Article: Interview: Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield on Why We Should Dress Well
Interview: Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield on Why We Should Dress Well
We were especially pleased to sit down a few months ago with Harvey Mansfield, a recently retired political philosopher and professor of Government at Harvard. His courses on political philosophy have been an institution at Harvard for decades and shaped countless undergraduates. The interview was conducted by our friend, Mr. Warner (AB ’20), and one of our cofounders, Mr. Cottrell (MPA ’23).
Mr. Mansfield is known, among many other things, for both his book Manliness and his continued adherence to classic sartorial standards, with, of course, his own panache.
We invite you to enjoy our conversation.
Shepherd’s
We were reviewing some of the profiles of you that have been done over the years through the various Harvard publications: Harvard Magazine, and the Crimson. And they invariably bring up your clothing as if it paints some aspect of the character. And they also, one of them at least, mentioned the colorful ties that you like to wear. We have a good example of it right now. It says colorful ties such that are the kind that can only be brought off by men of a certain age.
All the people who profile you seem to take the way you dress as being important for the readers to know. Why do you suppose that is?
Mr. Harvey Mansfield (HM)
Well, it’s unusual. So men don’t dress up much anymore. And when one does, you make yourself… you define yourself out of the pack. Perhaps it goes with conservative, with conservative opinions that outward appearances are worth emphasizing. Conservatives believe in propriety. It’s something different from legality. They’re trying to look proper. So they believe in proper, and proper is related to normal. These are conventions. Different societies have different notions of propriety, but they all have them. Propriety goes with respectability. If you are respectable, you make yourself available for the respect of most people. And that means something they would look upon as well done but not odd.
Shepherd’s
There might be a certain paradox there then because the norm, just taking the average man off the street, is no longer what the conservative would have formerly considered to be proper, so now that we have a norm that’s no longer normal.
HM
So in a way, yeah. So conservatives now have to struggle to maintain the idea—or to establish the idea—of propriety. And one way to do it is to dress as your dad did. That’s essentially old-fashioned. Whereas my dad did it without thought, I do it with more reflection and conscious choice.
Shepherd’s
Some people would say that’s somewhat artificial, that once you have to do it on purpose, then it’s no longer authentic.
HM
That’s right, that’s exactly the distinction.
Authentic is what is done spontaneously, regardless of how stupid or [laughing] how hair-brained it might be. And so proper or propriety is conscious, but you were conforming to society, but not in such a way as to seem enslaved to it.
I think that’s the notion of propriety. It can easily be exaggerated to conformity that everybody has to be or think or say the same, but propriety or respectability allows, especially in a free country, a certain realm from which you can select. And, uh, and therefore, uh, choose is you wouldn’t want to just select something that is, um, merely considered authentic by other people. That’s already a form of conformism. So the society that tries to be authentic always worries about conformism. It always has to be, you always have to be different but then often different in the same way. So it ends up with an exaggerated version of just what it wants to abhor, which is a sort of ordinary or normal behavior.
So whatever is abnormal wants to be normal because it wants other people to recognize it as worthy in some way. But then with recognition comes normality. So, for example, a criminal with a whole lot of ill-gotten gains wants to buy a house, a fancy house in the suburbs or beyond, where you can be respected. So you always, if you’re on the wrong side of the law, there’s always a tendency to want to get on the right side of the law. Once you’ve accumulated enough, ahem, ill-gotten gains.
I’m just talking about the difference between respectable or proper compared to conformist or authentic. Authentic really comes from Nietzsche and philosophers like that. That idea that what is every day, what is average, what is normal… needs to be canceled and overcome. So it’s a feature of our time.
Shepherd’s
Well, what then is the difference between dressing nicely and costume? Because you could imagine somebody straying into absurd or archaic forms of dressing as an expression of some kind of personal authenticity going around dressed like, you know a regency or a squire, something like that, like an actor.
HM
An actor who wants everybody to know he is an actor, which means he’s a bad actor, at least if you’re in the course of acting. You want to be what you’re supposed to be and not look as if you’re pretending to be that person. So the best actor is the one who “acts” the least. As is often said about art… the artist, the best artist, is one that conceals the art and makes it look as if it’s natural, or not conscious, to you.
Shepherd’s
Now you have been—or I suppose we should say now that you were—at Harvard as an undergraduate from 1949 to 1953. Do you recall, obviously there were many more formalities and rules back in the day when there were only men and you had to wear a jacket and tie in the dining halls and things like this, any interesting tidbits or dress-code related incidents from that time?
