not really saying that adhering to a specific "fashion" as a way to not differentiate oneself from the social average is intrinsic of women, but rather of """""weaker""""" communities - in terms of social position. COrrect?
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All in all very entertaining and insightful, thanks.
Comment by tameonta at 05/06/2020 at 19:02 UTC
14 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I think you forgot to mark it, but the first paragraph of your quote attributed to Kant is actually from Horkheimer's *Dawn and Decline.*
Comment by Www3cubed at 05/06/2020 at 22:05 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Sublime... Thank you.