Dasein’s Recent Comments

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  no, please, excuse me

     The article is not suggesting that how you look is as important as the message you are sending. It is saying that how you look can influence how the message is recieved. And it is precisely because the message is more important than how you look that you might want to consider wearing clothes that don't distract the listener from the message you are delivering. In contrast to the scenario Irony describes, dreadlocks and sandals would probably distract your audience more than a suit, and in addition might turn your audience off to your message before you give it. And no matter how incredible your message is, if it is never listened to, you'll never make progress. Sure if you are wearing a really flashy suit it may also be distracting, but the idea isn't to do that either. The idea is to not let the audience see you coming, so you can avoid as much pre-message judgement as possible allowing the message to be delivered do a preliminarily unbiased audience (that is, not biased based on appearances which I think we both hold as personally unimportant, though the audience may not). Unfortunately other sources of bias are more difficult to combat.
     I do agree that consumerism is part of the problem, but on a somewhat off topic note, buying second hand clothes doesn't help fight consumerism much. Second hand clothing stores are dependent on clothes being purchased first hand at some point. The only way not to be a consumer is to produce the clothing yourself. Even then you would be buying thread and sewing equiptment, so I am not sure consumerism is avoidable, but hopefully it can evolve. This second paragraph is speculation more than anything, presented in hopes of feedback. Any thoughts?On Yes, clothes really do make the activist posted 4 years, 9 months ago 24 Responses