Slate Shannon
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 105
- Location
- Nearer to here than to there
The Spectator (UK), 10 December 2005 (edited for length)
Use your head
Theodore Dalrymple
Why do men behave so badly nowadays?
The explanation came to me a few months ago in a blinding flash of illumination: the hat. To the hat, or rather to the lack of one, is to be traced the source of all our ill-deportment. Bare heads, or heads accoutred in the wrong kind of headgear, cause our want of self-respect, and therefore our want of respect for others. What we need, therefore, is more hats: proper ones, from cloth caps to trilbies, homburgs, bowlers and toppers.
Reflecting on hats, it suddenly occurred to me how much more difficult it was to behave badly in a proper hat, and how much easier to be polite in one. I recalled the days of my childhood during which most men wore a hat, and I remembered that my father never failed, in a gesture of genuine politeness, to raise his hat to someone whom he knew. Indeed, the etiquette of hats was drummed into me as a child as being a stage in the taming of the natural savage.
Mr. Johnson (hat shop owner), too, remembered the age of hats, a gentler age than our own, when men would remove them to acknowledge a passing hearse. A hat, like a cane, gives dignity to a man?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s bearing, but at the same time affords him the opportunity to practise a little ceremonial. This ceremonial is by definition the recognition of the right of others to due consideration.
The wrong kind of headgear, however, conveys another message entirely. A baseball cap is almost incompatible with an impression of dignity or intelligence, and those whose peaks are pulled over the eyes intimidate, as they are no doubt intended to intimidate. The same is true of the hoods that young men pull over their heads, and the woollen beanies that cling to their shaven scalps. No ceremonial or recognition of others is possible with this kind of headgear.
Irrespective of the meaning of proper hats in times gone by, we always live in our own social and cultural context, and the fact is that certain kinds of hats do convey civility and others convey incivility. If you doubt it, conduct a little thought experiment. You are walking down a dark street at night, and a man approaches you wearing a proper hat. Do you fear him as much as you would a man who is wearing a hood or a baseball cap that covers his brow and eyes?
It would be a most interesting study to establish whether an aggressive, hood-wearing young man became less aggressive once shorn of his hood. I suspect that he would.
It might, of course, be that nice men wear hats and nasty men wear hoods. Men wear what is appropriate to their character, and according to the message they wish to convey. The staff of Mr. Johnson?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s shop told me that purchasers of men?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s hats are invariably polite and charming, which is why they want a hat in the first place.
That civil men should wear hats is much less interesting, of course, than if the wearing of hats should make men civil, for this would suggest that the encouragement of hat-wearing might lead to improved levels of public civility.
Use your head
Theodore Dalrymple
Why do men behave so badly nowadays?
The explanation came to me a few months ago in a blinding flash of illumination: the hat. To the hat, or rather to the lack of one, is to be traced the source of all our ill-deportment. Bare heads, or heads accoutred in the wrong kind of headgear, cause our want of self-respect, and therefore our want of respect for others. What we need, therefore, is more hats: proper ones, from cloth caps to trilbies, homburgs, bowlers and toppers.
Reflecting on hats, it suddenly occurred to me how much more difficult it was to behave badly in a proper hat, and how much easier to be polite in one. I recalled the days of my childhood during which most men wore a hat, and I remembered that my father never failed, in a gesture of genuine politeness, to raise his hat to someone whom he knew. Indeed, the etiquette of hats was drummed into me as a child as being a stage in the taming of the natural savage.
Mr. Johnson (hat shop owner), too, remembered the age of hats, a gentler age than our own, when men would remove them to acknowledge a passing hearse. A hat, like a cane, gives dignity to a man?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s bearing, but at the same time affords him the opportunity to practise a little ceremonial. This ceremonial is by definition the recognition of the right of others to due consideration.
The wrong kind of headgear, however, conveys another message entirely. A baseball cap is almost incompatible with an impression of dignity or intelligence, and those whose peaks are pulled over the eyes intimidate, as they are no doubt intended to intimidate. The same is true of the hoods that young men pull over their heads, and the woollen beanies that cling to their shaven scalps. No ceremonial or recognition of others is possible with this kind of headgear.
Irrespective of the meaning of proper hats in times gone by, we always live in our own social and cultural context, and the fact is that certain kinds of hats do convey civility and others convey incivility. If you doubt it, conduct a little thought experiment. You are walking down a dark street at night, and a man approaches you wearing a proper hat. Do you fear him as much as you would a man who is wearing a hood or a baseball cap that covers his brow and eyes?
It would be a most interesting study to establish whether an aggressive, hood-wearing young man became less aggressive once shorn of his hood. I suspect that he would.
It might, of course, be that nice men wear hats and nasty men wear hoods. Men wear what is appropriate to their character, and according to the message they wish to convey. The staff of Mr. Johnson?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s shop told me that purchasers of men?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s hats are invariably polite and charming, which is why they want a hat in the first place.
That civil men should wear hats is much less interesting, of course, than if the wearing of hats should make men civil, for this would suggest that the encouragement of hat-wearing might lead to improved levels of public civility.