HM
Well, I remember certain things. The way you could tell the difference between a prep school boy and a high school boy, and I came from a high school, is that the high school boy had shirts that were brand new, whereas a prep school boy had his old shirt slipped over and they were often frayed at the collar. That was, to have a frayed collar, meant you were a higher social ranking than people like me.
Shepherd’s
Right, you can’t put out a new rug. You have to have only a worn rug.
HM
Right. So, we wore tweed jackets often with leather patches, even when there wasn’t a hole in the elbow to cover up [laughs]. Still, to be able to lean on something with a leather patch that was considered very good and usually you walked around without a tie, but it was in your pocket. So you had to have a coat and a tie to get into the dining hall. And as you stood in line, you were putting on your tie [laughs] and often they were askew because there weren’t any women to check it for you and straighten your tie. None of your friends would say your tie’s off. That would be considered a baby-ish remark. So, yeah it went with making a distinction between high school and college.
What happened in the late sixties was a great rush of informality. And, in particular, that distinction went by the boards. So they were both called kids. You were a kid in high school, but then you remained a kid, we call it in college. And so the first thing I wanted was to look like, maybe not an adult, but at least not a college kid, but a college man. A man, yes, that was it. And so wearing a coat and a tie went along with that, which of course you never did in high school, but you know, in prep school you did.
Shepherd’s
Your era was roughly when there was more or less parity between prep school boys and high school boys admitted to Harvard?
HM
Yes, that’s exactly right. In fact, I was in the first class, 1953, where it was equal. Before that, it was many more prep school kids and many more from Massachusetts and New York. I came from Ohio.
So they started this democratization. This was done by President Conant of Harvard, and the Ivy League in general, that they would look all over the country for, uh, not just for athletes [laughs], but for true students to admit.
The deans in those days were much fewer. Harvard had fewer roles and fewer deans than at present. They tended to wear bow ties. They were usually prep school graduates. And, to uh… displease them, you pretty much had to be dishonest. That is, you had to speak frankly. That was the honorable thing to do.
If you came in and started to lie, then they very quickly formed a bad opinion of you. And, uh, whatever you’d done was going to be more severely punished. The punishment was like it was at Oxford. You’d be sent home for a semester, kind of like today’s timeout. Yeah, parents don’t spank college men, but kids. But they do have time out [laughs]... that’s taken from college.
Shepherd’s
Did the bow tie have a certain connotation then, at that time being associated with deans or authority figures or something like that? Now it often, you know, is associated with unserious people, but I imagine it was the reverse then.
HM
Bow ties Yes. Whether on serious people. Yes, yes. Or maybe slightly crooked people [laughs]. I think that’s unfair, though. I heard it said.
Shepherd’s
But of course, Churchill used to wear a bow tie.
HM
Now, I can tie a bow tie, so that’s one of my accomplishments [laughs]. But on a tuxedo. To be able to tie your own tie, I think that’s rather better than one of these made-up ones. Yeah, absolutely. So, but, um, yeah, there were still occasions for a tuxedo, but not as many. No. So, dances used to be tuxedos.
Shepherd’s
So then after you graduated in 1953, you went into the Army and you spent a little time in England?
HM
Well, a little bit. I spent a year in England before going into the Army as a Fulbright. That had a great affect on my clothes because I was so impressed with the way English gentleman dressed and how well-fitting their clothes were and their suits. Although I never went so far as to try to adopt an English accent, that makes an American look ridiculous.
But, I also started wearing a hat because that looked good, too. And I still wear hats; they keep your head cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
Shepherd’s
A lot of people blame Kennedy for the loss of the hat. Have you subscribed to that view?
HM
Yes, I think he didn’t wear a hat to his inauguration if I’m correct. Yeah, the wind blew his hair and made him look handsome [laughs].
Shepherd’s
[Laughs] But you adopted a hat. Do you recall any particular person you saw in England, even an unnamed man, that you were just struck by the overall impression that you got from him?
HM
Well, even professors looked, uh, not ratty the way they do in America with their rumpled suits and ugly wives [laughs]. That’s my description of American political science.
Shepherd’s
You don’t think the rumbled-ness is, you know, done on purpose to indicate pensiveness? You know, “I don’t have the time to look presentable, because I’m thinking all the time.”
HM
Sure, yeah, it’s the same thing. Right? That’s the pants with holes in the sexy places [laughs]. That’s women. We’re not, uh… we’re staying out of women’s clothes.
