Fashion sense
It is fun to look at old photos of ourselves, especially ones from several years ago. We see a different time we never quite remember as a distinct experience from the one here and now, a world we gradually moved from into the present—and a world where we sport different clothes and styles that we wouldn’t be caught dead in today, except maybe as part of some costume event. When and how did we make the transition from then to now? Did we notice?
What we wear evolves ever so gently over time, along with the tastes and preferences imposed from the outside by the unseen steering hand of society at large. Then the erosion of time wears it all down. After a few years—perhaps a decade or two—it all looks so threadbare, frazzled, and dirty that we are left in denial that we ever presented ourselves like that. Today’s society would give us funny looks for those outfits.
Computer-science philosopher and startup investor Paul Graham asks whether we aren’t similarly prone to a sense of fashion in our moral thinking. As with clothing styles and other looks, do we also unthinkingly follow lines of moral thought that are in fashion, unwilling to run up against them for the unspoken fear of making ourselves look dated, of ruining our reputations for having good taste?
As Graham said here, back in January of 2004:
What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they're much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed.
If you could travel back in a time machine, one thing would be true no matter where you went: you'd have to watch what you said. Opinions we consider harmless could have gotten you in big trouble. […]
It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise.
Is our time any different? To anyone who has read any amount of history, the answer is almost certainly no. It would be a remarkable coincidence if ours were the first era to get everything just right.
He draws a few conclusions of what this implies for how we choose what to believe, for identifying present-day fashionable thinking that might turn out to be tomorrow’s embarrassment. After Darwin, for example, the intellectual classes were fashionably insistent that eugenics was the indicated course for civilizational progress. No one has wanted to wind up clad in that ideological outfit since about 1945. But in the early 20th century, it was ubiquitous. It was dropped with flapper dresses and zoot suits.
While Graham’s essay is written clearly, one thing I couldn’t find in his approach of trying to identify unfashionable thoughts was this: Is there anything in the approach that detects the truth value of the unfashionable thoughts? With the fashionable ones, at least there’s society at large and its tacit endorsement. Unfashionable thoughts could be merely out of fashion for the time being, destined to become fashionable again some day in the future. Or perhaps they’re unfashionable because they’re fundamentally wrong or bad, not to mention just stupid or possibly insane.
For example, QAnon is unfashionable, but it also might be insane. As with most conspiracy theories, it relies on secrecy and hidden elements: there’s a truth that is not merely obscure, but kept obscure by those with power who have access to it. Conspiracy theories rely on the idea that reality itself is not actually real, but rather a projection enforced by those in power to protect themselves against the powerless. Although it isn’t current, 9/11 Trutherism works in a similar fashion. Or prior to that, Moon Landing conspiracy theories, fear of fluoridation of drinking water, and so on.
I’m not sure how the Paul Graham of today would respond to these critiques, much less how he might have adapted his thinking since. Yet the original idea can be quite interesting as a means of identifying today’s moral blind spots, our inability to get outside of our unthinking acceptance of conventional fashion—the bits of it, at least, that will prove to be a future embarrassment.
In closing, I refer you to Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22. In the story, protagonist Yossarian, a bomber pilot during World War II, explains to his fellow soldier his theory of how to complete his service so that he can get out of the war, can stop being shot at from the ground while on missions. He details his wild conspiracy theories about how the military and the war work. His friend says (citing from my imprecise memory): “You’re crazy! It’s crazy to think that way! What if everybody thought like you do?”
To which Yossarian replies: “Then I’d be a damned fool to think any differently.”
Afternoon All...
Gas is sill $3.13 a gallon...lol...weather is still erratic and not normal, and today is International Polar Bear Day ( also Strawberries and Kahlua...lol)
I read Catch 22 so long ago, all I remember is learning what the phrase meant, and that I loved the book...I am impressed you remember more than that...
I would have to think on whether I am morally fashionable, I guess it depend on who you ask...I also can't think of any moral position I take that has changed in any significant way, since I cemented what my positions were when I was a teenager mostly, then into my 20's...whether it is true or not, I tend to feel like an outlier in many ways in the first place...( as far as not being in tribe or wanting to be etc)
Edit to add: I am also pretty stubborn/resistant to attempts or requests to change my position because it is not popular...
Second edit, because I read it and it had a ton of stupid errors...lol
I actually read Catch-22 as an assigned book in high school. (Unfortunately this took most of the actual fun out of reading it.)
Anyway, in the end, it turns out Yossarian has gone insane because of severe PTSD (although I don't think that particular diagnosis was a thing back then) from witnessing the tragic death of the young soldier, Snowden. It wasn't quite a surprise ending, because Snowden had been mentioned many times before that reveal.
But suddenly the framing goes from "this is obvious hyperbolic satire about WW2" to "this actually could be seen as what really happened, just through the unreliable, warped POV of one disturbed soldier". Because unlike the satirical style of most of the rest of the book, the sequence depicting the death of Snowden is written in a jarringly realistic way.
Yet it seems Catch-22 is out of fashion these days. These days, we'd rather just idealize every American who fought in WW2 as a heroic member of the Greatest Generation. But the book makes it clear that even arguably just wars have a toll on those who fight them.
I also get the impression that although human nature really hasn't, the words we use to describe it have. Because certainly language goes in and out of fashion, as much as hemlines go up and down. I like watching classic movies on TCM, but at times I find myself looking up the meaning of certain words I hear. (This doesn't always help as many dictionary sites are quick to update the meanings to the most modern ones )
Indeed, the culture wars we keep having over language, perhaps are better described as fashion wars.