After my morning run a couple of Sundays past, I was scrolling on Twitter waiting to cool off enough to get into the shower. I do not remember what I was thinking about or listening to, but an image of a grown man wearing a ball cap at dinner popped into my head. So I hit the draft button, banged out the below tweet, and went about my routine.
Shower.
Mass.
Brunch.
Errands.
I later I took out my phone and I saw that quite a few people had commented on the no cap tweet. They were mostly very very angry. Getting ratiod is certainly something I had seen before, but never experienced. It was strange because most of the folks who follow me do so because they seem to like my output which mostly has to do with ruminations on wisdom, old books, counter-intuitive takes on various “current things” and the like. I have pretty strong opinions about a variety of things, but as I am a relatively affable in “meat space”, with an agreeable demeanor, I was not prepared for the vitriol that came bursting forth. I’ve been called fat before, and people have made fun of my name, and I know my glasses are on the intentionally obnoxious side of things, but I had no idea men (and even a few women) would be so upset.
Having a large number of people see something I thumbed out on my phone offhand-like was pretty fun. So I engaged and interacted with people, cracked back with humor and self-deprecation, and laughed at some of the funnier zingers. But as the days stretched on, and the impressions kept climbing, another emotion crept in.
Sadness.
I had tripped something limbic.
First I think it important to lay out with a little bit more precision and nuance what I meant. My friend Steve Skojec did a great job articulating my point of view for me and even in a funny ratio it is nice to have friends willing to jump into the fray on my behalf, especially when that friend does not share that opinion. So what is my opinion, and why do I care so much about men wearing ball caps?
I am deeply concerned about where we are headed as a culture, especially as regards the primary work of setting up and supporting structures in which men and women meet, get married, stay married, and create a family. This seemingly obvious process by which we create a structured world for the raising of kids and the formation of community is in peril. We are not doing this well. Even when men and women find a way to get together, staying together has become a game of dice. Familial stability ain’t what it used to be. Part of what is driving this degeneration is the narratives around the sexes. Men, in particular, are in trouble. The middle class script no longer holds—it is no longer normative or aspirational. Economic factors are real, but so too are the “soft” factors. The mythologies of the normative script have been deflated.
The men seem least interested in embracing thier adulthood. Why is this? Why do men not want to be men? Is it the myth of comfort? The need to be seen as laid back and chill? Is it because we do not wish to be seen as a stiff or a square or as a “normie”?
The laments about how casual we’ve become are not new. The radical transformation of workplace decorum was yet another victim of the decade from the mid 60’s to the mid 70’s. Like everything else, the way we dressed was altered radically. Casual Friday’s became normative. Post covid lockdowns, even many office spaces became optional. But the real shift came when men stopped dressing up for church. As a kid, we went to mass every Sunday as a family. Every week we had to put on our “Sunday clothes” though this rapidly gave way. But my dad always wore a tie. He wore a tie everyday, and he hated wearing the tie, and taking off his tie was always the first thing he did when he came through the door. He loved to be in his shorts and t-shirt at the house. But alas, the days of men wearing a tie for church is long gone. We’ve been told to not shame guys who want to come. “Come as you are” became the mantra.
I question the wisdom of that. I certainly don’t want to chase anyone away. But why shouldn’t we encourage people to dress for the occasion. I used to be able to say “would you show up for a wedding dressed so casually?” There was a time that people intuitively GOT THIS. Now I do not think many would bat an eye at showing up to an occasion dressed down. What does this say about the affair if you do not think you should dress up? What does “dressing up” even mean?
I’m not entirely sure. But my intuition remains that with the loss of “occassion” we are losing our grasp on the real, and thus what is important and sacred. I know my own personal style choices skew preppy and mid-century, but this tweet was never really about being proscriptive.
It’s about finding a way back to the sacred. “Dressing up” is a small sacrifice to make, especially if we care about re-serving the shared spaces, what the writer Matthew B. Crawford calls the “attentional commons”.1 These shared spaces must be re-sacralized so as to give us a chance of crafting a coherent self.
The sadness I mentioned above comes from the visceral reaction so many had to lash out at a tweet that dared suggest we should de-slobbify. The mental script was triggered, thus revealing in some sense the true sacred held by many of my fellow menfolk: no one can ever tell me what to do.
Dear Reader, may I suggest we question this cultural value? I get the impulse, I really do. But we will need to rethink this as a larger project of figuring out how to create shared spaces, relationships, and communities. Dressing somewhat intentionally might be a small thing that you can do to contribute to a better attentional commons.
Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head
Izzy's mom here, love your musings, occasion has one S. Interesting start to a long, long conversation. I feel funny in a hat in church in New England. I feel funny without one in the south or at a wedding in London. I always wore them in LA to protect the sun from my face -- that movie director look -- until my mom and therapist decided I should try a year off (for different reasons), and now I have age spots and a freckle line on my forehead where there would have been none. I don't know, Mr. Zelden. I think it would be time well spent to re-teach ourselves and each other what the Mass truly is -- and then ask ourselves how we would dress for the memorial of someone who saved our lives -- especially if He's actually not dead and present there with us and can see us! So if the hats can't go to church, should the sneakers, shorts, and hoodies? Don't get me started on the crying babies and too loud toddlers. I think the dress-up at Latin Mass is fascinating -- and then the pocket watches come out and the beards get long and I start to wonder what's happening here... What was the conclusion of the Broken Window policies in NYC's subways? Clean it up and people will behave better! I'm not sure if that proved true. Would love to think it did. Great conversation!
Hello! I do agree with you that it would be nice if we were dressier as a society - I think it does make a difference in how we think and act. And I regret that you were personally attacked for sharing such an opinion - I don’t think such responses are good for our culture either.
However, I also think that if what you shared above is the full tweet, it should perhaps be considered that this was not a ‘tweet that dared suggest we should de-slobbify.’ There was no context within the tweet to suggest that. Even having the background of your thoughts after reading this post, when I read the original tweet, all it seems to say that wearing a ball cap is undignified, unstylish, and suggests a certain obliviousness. And if that’s what you meant, fair enough. That is a legitimate opinion. But you know what? Most of the men I know and love wear ball caps at least some of the time, and they’re not any of those things. They’re good men who have embraced adulthood with all its joys and trials - and when I see this tweet, I think of them and it just kind of makes me sad. So while I don’t at all agree with the vitriol, I do think I can understand why people might have been upset by the tweet as it stood.
Just my thoughts, for whatever they may or may not be worth on a Tuesday morning. Have a good one. :-)