Coats cause inequality...

[Patine]

New crop is like the old crop, I would guess.

It's the social mores, right? Like, it really matters on what we're talking about, doesn't it? Plunking yourself right next to a soup line and chowing down on gold leaf coated quail, a 24 oz T-Bone, and bottle of bubbly is going to get a lot of people who support your getting decked. Excusing somebody for being sexually violent in response to seeing a belly button is much different. It's way more harmful, monstrous to excuse, and... probably baked in to some extent. Excess hormones are hard to be rational or moral with, that's not the mechanism. But hopefully we can set the stage better than we used to. Likewise, being offended by somebody wearing an article of their faith, that action alone. Well, that's just an expression of bigotry. Don't overdress it.

But at the heart and soul of it, regardless of response, public sentiment, or perspective (100 years ago, the two situations above would have been reversed - the aristocrat or other well-to-citizen would could have gotten the whole soup line into the paddy wagon and had the book thrown at them, and a judge then would have ruled the girl was dressed as a "harlot' and was "looking for it"), but it all ties into the idea of people blaming their actions on what someone else is wearing and not their ability to choose and control their reactions. It's a bigger, broader picture. It's also like an off-duty soldier getting jeered and froshed by hippies just for wearing their uniform, and the soldier then accused of "spreading war propaganda" around as a justification.

 

[Arakhor]

And it's not like the school in question actually cares enough to take measures that would make a more meaningful difference, like consistent consequences for kids who act problematically. No, we're going to take away one of many tools and pretend something "was done" about the problem, not unlike "common sense knife law".

A) What leads you to this conclusion and (b) why do you think that this school bears responsibility for the UK government's actions?

 

[Farm Boy]

But at the heart and soul of it, regardless of response, public sentiment, or perspective (100 years ago, the two situations above would have been reversed - the aristocrat or other well-to-citizen would could have gotten the whole soup line into the paddy wagon and had the book thrown at them, and a judge then would have ruled the girl was dressed as a "harlot' and was "looking for it"), but it all ties into the idea of people blaming their actions on what someone else is wearing and not their ability to choose and control their reactions. It's a bigger, broader picture. It's also like an off-duty soldier getting jeered and froshed by hippies just for wearing their uniform, and the soldier then accused of "spreading war propaganda" around as a justification.

It's important to know what can be changed, and how much. Sentiment can be changed, tribes can be changed, loyalties can be changed. I like most of the changes to our social mores that seem to have taken root in the last 100 years. Those old crops yielded a lot of goodnesses. The same weeds still grow, though, and the most pernicious grow in the rows where they're harder to root out. Can we eliminate people being bigots? No, not really. But we can acclimate them to seeing people wear a symbol of faith so that they're less jackassy about that. Can we eliminate teenagers pumped full of testosterone from being sexually aggressive and weak on rationality? Probably not. But we can acclimate them to not go bonkers when they see an ankle. That doesn't mean we should force them all to sit through morning prayers that aren't their own, and it doesn't mean we should green light openly sexualized behaviors and take to whapping people on the nose when they respond. They're going to be sexualized regardless. Learning control takes learning control, and control isn't mostly forbearance, it's mostly planning.

 

[Patine]

It's important to know what can be changed, and how much. Sentiment can be changed, tribes can be changed, loyalties can be changed. I like most of the changes to our social mores that seem to have taken root in the last 100 years. Those old crops yielded a lot of goodnesses. The same weeds still grow, though, and the most pernicious grow in the rows where they're harder to root out. Can we eliminate people being bigots? No, not really. But we can acclimate them to seeing people wear a symbol of faith so that they're less jackassy about that. Can we eliminate teenagers pumped full of testosterone from being sexually aggressive and weak on rationality? Probably not. But we can acclimate them to not go bonkers when they see an ankle. That doesn't mean we should force them all to sit through morning prayers that aren't their own, and it doesn't mean we should green light openly sexualized behaviors and take to whapping people on the nose when they respond. They're going to be sexualized regardless. Learning control takes learning control, and control isn't mostly forbearance, it's mostly planning.

But that also applies to students not running to their parents demanding an overpriced coat because they see someone at school wearing one, run to their parents saying they want one, and when their parents say it can't be afforded, blaming the student who wore the jacket in the first. It may be not be exact same context, but it's the same core mental trigger response - in terms of the blame mechanism, at least - psychologically.