Shepherd’s
I hope so. We’d be far from our area of expertise.
HM
I don’t really have much to offer except that they’re different. They mark out the sexes one way. Even in the bathrooms. You go to the bathroom that has the form that goes with the clothing of your sex.
Shepherd’s
Yes. Well, this is an interesting historical point, related to the gender question. A lot of people like to point out that the 19th century was notable for a sort of shift in the way men dressed. Before the 19th century, men were, ahem, plumed, let’s say, as the women were, who wore flashy, uh, colors and were bright and stood out.
Then in the 19th century, everyone adopted blues and grays and background colors. Actually, when you wear a tuxedo, the women are standing out and you are in the background. So it seemed that there was, for whatever reason, a shift that the men ought to be more reserved and not as peacock-ish as they used to be. I wonder if you relate that to general trends going on at the same time in other areas that would’ve inspired them.
HM
Hmm, I don’t think I have much to say about that, not being a historian… That the aristocracy became more bourgeois, maybe less flashy. More sober. But then one thinks always of the English, the proper dress for a gentleman.
Shepherd’s
Did you notice any relationship between sort of the Ivy League style and the English style? Are there differences or similarities? Is there both sort of academic and country style?
HM
Tweeds and whatnot? Well, I mean, the academic style is not tailored. So, uh, it’s usually a sports jacket and a crummy tie… an unflattering tie… an unambitious tie. It’s there just because your wife insists on it. The English man, I think has a more conscious sense of being dressed or well-dressed. I mean, it’s not just blindly, um, sleepily reaching for what is in your wardrobe, but, um, what’s right.
Shepherd’s
But he doesn’t necessarily want to appear to be thinking about being well-dressed.
HM
Right.
Shepherd’s
There’s the appearance versus not looking overstudied.
HM
It’s the same choosing without seeming to choose or thinking too much. Yes, that would be a difference, because the Englishman sort of looks down on intellectuals, whereas the American academic looks up to them [laughs]. And he wants to be an intellectual, especially a so-called public intellectual.
Shepherd’s
Did you find that English intellectuals in the fifties were also as well-dressed as the gentlemen were, was there a noticeable, noticeable difference?
HM
Yes, they probably are. Of course, I’m talking about England in the fifties when I first went there, in the 1950s. I think it’s degenerated since then; I’m sure it has. I haven’t been there recently to spot it out, but England seems to be decaying, unfortunately.
Shepherd’s
You’ve never noticed a concern for dressing well among intellectuals in America?
HM
No, I can’t say I do. Maybe to advertise your brand you would dress in a certain way, but that’s supposed to be good dressing. I think that that would never be claimed because it would seem too proper and, therefore, too conformist.
Shepherd’s
Do you remember, this would’ve been in 1999, we were referring to profiles of you before, but when you were on the cover of Harvard Magazine under the headline Prince of the Conservatives?
HM
[Laughs] Oh, yeah.
Shepherd’s
Other people writing about this point out the Panama Hat and the “Tom Wolfe” pose. And you were wearing a sort of cream jacket, and so maybe a little standing more out than you normally would.
HM
Yes, I was having fun that day.
Shepherd’s
Yes, [laughing] we sort of gathered. Well, of course after you were in England, you went to Berkeley, where I imagine people did not dress the way they do now.
HM
That was in 1960 to 1962. Well, as a professor, the main thing about Berkeley was having very good-looking girls in your class, in the front row. This was, uh, unsettling to me as a beginning Professor [laughs]. So I remember, I guess I sort of dressed to tell everybody I came from Harvard.
Shepherd’s
Was that a noticeable divide, East versus West Coast? Would you have stood out dressing that way?
HM
A little bit, yes. The Californians, because Berkeley was made up of Californians, the faculty were people who had grown up in California. But those people were being pushed out rather rapidly by people from the Ivy League, professors from the Ivy League… Easterners.
On the other hand, California is a most American state because it’s a state where to be a Californian is not to be born in California, but to have come there. So it stands for immigration, westward movement, the discovery of gold, and San Francisco. So to be an Easterner in California is sort of the common thing or not so far from the common thing.
So, I was part of this. The University of California was the largest of the state universities and it was expanding. This was Governor Pat Brown; he wanted to make the University of California. So it went from just Berkeley and UCLA to eight or ten different universities. And think of the hiring that that took. So that made a very strong market if you were a beginning professor. And this worked all through the country because Michigan wanted to keep up with California and the others wanted to keep up with Michigan. So all the state universities were expanding and hiring a lot of new professors. Whereas the Ivy League only expanded a little bit and very few were able to stay there.
