“Thou Shalt Not Mature”
May 19, 2015
KARL D. writes:
One of my pet peeves is grown men wearing sneakers as their main footwear choice. I haven’t worn sneakers outside of going to the gym or doing some kind of sport since I was 15 years old. Yet I see so many men these days wearing sneakers all the time and they will often own multiple pairs. They will wear them for all occasions. For work and even worse, with suits! From weddings, to expensive restaurants to even the opera at Lincoln Center. I don’t know if this trend is just another example of the worship of youth and fear of adulthood that plagues many American men? The new deep need for comfort at any cost? Or is it just a rebellious “Thumb in the eye” to The Man? Either way I can’t stand to look at grown men walking around in sneakers looking like little boys. I squarely put the blame on black hip-hop culture for starting this whole trend. But the white suburban males who grew up with it in the 90s are the ones to blame for not outgrowing it. The New York Times has an article (although it is about a year old) about the rise of the sneaker.
Laura writes:
The full-time sneaker is a symptom of Arrested Development Syndrome. In his book, Pure: Modernity, Philosophy and the One, Mark Anderson writes,”Thou shalt not mature” is the first commandment of contemporary America.
Anderson’s book is a Platonic view of modern culture. He writes that commercial forces encourage arrested development for good reason:
Many people in our society have a stake in promoting and maintaining our disordered souls, especially those who obtain money or power from generating and manipulating our unnecessary desires. This explains their constant exteriors to persuade us that from our preteen years until well into adulthood it is acceptable to behave in the manner of an immature teenager. The teenager is not yet master of his desires; fads and clever marketing easily seduce him. He has little or no responsibility; he also has a disposable income, which no one prevents him from spending however he chooses. He is a member of a treasured demographic. he is a target.
The teenager is an easy mark, but his financial resources are limited. This latter fact is a natural check on the power and influence of those who manipulate the cultural market to their private advantage. Yet these cunning profiteers have discovered an artificial means to circumvent this obstacle: they promote and enable a cultural environment that facilitates the development of individuals who have the desires of a teenager and the income of an adult — individuals, in short, who desire all that they see and who have the funds to purchase whatever they desire. Hence the mainstreaming of pop music, video games, pornography, and addiction, all of which appeal to our unnecessary desires and contribute to their boundless expansion. [Pure: Modernity, Philosophy and the One; Sophia Perennis, pp. 14-15]
Hence the sneaker.
— Comments —
Cyrus writes:
I agree that there is a serious problem in our “culture” that worships at the shrine of arrested development. I, too, cannot stand seeing adults wearing sneakers, especially men wearing suits. Living in New York City I’m exposed to such madness everywhere I turn. Middle-aged men and women pushing themselves along on crowded sidewalks with scooters, adult men wearing baseball caps sideways or backwards, logos of sports teams or cartoon and comic characters on hats and shirts. Saggy, baggy, below one’s buttocks sweatpants, jeans, even dress pants on grown men! The list goes on and on. On Facebook, there is a constant drone about legos. Legos? Really? Comic books and related figures (dolls) that men in their fifties collect and hang on the walls of their apartments. I don’t think it’s about comfort so much as the refusal to grow up and act like a man, or woman. The confusion between child-like and child-ish behaviors and attitudes. Boredom begets ever more boredom. Games on smartphones (which really should be called dumb-phones). The incessant need to be entertained, no matter where or when. This narcissistic culture is drowning in its own sewage. May God help those of us who are sane, mature adults.
Stewart writes:
The topic of “grown men” wearing sneakers touches on one of my pet peeves. Be glad you live far away from the West Coast. Out on this side of the Rockies, once the weather warms up, you see grown men wearing “flip-flops” virtually everywhere, except perhaps the office. I refuse to take such children seriously, but in the summertime, it can be difficult to deal with anyone under the age of 50 who isn’t wearing ridiculous beachwear, and we live 1000 miles from the ocean.
Laura writes:
Flip-flops and sneakers say, “I am very casual and fun-loving, and I don’t spend my entire life working or thinking about work.” They go along with the cult of work. They are part of the costume of the work-a-holic. Clothes have become more casual the more work has become an end in itself rather than a means to an end. A successful and prosperous career is a sign that one is of the elect.
