Which is at odds with his stated fear of totalitarianism,
In a non-totalitarian society, things can be viewed through a non-political lens. The realm of the political does not extend to all facets of our lives, because the political respects the right of individuals to live as they will without seeking political approval. Instead of greeting Styles’s cover with a shrug of indifference, or admiration, Shapiro views it a s political plot.
His nightmare of the future is his present reality.
I really like that look.
My fashion choices are almost as drab and boring as a conventional gen x straight man can get yet there isn’t a summer that goes by that I don’t imagine what a joy it could be to mosey along in a light summer dress.
It’s so great that the right is opposed to cancel cult… wait, what?
They aren’t dumb. Their reasoning skills are probably just fine. However, it’s in their own selfish interest to back positions that are refuted by reality. There’s no amount of reasoning or logic that can unmake reality. So they end up looking like idiots, when in fact they’re just narcissists who don’t care who they hurt or what damage they do in their pursuit of wealth and power.
Does that sound Harvard enough?
Ha. I had missed that one. I looked it up, watched the clip.
It’s like saying drums don’t produce music. Mmmmm… Problematic logic there.
Using the drums analogy, what he’s really signifying is that African drums don’t produce music, but European drums do. Because European drums are more sophisticated and don’t suck.
Or Shapiro is racist?
My dad, who I consider a manly man (not to mention a chicano cradle catholic), idolized these two singers. As such, I grew up to not to give a fuck about what a person was wearing unless they were a shitstain on God’s green Earth (and even then - fuck Polonius you blowhard - the clothes do not make the man (or woman or whatever you identify as)).
I am no longer catholic (haven’t been for over half my life), but I still use the metric: is this person a shitstain? The only hate my father taught me was for the police and republicans. That hate has evolved to distrust of the former and disdain for the latter. My mother, god rest her morals, has become a republican who now loves trump (and for FFS she was the one who taught me about MLK AND Steinem before I even attended grade school - though that, my friends, is a sad story for another time).
I propose we do something more active. And this is more directed at the OP than it is towards you, @ClutchLinkey.
We need to demand that media stop giving them infinite coverage and that social media stop giving them a free megaphone. That’s not ignoring. It’s stopping fanning the flames and throwing fuel on the fire.
Second, what little coverage they do get needs to be accompanied by fact-checking, EVERY TIME. In other words, what little airplay they get is just long enough for truth and reason to instantly debunk it. Simultaneously. Not disconnected in time.
When so called officials and leaders say false stuff, it needs an instant label.
Zuckerberg and MSM are in the megaphone business. They want every man, woman and child to buy one. And they get a royalty every time someone uses theirs. What they don’t see, can’t see, is that in a totally chaotic, free “state” (think atoms in Brownian motion), the truth telling megaphone wielders are continually drowned out by the cacophony of the lying, fantasy, fabrication, falsehoods, bullshit, dishonest megaphone wielders.
If we value a free society based on truth, honesty and science, we need a way to cause truth to regain its primacy. Otherwise, we’ll just see more and more bullshit pile up. And pre 2020, that was all cute and fine and theoretical. But now, in 2020, we have seen first hand that bullshit KILLS. Lies are literally killing us, as they always have… But now it’s in our faces and we can see it.
We have literally seen George Floyd killed on national TV because of a racist fabrication and enablers who did not stop his killer. Lies are killing us and we watch them reign superior every single day.
All the lies about race, ableism, sexism, trans and homophobia, lies about how medicine works, lies about social structure, lies about nearly everything under the sun… They’ve got to be expunged or we are going to extinct ourselves.
It’s so perplexing to me on another level, also. If I were going to personally construct a fantasy world, I’d at least make sure it is beautiful, full of fun things to do, interesting people and creatures to talk to, no sickness or suffering, every person equal and welcome. I’d make my fantasy world an amazing place. Not some hellscape like Dante’s inferno mixed with classical Chinese Hell of 18 levels and 40,000 different forms of torture and suffering. I am perplexed by how insane this world is.
I want a world where all we do is love each other, try to give each other support and pleasure, and kindness is rule #1. We can disagree, but we do it with kindness and logic. Anyways, enough rambling on a Sunday morning.
Humanity: great potential, but got lost somewhere in the delivery.
“I knew I shoulda made that left toin at Albakoiky.”
-Bugs Bunny
Agreed. And we can do both.
Years ago at a natural building conference, after hearing speaker after speaker tout the environmental urgency, etc., etc., there was some rumbling in the crowd about “wasting time preaching to the choir.”
The next speaker must’ve heard because he said, “you know what? Choirs practice.”
This part is the choir practice. You are talking about the performance. 
He’s saying rap isn’t music because music has melody, harmony, and rhythm.
So I guess ambient music isn’t music because it doesn’t have melody or rhythm. Hmm.
Wait, that’s not what he means?
I guess the Bach Unaccompanied Suites aren’t music because they don’t have harmony. So I guess pretty much anyone studying a string instrument was just wasting their time.
Still not what he means?
Oh yeah. He’s racist, and either a stupid racist or one who thinks his listeners are stupid. Probably both.
Another example of racist bullshit music theory:
Possibly not the best counterexample, because the Unaccompanied Suites have dozens of chords and double stops.
http://cellofun.eu/rep-lib/music-for-one-unaccompanied-cello/bach/solo-bach-chords-and-double-stops/
But here’s a takedown from a music theorist.
Yeah, I know, I’ve played all six of them. There’s a few dozen chords in there, in like sixty pages of music, used mostly for color. Still nowhere near as much harmony as hip hop has.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez writes
It looks wonderful. The masculine and the feminine elements are balanced beautifully — the hair and jacket styling give me James Dean vibes too.
Some people are mad at it bc some folks are very sensitive to examining and exploring gender roles in society. Perhaps for some people it provokes some anger or insecurity around masculinity/femininity/etc. If it does, then maybe that’s part of the point. Sit with that reaction and think about it, examine it, explore it, engage it, and grow with it.
What’s the point of creating things if they don’t make people think? Or feel or reflect? Especially as an artist or creative? Who wants to see the same things all the time? And never explore their assumptions?
Ok, well apparently I’m on my own in thinking that Harry looked like he’d raided the dressing up box to find that dress, and that he’d have looked better in something shorter. Personal taste I guess. Anyway, more pictures of men in dresses/skirts:
Yeah, I like the idea of Harry Styles in a dress on the cover of Vogue, but I don’t actually like the cover dress. Someone said it’s “frothy” but to me it seems heavy. You can see how the weight of it pulls on the lower rows of smocking on the bodice (hanging the skirt from an understructure, instead, could have helped with that). It just seems cumbersome. But it’s really only for a photo shoot, I guess—I mean, he’s not going to walk around in it, I presume. (Surely he had plenty of handlers and stylists there, and didn’t have to manage the dress himself during the shoot.) It’s about an idea, not so much about reality, if one asks me. Which is fine—that’s what the covers of Vogue are: just for show, and for making a point. IMO.
Edit to add another thought: I agree that it looks like he raided the dressing-up box, and IMO the outfit is clunky. But, while I think that something else might have looked better on him, I think that the clunky clothes serve to make Harry himself seem all the prettier/handsomer, in contrast. Maybe they didn’t want to put him in too nice an outfit.