Shepherd’s
Well, you managed to come back yourself, in 1962 you came back to Harvard. So you had a few years before the deluge in 1968, 1969. So you would’ve seen the whole transition, but when did you venture into the Andover shop? Was that from your undergraduate days or did you adopt that later?
HM
Oh, no, only rather recently. Maybe 20-25 years ago. Charlie Davidson had been good friends. And, uh that’s a kind of club, right?
Shepherd’s
We used to have J. Press until it was extruded. Was there a noticeable, when you started going to the Andover Shop, was this noted as a, you know, a north side, south side of the track sort of thing where some people went to J. Press and other people went to the Andover shop?
HM
Uh, I don’t know. Yeah, I think that the Andover shop people thought that way [laughs] they would try to tell their customers, oh, you could try it out down the street over there, but you’ll come back here.
When I first arrived at Harvard, there were outlet shops or small shops for Saks Fifth Avenue and Brooks Brothers. So that was the way undergraduates dressed. Those places closed; they were crushed by the sixties, the late sixties. All the barbershops in Harvard Square went out of business in the late sixties. Then people started wearing dirty Levi’s in order to look like the working class. That was to dress like a member of the working class, i.e. the proletariat [laughs]. They didn’t really use that word, but that’s what they meant. You had to be grungy and not shower too often or shave or get a haircut. So that was a kind of aggressive informality, an informality which wants to upset you and upset the people that see it.
Shepherd’s
Well, how did you and the university more broadly react to that? Because it must have seemed to come out rather suddenly.
HM
I mean, I hated it and I fought it, but I kept quiet though, because there were my elders in the department who were much better known than I was, and they were good speakers. So I let them speak, but I would definitely take their side and argued a lot with students.
I remember a student came in once for his examination to get a summa at the end of the year, an undergraduate summa means summa cum laude, the highest graduation rank that you can have, and it used to go with an in-person examination. And he came in with a dirty t-shirt, really just an undershirt and pants with holes in them. And, so I asked him, “You are here to get the highest rank that a undergraduate can have and yet you don’t seem to have much respect for the occasion. And if you want that rank, shouldn’t you dress for it? If you dress for it, then you can respect yourself for wanting it. If you’re not dressed for it, you’re telling yourself that you’re not worth it and you don’t really want this.” So it was a kind of contradiction to want to do well at Harvard and to want to look aggressively bad.
And so it’s a kind of unsettling. It’s not really an attitude that you can live with. My son was of that generation, so he went to Harvard and I remember he came back once about 10 years later, and he was just looking at some pictures taken of him on the day that he graduated, and he said, “My God, how did I ever get a job?” [Laughs]
Shepherd’s
Well, now you can play the game in Harvard Square of “hobo or Harvard Professor” [laughs]. The very disheveled person walking by you could be the world’s foremost expert on Alexander’s Empire or he could just be a bum. You never know.
HM
Usually if you look at a professor and he’s not wearing a coat and a tie—I’m talking about someone who’s actually giving classes when you’re standing up in front of a group of people and trying to act as an authority to them, someone who knows something that the students paid a lot of tuition to come and hear—but is just in a kind of shirt, he’s either on the left or he’s a scientist. So, those are two things which make you dislike formalities.
Shepherd’s
What is it about science that makes someone dislike formality?
HM
Formalities are human conventions. And you couldn’t give any scientific justification to dress up. So why do people dress anyway… to keep warm and to look good, and also to cover your private parts, not to be ashamed. So those three things sort of get mixed up or taken together.
And the covering of your private parts is something that’s peculiar to human beings; we’re the beast with red cheeks. There are things we can do that we feel ashamed for doing. No other animal feels ashamed for what it does. So people look, when they’re having sex, they look ridiculous like animals. And so that’s why they’re called private parts in all languages. There’s some kind of covering, maybe not much.
Shepherd’s
Although you could say that people who dress, people of both sexes, who dress more classically to a certain extent are pointing out their differences.
HM
Yes, that’s right. If you’ve got a spectacular wife, she dresses that way. You know, people don’t dress in tents or robes but in such a way as to make your body look good, to accent its strengths and cover up its weaknesses.
