Fashion and Philosophy

After reading Lars Svendsen’s excellent book on boredom, I decided to give his Fashion, A Philosophy ISBN 1861892918 a read. Fashion is about presenting the new to outmode the previous. This book is a critical examination of fashion, but does not do much in the way of original thought. While philosophers have not said much about fashion, some social commentators have, and this is whence the material comes. The author’s main contribution is to suggest that since about 1950 the logic of fashion has changed from one of replacement to one of supplementation.

Existential Ennui

While enduring the intolerable agitation of nicotine withdrawal I felt myself compelled to look for some sort of sign that my recent state of mind was not unique. After searching, I decided on A Philosophy of Boredom, ISBN 1861892179 by Lars Svendsen. I found it to be a racy little read. Never a dull moment. And yes, it was there in black and white… existential ennui. An incisive interpretation of the postmodern condition supported by historical and philosophical argument.

To back this up, I sought that most logical of atheists, Bertrand Russell. I enjoyed In Praise of Idleness, ISBN 0415325064I, an argument in favour of increasing the idle time of all; and his suggestion that residential architecture be remodelled around the nursery group. He has a lot to say about Fascism and Communism, he obviously prefers Socialism over the extant capitalist economics, but his side has still not won in Anglo-American circles. One of his essays is about youthful cynicism. He makes the observation that in many countries the youth are full of energy and drive, but in Western countries tend to be somewhat cynical. This cynicism, I think, can be equated with existential ennui. I had just finished reading his History of Western Philosophy, ISBN 0415325056, a hard read, but full of masterful insight from the great mathematician.

On the economics front, I gathered a book, Freakonomics, ISBN 0061234001 by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Half-written by a self-deprecating nerd-type, his Woody Allenesque line is that he doesn’t know economics, he doesn’t know mathematics, he just intuits these causative and correlative links in various data. This is the guy who suggested a causative link between Roe v. Wade and the reduction in crime rate starting about fifteen years after that time. What I thought was interesting was that he was able to come up with algorithms to use automated test scoring to identify good and cheating teachers, obviously he has some degree of analytic proficiency. This was an interesting tour through the (somewhat random) musings of a deep thinker.