Wearing a suit in an inappropriate context is like wearing a fedora. It says “I am socially clueless enough to do random inappropriate things”.
“In an inappropriate context” is ambiguous. It can mean “in a context where people don’t normally wear suits” or it can mean “in a place where people consider it actively wrong to wear a suit”.
There are of course places of the latter type, like it would be very weird to wear a suit in a gym or swimming pool. But I don’t think lsusr would advocate that.
If you just mean “in a context where people don’t normally wear suits”, then wearing a suit in such a context could signal social cluelessness, but it could also signal confidence and self-esteem.
This reasoning would justify violating any social convention whatsoever. “Refusing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ signals confidence and self-esteem”.
Yes, it does, but signalling those things and signalling social cluelessness are entwined. “My self esteem is more important than these petty rules” can mean that you think you are really important compared to the rules, or that the rules are unimportant compared to you. You’re also overrating self-esteem. Signalling self-esteem is often a bad thing.
(Remember how fedoras became a sign of cluelessness? It’s not very different from out of context suits.)
This reasoning would justify violating any social convention whatsoever. “Refusing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ signals confidence and self-esteem”.
Wrong. I distinguished between conventions that people have a reason to respond negatively to if you violate them (e.g. wearing a suit to the gym or swimming pool which is stupid since it will ruin both your exercise and your suit), and behaviors that just happen to be unusual but not intrinsically negative. Refusing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ would fall squarely in the category that people would have a reason to feel negative about.
My understanding is that fedoras became a sign of cluelessness because they got associated with groups like pick-up artists, which is also an explicit reason to have a negative reaction to them.
Refusing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ would fall squarely in the category that people would have a reason to feel negative about.
It’s not like wearing a suit in a swimming pool. Never saying “thank you” doesn’t physically damage things. It just makes people upset because of the social inappropriateness, like the inappropriate suit.
“In an inappropriate context” is ambiguous. It can mean “in a context where people don’t normally wear suits” or it can mean “in a place where people consider it actively wrong to wear a suit”.
There are of course places of the latter type, like it would be very weird to wear a suit in a gym or swimming pool. But I don’t think lsusr would advocate that.
If you just mean “in a context where people don’t normally wear suits”, then wearing a suit in such a context could signal social cluelessness, but it could also signal confidence and self-esteem.
This reasoning would justify violating any social convention whatsoever. “Refusing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ signals confidence and self-esteem”.
Yes, it does, but signalling those things and signalling social cluelessness are entwined. “My self esteem is more important than these petty rules” can mean that you think you are really important compared to the rules, or that the rules are unimportant compared to you. You’re also overrating self-esteem. Signalling self-esteem is often a bad thing.
(Remember how fedoras became a sign of cluelessness? It’s not very different from out of context suits.)
Wrong. I distinguished between conventions that people have a reason to respond negatively to if you violate them (e.g. wearing a suit to the gym or swimming pool which is stupid since it will ruin both your exercise and your suit), and behaviors that just happen to be unusual but not intrinsically negative. Refusing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ would fall squarely in the category that people would have a reason to feel negative about.
My understanding is that fedoras became a sign of cluelessness because they got associated with groups like pick-up artists, which is also an explicit reason to have a negative reaction to them.
It’s not like wearing a suit in a swimming pool. Never saying “thank you” doesn’t physically damage things. It just makes people upset because of the social inappropriateness, like the inappropriate suit.