Shepherd’s
Right, and this would be determined by your sex also because they’re not the same, the strong points and weak points in men and women. Whereas if everybody wears a sack, then it doesn’t really matter.
HM
Yes, right, so you dress up and you can dress down.
Shepherd’s
Well, dressing down is also a deliberate action in the way the dressing up is so I would say it’s different from just being casual. Dressing down is done on purpose.
HM
Yes, when you choose casual, that’s no longer casual, but it’s a convention. It’s something that’s the kind of propriety. So to wear a tuxedo to teach a class would be overdoing the professor’s dignity. Maybe it’s getting so that wearing a tie is making a statement.
Shepherd’s
Well, they say this is a result of the pandemic. I mean, it was accelerated by the pandemic. It was a trend before that. But the way people dress in offices, even in traditionally very staid professions such as banking, where everybody, you know in London, you wouldn’t even want be seen in brown shoes in financial districts. But now everybody went home for a year and worked in their office. And now wearing a tie is seen as super derogatory.
HM
Right. In the government, you have to dress up. Just look at the Congressmen in dark suits, all of them: blue, dark blue, and, gray, and close to black. All of them, the men with ties and the women, they get a little bit more freedom to deviate, but you’re part of the people’s government and to show the dignity of that you dress better than the people do. And, that’s the way the people want you to dress, or they would let you know otherwise.
Shepherd’s
But why do the people want you to dress better than they themselves do? Wouldn’t that seem to belie the equality that’s posed by democratic system?
HM
Well, it’s true, because the fact that we live in a democracy doesn’t mean that there aren’t honors. Honors are inequalities. But if the inequality comes out of the equal people, then it’s all the more honorable in a democratic society. So it’s a great thing to be a professor, but it doesn’t come up to being a Senator or even a Representative.
Shepherd’s
Would you say that you were sense of dressing has remained more or less the same since 1965 or throughout your adult life, or have you changed it over time?
HM
Maybe I was better dressed when I used to have a suits made in London when I was there.
Shepherd’s
Who by?
HM
Connock & Lockie. It was not Saville Row but it was a place near Tottenham Court Road and it was very well done. So I used to dress like that, but I’ve got those suits but I’ve outgrown them; I’ve exceeded their dimensions. So there was a time when I really looked more English but, you know, as I got older I got more notorious and less influential [laughs].
Shepherd’s
And that gives you the excuse to wear colorful ties.
HM
[Laughs] Yeah, and everybody knows that I wear a hat, a fedora.
Shepherd’s
Well, I remember reading an article in The Crimson about this. I think it was a Crimson, but some people who, more hipster history type people, who will wear a little you know trilby hat or something as part of their ensemble, and then they get miffed when you tell them to take their hat off doors because they say, “No, it’s part of the outfit. It’s just, you can’t tell me to.”
HM
Yeah, I had a colleague like that who wore his hat even in the classroom and or in the hall in the building. That was a bit much.
Shepherd’s
Was that considered offensive or was it too late by then?
HM
I don’t know. I considered it, well, not offensive, but improper. Yeah.
Shepherd’s
Did you find that you have had colleagues or friends, not of your own political persuasion, let’s say, but who are still interested nevertheless in the propriety of things like dressing, that it’s not the province of conservative people.
HM
It used to be that way. Professor Levin, he was a famous professor in comparative literature. He laid it down. It was the law that you should wear a suit to a lecture if you’re a professor and a sports jacket to a seminar, so that was the distinction of formal, less and more formal that was understood. I think that distinction still is, it’s not really respected much, but it’s practiced.
Shepherd’s
And Professor Levin didn’t think that that kind of rule made him a conservative?
HM
Academically, yes. I’m sure that wasn’t how he voted but yes there used to be professors who, no matter how they voted, were academic conservatives, especially having to do with grades.
Shepherd’s
Did that make them internally inconsistent? Were they just holding onto prejudices of their academic?
HM
It did. These were the ones that were the targets of the late sixties rebellion. That rebellion was not against conservatives. It was against liberals who weren’t far enough to the left. At that time the universities were all dominated by mostly non-communist liberals, or at least people who didn’t want the communists to win in Vietnam as the real lefties did. It’s kind of shocking to remember how close to treason, at least in thinking that people came, or young people came. I can remember students carrying the Vietcong flag in Harvard yard. I wanted to grab it from them as a souvenir [laughs] but I decided I better not.