 

[Farm Boy]

Status is an arms race. The expensive coat isn't just purchased because it's functional and high quality. It's purchased because other people can't. People aren't all wandering around in gently used Carharts from The Salvation Army.

If what couldn't be acquired widely becomes widely acquired, then something new and hard to get will be acquired. That's how it works when the competition is allowed. So you either determine it is acceptable, or you remove that specific bit of competition so that the students can learn more of something different, where they will still be competing to varying degrees. Lots of stuff is that way. Sexual selection/behavior/violence certainly does. Might even be near the root. I'd guess students will get enough learning and competition on money during their lives, even specifically through clothes. Let them learn something else when they're being educated.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

This is actually another symptom of a common problem here and there, especially at schools. The idea that how one student dresses makes them implicitly responsible for another student's reactions and lack of self-control over seeing it. It's a different take on the issue that girls at a school are "responsible" for boys being uncontrollably "tempted" and "distracted" if they don't dress to Puritan Goodwife dress code standards, or students wearing simple religious paraphernalia are "responsible" for other students inability to not be offended. This is ridiculous. If we're not teaching students self-control and self-responsibility for their own actions and feeling by the high school level, but are instead saying passing the buck on the blame for these things on others is acceptable, and the rules will back them back, what monstrous, self-entitled, self-indulgent, unaccountable new generation of hooligans are we churning out here?

I think you've rather got this the wrong way round. It's the children who don't have the expensive stuff who will also be bullied about it.

 

[Patine]

I think you've rather got this the wrong way round. It's the children who don't have the expensive stuff who will also be bullied about it.

I will refer you to the classic piece of social commentary literature "The Sneeches" by Dr. Seuss to ponder here.

 

[Farm Boy]

Just read the whole thing, what point are we extracting from the doctor?

 

[rah]

I just read the whole thing and was agreeing with it until they got to the part where they provide hygiene products. Really?

 

[brennan]

This is pretty weird. It may be that this particular school has a unique problem. I've not heard of this anywhere else. $1200 coats?

 

[rah]

Yeah kids have been killed over much cheaper gym shoes. I can't image what they might do for something that much more valuable.

 

[Arakhor]

I just read the whole thing and was agreeing with it until they got to the part where they provide hygiene products. Really?

If you live in poverty, you may need money for food rather than sanitary towels and if you're in that horrible situation, you'd be likely to bunk off school than attend in that state. Austerity has been a joke.

 

[brennan]

Teachers are having to wash children's clothes and lend their parents money

21st Century Britain. Gawd bless the Tories for all this prosperity.

 

[Patine]

This is pretty weird. It may be that this particular school has a unique problem. I've not heard of this anywhere else. $1200 coats?

They're not $1200 each here in Canada. But I guess we make them here, and Britain may slap some trade fees on certain clothing items like that, that may be quite stiff. Plus, British upmarket department stores may mark them up GREATLY, because there, they can get away with it.

 

[Silurian]

The Canada Goose website does not give much below £500 looks like the average is around £700-£800 each which is way to expensive for someone on an average income to pay for a coat for their child.

https://www.canadagoose.com/uk/en/s...cket&medium=cpc&mtype=e&q=parka&source=google

 

[Patine]

The Canada Goose website does not give much below £500 looks like the average is around £700-£800 each which is way to expensive for someone on an average income to pay for a coat for their child.

https://www.canadagoose.com/uk/en/search?&agp=60709473792&cid=1597578469&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8u3KsZjh3gIVyrTtCh1zRghxEAAYASAAEgIALfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&kid=canada goose jacket&medium=cpc&mtype=e&q=parka&source=google

Like I said, we don't pay those kinds of prices for them in Canada. I think several layers of greed and jacked up empty profit margins are somewhere along the line in a filter between Canadian and British markets, unduly lining someone's wallets...

 

[rah]

I sense a business opportunity

 

[Silurian]

The Tariffs on clothing is about 12% in the EU and VAT is charged at 20% in the UK on the product and tariff

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A) What leads you to this conclusion and (b) why do you think that this school bears responsibility for the UK government's actions?

A) If the school cared, it would not do half-baked changes that don't address the root problem in any capacity.

B) I didn't assert that. I do assert that the school's own action are a reflection of the same mentality that led to "common sense knife law" and that it's less surprising that they'd be from the same country. The non-rationale is similar in both cases, on different scales. Rather than any personal responsibility or directly altering incentives/consequences let's just ban tools randomly.

 

[Kyriakos]

Damned coats. Sebs all the way!