This is one of the big benefits I’ve found from learning to dress well. People generally seem much more positively disposed to the weird ideas I talk about now that I dress well and have good social skills. People interpret weird ideas from high status people much more favorably than they do from less high status people.
I think the lesson here is that its useful to spend time learning to dress well, develop social skills and otherwise become high status. I have some advice on learning how to dress well (mostly for men).
Firstly, I think this is entirely contextual: certainly in academia, as in many other typically formal environments, one can only dress casually with a certain prior status. Those who dress-down are those who don’t need to impress, and thus openly signal that fact. Secondly, in many dissenting subcultures, how one dresses is an important part of that identity, i.e. for an EA to dress and behave modestly is to advertise, and indeed, help enact, ones charitable duties. Thirdly, self-objectification is pretty inhuman to most peoples sensibilities, and especially in the case of women, a pretty negative social pressure. It’s also, obviously, extremely conservative (‘look and behave like everyone else!’ - ‘sexually instrumentalise yourself to get more money!’).
I’m certainly not saying one should flatly disregard their appearance, just that it contextually holds, often in dissenting subcultures, and can be rather problematic.
This is one of the big benefits I’ve found from learning to dress well. People generally seem much more positively disposed to the weird ideas I talk about now that I dress well and have good social skills. People interpret weird ideas from high status people much more favorably than they do from less high status people.
I think the lesson here is that its useful to spend time learning to dress well, develop social skills and otherwise become high status. I have some advice on learning how to dress well (mostly for men).
Firstly, I think this is entirely contextual: certainly in academia, as in many other typically formal environments, one can only dress casually with a certain prior status. Those who dress-down are those who don’t need to impress, and thus openly signal that fact. Secondly, in many dissenting subcultures, how one dresses is an important part of that identity, i.e. for an EA to dress and behave modestly is to advertise, and indeed, help enact, ones charitable duties. Thirdly, self-objectification is pretty inhuman to most peoples sensibilities, and especially in the case of women, a pretty negative social pressure. It’s also, obviously, extremely conservative (‘look and behave like everyone else!’ - ‘sexually instrumentalise yourself to get more money!’).
I’m certainly not saying one should flatly disregard their appearance, just that it contextually holds, often in dissenting subcultures, and can be rather problematic.
Thanks for the style guide!