JUST AS YOU ARE ENTITLED TO YOURS
Studies have shown … These days you can find a study to show you anything you want to put forward.
This week a high drama played out about a prestigious Australian school which, after an ABC Four Corners segment exposed the headmaster for failing the school community, forced the headmaster to resign. It came against the backdrop of the school being strong armed into co-education.
The existing girls’ schools in Sydney were under no pressure at all to do the same. Studies have shown… that boys perform better with girls … studies had also shown that girls perform better when with girls only. So, whose study is right?
The headmaster resigned, thankfully, some of the allegations showed complete failure in terms of moral backbone, diligence and accountability.
The school was pinpointed for all sorts of allegations of bullying, misogyny, racism, even Nazism was thrown in at one point. They painted the school as elitist, they claimed that these children would eventually run the country, when really, they were more likely to flounder and lack ambition, anything after this particular school savouring of anti-climax; although it did have success stories, only a sprinkle would ever make it to the AAAALEEETTTTEEE!
And it got me thinking about this wave of people, seemingly faceless, you really can’t tell whose who in the lynch mob, who would cut off their noses to spite their face in this relentless witch hunt for the privileged, the white, the elites (I like the way they say A-lite as though it’s the A team, something to pull down). These same faceless people would have us in some form of checkmate ledger block chain where everybody eventually gets halted for having said anything at all other than what we were told to think. Very 1984.
And in some way, it seems to be having its effect on menswear. I opened up a GQ Magazine this morning, I don’t think I have seen one in years, and it was filled with the big houses advertising men dressed unisexually, pansexually, God knows what terms they would ascribe to themselves, clutching purses. No biggie it seems. It is so disappointing from these companies, desperate to clamber towards some utopian goal to achieve what? It is of course never ending.
The progressives are always trying to carry off with what is deemed the detritus of the Old World, you, slave owner, your statue must be felled. You, white person, be stripped of your privilege (and really what is white these days anyway).
And in its wake, replacing elegant and timeless menswear with this hog wash mixed up pompous menswear (can we call it that now) that presumes so much, which represents so little of society as a whole. I don't think I have ever seen a man clutching a purse and I asked my daughter, lifting up the image to her, what she might think if I went to the school line dressed like this, she just shook her head. She already asks me to pipe down when I'm there, she says my voice is too loud. How about I wear a skirt ?
I want it felled. I don’t care how we do it. Today a necktie is subversive. Today, a bow tie represents to me strong values. Of a time where you weren’t subjected to the wishy washiness of trend, of fashion and consumption and Instagram reels taking over your mind and prohibiting you from forming your own decisions, your own conclusions.
There was once a time when I was all inclusive, today, however, I am intolerant of the intolerant, and I stand by my words. Change is good. Times have changed. However, having the opinions of others rammed down your throat each day needs to stop, and attacking every institution that ever existed before you came along, that needs to stop too.
As Maya Angelou wrote, your freedom has been paid for, it was paid for by all those that came before you, who suffered for your freedoms. She is right. She was black, she suffered, she overcame, she found joy in all.
I want to be more like Maya Angelou, but I want to root out the intolerant progressives, and I will do so in a suit and tie when possible.