Dress Codes and Judging People
Today I read an article in the Heise.de newsticker about the “Free and Open Source Developers Meeting FOSDEM” helt last weekend at the Free University of Brussels. The article characterised the participants as follows: “Long-haired male developers with t-shirts were the majority of the participants, followed by short-haired developers with t-shirts, who were built a bit more bulky. Two developers in tailor-made suits really attracted attention. They turned out to be Russian software engineers … ”
It is fascinating to observe the dress codes of different social groups. People might think they are free to dress as they like, but it is like strict dress regulations: Whosoever oversteps the unwritten rules of a peer group is irritating the social classification system. You observe this with professional as well as with leasure time dress codes, not to speak of special social group codes.
At my student times I used to play with the code when I was going with short hair, tie and suit to the university where the style of the co-students was quite otherwise. A few years before I used to wear long hair, an echo of the hippie times. According to the outfits the reactions were very different…
Seen from a spiritual standpoint, dresses are wrappings around the body and the body is a wrapping around the soul. We normally identify ourselves with the habits and forget that they are just envelopes. You might read more about the “envelopes” in the Lunar Messenger on “Body and House“. See also the blogpost on Dress Codes and Normalcy.
Sadhus in Northern India – imagine them sitting in a western bank.
