Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast

I would like this podcast to start a conversation with women of all ages, convictions and styles of life – wherever situated on the gamut of experience. In principle, there is no bar to men joining in, since how one defines women has a lot to do with what it means to be a man. But it is women I invite to pull up a chair at this virtual café table and put their questions and views into the conversation. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. She is the author of A Good Look at Evil, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks. Dr. Rosenthal writes a weekly column for “Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column,” (www.dearabbie-nonadvice.com) where she explores the situation of women. She thinks women’s lives are highly interesting. She’s the editor of The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Secret; Spinoza’s Way by her father, Henry M. Rosenthal. She’s written numerous articles that can be accessed at Academia.edu .

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Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast

Clothes

November 17, 2021 • Abigail L. Rosenthal • Season 1 • Episode 13

0:00 | 5:55

Clothes are a much bigger subject than is generally supposed. I often say, “It doesn’t matter what happens, so long as you’re dressed for it.” I suspect more than a few women would agree with me.

The work of figuring out what to wear – how conspicuous to be, how close to the fashion, what desire or mood or role to represent, who one’s audience will be – takes concentration, the fine exercise of discrimination and, often, consultation with wiser heads than one’s own.

We were in India, where my husband pointed out a holy man. He was walking through a crowded public square. We saw him from the back, naked as a bluebird, just as gorgeous and just as unashamed. What role does shame play in the story of a civilization? In the Bible’s Book of Genesis, Adam does not know he is naked until (because he ate the forbidden fruit) he knows how to tell good from evil. For the holy man we saw, walking in the Vedic tradition of India, the realized saint is beyond good and evil. Is the saint therefore beyond shame?

In my personal experience, if we think we’re “beyond good and evil” -- we’re evil! That is, for people like me, or like the people I know, there’s no such place as the alleged place beyond good and evil. The idea of such a place is a myth. I cannot speak for Indian holy men, but for us therefore, no place is beyond shame.

Clothes are an acknowledgment of our social constraints. We can’t pretend to a life lived solo, with only the divine dimension for company. We live among our fellow creatures. Some of them we will want to attract: professionally, as friends, sexually, or in some other way. Some we want to discourage or dodge. Some we want to impress or reassure.

The clothing we take such pains to choose or reject expresses these needs, subtly, diplomatically, blatantly, but in any case unavoidably. We have been defined as political animals and speaking animals. We can also be portrayed as the clothed animals.