Years ago I read a clever article in some education journal that addressed the issue of college campus sidewalks. Should they be laid down in predetermined parallel and perpendicular patterns or laid down on trampled grass paths worn by students? If you have walked on a number of campuses, you will have noted that students take shortcuts, making diagonal paths that as seen from above would provide a trigonometry instructor with homework assignments for students. Hypotenuses abound.
It really doesn’t matter whether or not a campus architect waits to see where students make paths. They will over the course of a few semesters find alternative routes, shortening even the shortcuts they previously made through the grass. And every year a new generation of fresh walkers leaves some new mark on the campus lawn. One might just have paved the entire campus to avoid any pedestrian changes.
And that brings me to consider how we humans develop our cultures and subcultures.
Beards
Recently, New York Yankees’ owner Hal Steinbrenner announced that New York has amended its 1976 facial hair policy. The organization now allows players to sport “well-groomed beards.”
Now an anecdote: I’m a reluctant shaver, so I’ve had at least a little stubble on my chin for decades and during the early seventies even a beard. At best I’ve been a Don Johnson/Miami Vice-facial hair guy: Almost, but rarely clean shaven. I suppose I adopted the scruffy look when the seventies made it more acceptable and my then rather stoic university president had passed on—literally. The rise of the Hippie movement probably influenced me without my knowing it. I remember not ever liking bell bottoms, but being unable to find more straight leg jeans and pants in stores at the time. Just leave it at: I have worn stubble. Recently, my grandsons and sons, all sporting beards of various sizes, asked me to grow mine longer. I complied.
With more men sporting beards nowadays, I believe I have been unconsciously influenced. But isn’t that what happens in every society? Fashion usually creeps in, maybe getting an impetus from someone famous or some event. It’s the college campus sidewalk effect. Someone starts the shortcut; others follow.
So, here we are, many years after the NY Jets initiated a kerfuffle over Joe Namath’s facial hair and George Steinbrenner’s iron hand rule forbade facial hair. The Yankees can now sport beards that are the fashion of the times. The muddy paths have been paved over in acquiescence to the culture at large, all those “random walkers seeking shortcuts.”
Is there a lesson about political trends in the foregoing?
It really doesn’t matter whether or not a campus architect waits to see where students make paths. They will over the course of a few semesters find alternative routes, shortening even the shortcuts they previously made through the grass. And every year a new generation of fresh walkers leaves some new mark on the campus lawn. One might just have paved the entire campus to avoid any pedestrian changes.
And that brings me to consider how we humans develop our cultures and subcultures.
Beards
Recently, New York Yankees’ owner Hal Steinbrenner announced that New York has amended its 1976 facial hair policy. The organization now allows players to sport “well-groomed beards.”
Now an anecdote: I’m a reluctant shaver, so I’ve had at least a little stubble on my chin for decades and during the early seventies even a beard. At best I’ve been a Don Johnson/Miami Vice-facial hair guy: Almost, but rarely clean shaven. I suppose I adopted the scruffy look when the seventies made it more acceptable and my then rather stoic university president had passed on—literally. The rise of the Hippie movement probably influenced me without my knowing it. I remember not ever liking bell bottoms, but being unable to find more straight leg jeans and pants in stores at the time. Just leave it at: I have worn stubble. Recently, my grandsons and sons, all sporting beards of various sizes, asked me to grow mine longer. I complied.
With more men sporting beards nowadays, I believe I have been unconsciously influenced. But isn’t that what happens in every society? Fashion usually creeps in, maybe getting an impetus from someone famous or some event. It’s the college campus sidewalk effect. Someone starts the shortcut; others follow.
So, here we are, many years after the NY Jets initiated a kerfuffle over Joe Namath’s facial hair and George Steinbrenner’s iron hand rule forbade facial hair. The Yankees can now sport beards that are the fashion of the times. The muddy paths have been paved over in acquiescence to the culture at large, all those “random walkers seeking shortcuts.”
Is there a lesson about political trends in the foregoing?
RSS Feed