Thursday, January 12, 2012

High heels are SILLY (by Kissanthemum)


The whole "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" thing has been coming up a lot for me lately.  Probably my favorite example of this is the existence of high heels.  Through all of our "modern wisdom" and self-awareness, it's still a popular and accepted part of our culture to cause long term damage to one's health and body in the sole name of aesthetic beauty.  It's not even like, "just old people" or whatever, either.  I know young, intelligent, relatively "cutting edge" women who wear high heels, and while I'm not suggesting that they do it purely because of some patriarchal conspiracy (that's only part of the reason!), it's nonetheless very comparable to outmoded fashions like corsets (whose closest descendent is the extant cultural obsession with female thinness) and footbinding--both of which we openly laugh about today.
So high heels are a legitimately important issue, and I don't want to say anything that diminishes the fact that I want them eradicated from this earth.  But there's a bigger picture here: never has it been more apparent to me that the cultural "advancements" we make are largely illusory.  High heels are probably one of the tamer illustrations of this; compare them to the apologetics we saw in times of slavery, which are, with minor twists here and there, now being used to restrict the rights of gay people.  
For centuries, we've seen that every time the reigning dogmatists are forced to concede that violent video games are probably about as big a deal as comic books used to be, or that stem cell research is really really super important and good, they simply find a new (awful and indefensible) pet cause to hole up with for a few years, decades, centuries.  Alarmist nonsense will not end with the final legalization of marijuana.  In coming decades, there will certainly be massive technological paradigm shifts that current denizens of the "information age" will be every bit as out-of-touch with and ill-equipped to responsibly maintain as today's old, white, SOPA-supporting morons are of the Internet. 
Don't misunderstand: cultural advancements in and of themselves are real!  And they're pretty awesome!  But it's hard not to feel that the long-term fairness and openness of people has changed very little throughout history.  Slavery being abolished was a great thing, but it didn't fundamentally change bigots, apologists, or the apathetic.  Neither will federally-recognized same-sex marriage.  
Of course, the legitimately loving, clever, understanding people of the world aren't going anywhere, either.  I simply no longer believe that those types of people have historically increased in number or proportion merely because we have a black president, or that society so happened to eventually allow women the right to vote.  There's a sort of "stupidity equilibrium" in place here, and nothing less than a fundamental rewrite of "human nature," or--if we're lucky-- unprecedented institutional change could possibly upset.
High heels are silly.

10 comments:

  1. Yes! High heels are silly.
    And women are silly for wearing them - not just silly but definitely psychologically manipulated.

    Society has a hold on just about all of us, and it can be so strong that we believe our self-destructive behavior is actually rational despite being self-destructive (I'm assuming most women basically know that wearing high heels can't be good for one's physical health).

    To upset the "stupidity equilibrium", the most rational solution is to get people educated more on these matters - which I guess could imply an "unprecedented institutional change", considering these matters are rather philosophical deep down (and we know how much society in general currently reveres the study of philosophy). Hopefully I don't have to elaborate here.

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  2. If some women like them, what different is it to you? Live and let live. I am a man and I wear panty hose. To each his or her own.

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  3. Well, it doesn't really make much of a difference to me.
    Women who wear high heels knowing (or not caring about) the health risks are pretty much possessed and I feel bad for them. Then again, they are idiots, and if they just thought a little more in-depth about what they were doing, they would probably make a better choice, which is to not wear high heels.
    So yeah, I guess I kind of care about people and think it is important for us all to learn how to think more critically of ourselves and our choices in order to make our lives better.

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  4. I am a man and let me tell you one thing: IT HURTS LIKE FUCKING HELL to walk on these things. I was curious once and could not get more than a couple of yards without keeling over. God bless the woman who strut in these. They go through pain and torture just to get a job/internship or to please a guy...... oh wait, I'm sure the feminists would have a problem with that last sentence. Yes, quite. Woman wear High heals to show equivalent strength to the sex counterpart who partake in other forms of torturous activities: using steroids and lifting weights in excess for example. There,now everything is balanced so the feminists could shut the hell up now because they nauseate me as well.
    However, as much as I detest high heals for its impractical usages, they do look damn sexy! Also the synergy with lingerie is enough to elicit a certain knee-jerk reaction in that very special spot. I do notice that most students at UWW who wear high heals belong to the business school... I'm glad I'm not in that college otherwise I would not be doing much studying due to obvious and unavoidable distractions.



    - Obama 2012

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  5. "Woman wear High heals to show equivalent strength to the sex counterpart"

    This seems made up.

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  6. Oh Jesus anon 12:53.
    Your thinking on this topic is so surface level I wonder if replying to you is really even going to be effective.
    It sounds like you need to grow up and think about things a little more deeply.
    So maybe you can say why women wear high heels (which is by the way, not an offensive sentence, because, in a way, it is sadly true) but can you say why this is so? Why does wearing high heels make that much of a difference? Why do women, as well as men, torture themselves? By just answering "to do x, y, and z" is not enough because there should be greater explanation - rationally speaking, what do high heels have to do with being qualified for a job? How could high heels in any way, rationally, show "equivalent strength" to a male? I'll call BS on that one too. It sounds like you just want to gloss over the issue without really thinking about it.

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  7. to anon 3:23


    Or maybe I was trolling.... If you honestly think I was giving a rational and lucid answer you are absolutely insane... let me guess you are a feminist! FIGURES!

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  8. the fact that the targets of your "troll" are in fact feminists is in itself objectionable~

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  9. to 10:47
    why are you trolling? That's just annoying.. not to mention a waste of everyone's time, including your own. I don't get the purpose of your statements... are they some how self gratifying? Seriously though, what is the point of your contributions on here? It seems more worthwhile to actually post something that is "rational and lucid" rather than troll garble.

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  10. ^because it is fun; and I've successfully baited you into responding therefore, successful troll is successful :)

    I can ask you why people get shitfaced on the weekend and make an ass of themselves? Same reasoning..... I'm done

    THe FORUM TROLL

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