Shepherd’s
On the academic point of the lecture being a more formal, authoritative presentation by a professor of his ideas, which presumably the students have paid to come hear, requires him to dress in a way that indicates that kind of authority. So when Aristotle refers to the magnanimous man, that he should speak in a low voice and walk slowly and look dignified. Would you or can you relate the dressing well to that kind of virtue?
HM
Yes, I suppose you could. I don’t think Aristotle mentions dressing as it might be something too variable to offer to the centuries as he was meaning to do. But magnanimity, yes, you have certain pride in yourself. You have certain virtues, and you know it. This knowledge of your virtues makes you more virtuous because know what you’re doing and you’re not so unconsciously, and usually it takes reflection to do the right thing in difficult circumstances. So you have to know what your virtues and your failings are. So, and, but if you don’t have any failings [laughs] then you have to know which of your many virtues to exercise at this particular moment.
So that is magnanimous. Dressing up sort of indicates the desire to show that you know but not only that. I think that’s dressing up as when you need to show authority and dressing down when you need to not to show it. So both things are necessary.
It’s a very political thing, really, how you dress. Dress shows who is in charge and what are the ruling views or conventions. It’s not accidental or trivial.
Shepherd’s
I think of Scott Brown here in Massachusetts, a decade or more ago, had the pickup truck and the very casual jacket reflecting his being a man of the people. And then as soon as he was elected, he was wearing a full suit and tie reflecting the context that he’s in. And you mentioned that as you’ve aged, you’ve taken more liberties in, in some areas with how you dress. It seems that there’s a context that’s important to doing what is proper, to know what is proper. You have to know the context and reflect on yourself and how you fit into that context. We’ve talked a good bit about that as a company, that we think dressing well for a man, dressing up helps him reflect on himself. And that’s a beginning of virtue and growing in virtue.
HM
Right, yes. It’s a business that’s concerned with people who want to look their best, which really everyone does. Although to be authentic, that sometimes means attacking everyone else’s view of what is best [laughs]. But you’re still thinking that it’s best for you to do this. So, it is a business that deals in virtue and authority.
Shepherd’s
And there’s a certain sense in the, the everyday aspect of getting up in the morning and deciding to dress yourself in a certain way rather than a certain way. It could be easier to just simply give up, but if you’re being it deliberate, then there’s a certain everyday habit that you’re building.
HM
We should probably mention the military too, since that’s connected with dress. The military requires proper dress at all times. It even has proper dress for fatigues so, if you’ve been in the military, you know what that means or is.
So, when I advise freshmen, I used to advise freshmen they would arrive, and I told them three things, and one of the three was, make your bed in the morning. It’s a downer to come back at the end of the day to an unmade bed. So, it takes a few seconds and it gives you a start to the day. So that’s like a morning formation in the military, you have to make formation it’s only you’re doing it yourself.
Civilization turns what used to be luxuries into necessities. I think especially of clean underwear. That’s my example [laughs]. How many centuries and peoples lived with dirty underwear or without underwear at all? They would have spices and perfumes from foreign places to cover over the lack of hygiene. But that’s a foundation you could say.
Shepherd’s
Is there a risk of this magnanimity becoming a form of vanity, people dressing well for the sake of flattering themselves?
HM
Sure, right. You can overdo it or you can give yourself a supersilious air, looking down on people. It’s not polite to take notice of people who are impolite or improper, and it’s not very intelligent behavior in a democracy. Where, even if we’re not all equal, we all think we are. And people don’t like being shown up as being inferior, therefore dishonorable. That’s democratic honor to think we’re all equal to each other. So we have rights and you’re not the boss of me, that kind of thing. It’s the honor of the every day person, the average person, the democratic citizen.
And so that’s reflected in the inequalities because, as I said, honor is always an unequal thing. It’s always in tension with democratic equality. And people who show their airs or show off are very quickly put down or criticized or thought less of, but we still make the distinction between formal and informal or between high and low or between looking your best and being what you normally are.
So normal and best are in a way the same, because normal ought to be a way of stressing that you’re not ashamed. That’s perfectly okay. That’s proper but it also isn’t perhaps you at your best, at you’re best-dressed. There are these gradations that we live with and that become all the more sensitive when our general principle is that we’re all equal.
Shepherd’s
So we've discussed democracy, but of course there is a sense of the father presiding over a family in a certain way. Can he do that very effectively in sweatpants?
HM
In sweatpants? [Laughs] No, less so. You wouldn’t want that to be your normal attire but maybe you can get away with it when people have you in mind as better dressed than that.