A week ago today something was wrong. I was consistently receiving strange looks from the people who passed me by. Did I smell? Was I dressed like a Nazi? No, I had done the fold instead of the scrunch.
I am talking turtlenecks. I had committed a fashion faux pas and had folded my turtleneck over once instead of scrunching it down like a tube sock.
It was only last year when the scrunch was virtually unheard of. Now scrunchers are everywhere. These scrunchers are blind slaves to fashion who have abandoned the fold for no good reason.
This scruncher mentality, however, is not limited to turtlenecks. Scrunchers left sandals for Tevas. You will also hear scrunchers claiming that "These wood-soled clogs are actually really comfortable!" Really?
These fashion scrunchers are basically harmless. There is no real danger from those who have disavowed the fold of a turtleneck, instead the real danger lies in those who have abandoned the folds of their own minds.
These are the mental scrunchers and their numbers are far too great on this campus. Mind scrunchers are slaves of ideological fashion. They think of themselves as mainstream but in reality they are just going with the flow.
There is a fundamental difference between the mainstream and the scrunchers. The mainstream relies on common sense. It has established values and each new idea must face the test of these established values.
In this way new modes of thinking are accepted or rejected through the use of reason.
Scrunchers disregard common sense and are concerned only with what they sense to be common. If scrunchers hear it on enough lips then they follow the fashion. Common sense would recommend examining the quality of the source but scrunchers count only the quantity of the sources.
The ironic thing about mental scrunchers is that while their ideas seem to shift with the breeze they inhibit any sort of real change. Just as clothes fashion changes without heading towards any goal, the ideological shifts of scrunchers never lead to the advancement of thought.
As new ideas come into vogue the change is a horizontal one. The new idea has not carried us up; it has only dragged us sideways. While they are often at the head of social circles, scrunchers are never leaders in a true sense.
Being a leader and dressing fashionably are not mutually exclusive. If you do not follow a certain amount of fashion you will be ignored and any leadership you offer will be pointless.
Just because you bought Birkenstocks at the height of their hipness doesn't mean you can't stand for something.
But, if you buy into ideas because they are hip then you will never lead us anywhere. If you are going to follow ideas for their style then maybe you should forget any attempts at dressing stylishly. Why don't you try on this nice brown shirt? It was made in Germany in the 1930s. I think it would fit.
