Like the pack-mammals that we are, we seek out familiar things when plunged into uncertainty. Clothing is basically the first layer of identification we present to each other. It's a resume. Successful, unsuccessful, creative, business minded, cheerful, gloomy, sexy, crazy, etc.
The Flower Children of the 60's all had a very particular look. It was relatively easy to identify who was whom by the hair and clothing. Nowadays, the long haired dude who in years past might easily be mistaken for a Peacenik could as easily be on his way to a cross burning. Looks can be deceiving, especially when being used as the criteria upon which a person is judged.
I remember when we looked like our side. We looked like hippies because we actually were. Does the Left need some form of get-up as an identity for the movement anymore? What could it be? Lapel pins are meaningless and so are bumper stickers.
A great number of Liberals have felt like cultural abuse victims, enduring a 30 year pounding. Three decades of our nation being slowly steering away from her promise. Three decades of being bullied out of the world we helped make.
We fell into a sort of Stockholm-Stockholder Syndrome, supporting ourselves by investing in poisonous things. Wounded from a failed dream and wandering lost, we changed our philosophies and our looks over and over. The machinations of a group identity that's been wiped and reset, like a computer's hard drive. Thirsty for new info. New everything.
Many of the disenfranchised former Hippies sequenced through being Glams, Discophiles, Punks, Mods, Ska, Rockers, New Wave Romantics, Goths, Cowboys, and Preppy/Yuppies. The fallow field of human crop rotation. Their only real function in life was to produce a generation that would evolve to hate them.
The subsequent litter of Slackers weren't as greedy - or perhaps just not as motivated to act upon it, if they were.
"But a true Progressive never succumbs to the mind control of this Orwellian culture! I will resist with every fiber of my soul and every dollar in my wallet! If my expensive education has left me with one indelible lesson, it is that - I am ME, whoever that happens to be! A self-made man, except maybe for all those other people who either helped or influenced me throughout my entire life."
We all want to think we've chosen our particular look, but a huge portion of it has been assigned to us through our childhood, our media and culture. We all have some kind of uniform.
Hey America, look at my:
INTELLECTUAL GLASSES
"Serious and smart are the same thing, right?"
WISE BEARD (My Personal Fave)
"Either I've studied with such passion that my beard just grew out."
- or -
"I'm going bald and need supplemental hair somewhere near my head."
THREATENING TATTOOS
"That's right, Look what I did to myself.
Imagine what I'm capable of doing to you..."
BADASS BIKER GEAR
"I beg your pardon, but can you please point me to the REBEL clothing section?"
OBEDIENT SQUARED-OFF HAIRCUT
"Hey, I keep financial security inside a box... Why not shape my entire head like a safe? Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind... "
STANDARD DEMOCRAT BOWTIE
"See, I'm ABSOLUTELY impotent. NOW can I play with the other politicians?"
HIPPIE COSTUME - WITH STUDDED PEACE SIGN
"This is WAY easier than actually doing something..."
DOMINANT TEAM
"See my shirt? I'll out-spectate the spectators on your team any day!"
MYSTERIOUS SUNGLASSES
"I'm too cool to be scared. I'm too cool to be scared. I'm too cool..."
TEN GALLON COWBOY HAT
"You got it, pardner. I'm an accountant for an insurance company. Yee-Hah!"
FAKE FUR
"See how much more humane I've become these days?"
WAY TOO NORMAL LOOKING CLOTHING
"I hope nobody discovers my freaky-sex dungeon."
NEW AGE GARB
"Why am I still not happy??"
BLACKBERRY
"Got all the way home without making eye contact with a single person all day - YES!"
NECKTIE
"Is my corporate choke-collar even? The boss is gonna take me for a walk!"
The one thing that's consistent in all these different looks is the belief that we are all marking visual territory.
"I want you to associate me with all these things hanging off of me."
But if someone believes themselves to be an individual because they answer to their own drummer and never sweat the dogma, then wouldn't that make them a Dividual?
Remember when being "Hip" meant being well informed? Well these days it's not in our best interest to allow our clothes to be any hipper than we are.