Modesty for women and men

[OurBeloved]

Try running confidence intervals, etc. and let me know about sample sizes.

See, if you really think about what you are saying, I can just do any experiment in the world, increase my sample size and answer all questions about anything and everything.

So the design of the experiment is really irrelevant. All we need to do is increase sample sizes. This alone should make you really think twice about what you are saying.

The objection presented to you initially was that a experiment cannot be designed to observe a system that changes when it is observed. Increasing the sample size doesn’t get rid of that problem.

If you really know of some way to still overcome the problem of such uncertainty in a system by merely increasing sample size, the first place you should present your mathematical formulation is the experiments dealing with Heisenberg Principle

But as far as current literature goes, you cannot accomplish such problems by increasing sample size.

 

[severus68]

Also, since there is so much focus on women for a principle that is supposed to apply to both sexes, I have a hard time empathizing with the concern over what women wear. I look around and see that virtually all men doing their hair, dressing, shaving, and wearing cologne in an attempt to be sexy, yet as a group they get a complete pass on the modesty issue; instead I see everyone trying to micromanage what women should / shouldn’t wear. I find this outrageous.

So, probably not the healthiest attitude for me to have, but in general I couldn’t care less about what women as a whole are wearing as long as there is virtually no discussion of what men should do differently to avoid being objects of lust.

And lest you think I am exaggerating - look at how men are dressed when they go to clubs and bars to try to sleep with women. Invariably they wear fitting clothes in a good color for them, as well as their lucky cologne / hair gel / deodorant / all of the above. They know it has an effect on women, and they know the effect it has. So since they set the bar for other men, it ripples through and even men who are NOT out looking to get laid present themselves this way.

So, what I COULD do is take a page from the book of many of the men on here and say that all men who present themselves that way obviously know what effect they are having on women and are all clearly sinning because they all clearly have the intent of tempting women to sin. OR, I could be a bit more charitable and simply say that maybe modesty is something men should also think about rather than focusing on women. Speck, meet plank.

Thank you for bringing humour in and making very valid points.

 

[Baelor]

I think we are really getting in to the heart of the matter here. This is a fundamental error in your thinking that is affecting you.

We only know what act is morally permissible or impermissible i.e. causing temptation, murder, stealing etc.

Correct.

As to how we build a society that is against those things, it is based on collective wisdom and experience of those before us who tried to do just that.

I am not interested in building such a society. I am interested in one thing, and one thing only: identifying what is modest and what is immodest.

The issue is addressed definitively by putting everyone in identical, opaque sacks. This is not difficult. It obvious that this would address the issue of modesty; it is far less obvious that this is a unique solution.

If artificial observation is known to change the behavior of the system itself, then your results are invalid.

The behavior is what is relevant if we are approaching modesty from a utilitarian perspective, as jj et al. are.

So what do we do until someone completes this study? Which values do you follow till then? Why should we trust your knowledge, wisdom and experience in conducting this study over the collective experience of centuries?

See Baelor, you really aren’t thinking things through here.

No, I am. Because I am interested in resolving this issue in a manner that will be eternal in scope: a criterion for determining what is modest and what is immodest.

Hahaha, are you seriously kidding? If I design an incorrect experiment that cannot give me valid data, you are telling me a large sample size can circumvent the issue ?

The experiment is not inherently incorrect.

So you aren’t asking the question. What reason do I have to think that Baelor, who thinks that large sample size is the solution to everything, possibly came up with any valid results over the collective wisdom of centuries?

A loaded question, because you assume the results “gathered over centuries” are based on wisdom and are valid – something that you have not demonstrated.

Not everything needs to be in print. Not all of Sacred Tradition was in print. Do you reject that too?

Think hard about what you are saying, and reread my previous post until you see the problem with this line of thinking vis-a-vis modesty.

 

[Baelor]

See, if you really think about what you are saying, I can just do any experiment in the world, increase my sample size and answer all questions about anything and everything.

I am not saying that.

So the design of the experiment is really irrelevant. All we need to do is increase sample sizes. This alone should make you really think twice about what you are saying.

I am not saying that.

The objection presented to you initially was that a experiment cannot be designed to observe a system that changes when it is observed. Increasing the sample size doesn’t get rid of that problem.

I want you to think carefully about what I am about to say before jumping to conclusions. Bear in mind that we are operating on the utilitarian approach to modesty that I have laid out earlier, and you will realize why what I am saying is correct: whether observing the system changes it is irrelevant so long as the change persists post-observation.

It is also not clear to me how this occurs. Thinking hard produces no answers. Something is sexually attractive, or it is not.

 

[OurBeloved]

1. A clear statement of what constitutes problematic incitement of lust v. unproblematic incitement of lust.
2. A clear methodology for approaching a determination of how to implement 1). Note that “traditional values” is not a complete answer, because those traditional values still required a methodology for being determined.

Specifically, although one could claim that the collective wisdom and experience produces an answer (which seems to be your claim), it is not clear that 1) has been achieved beforehand, which makes the collective wisdom and experience irrelevant because it has no basis, and that even if 1) were to be demonstrated, that the methodology involved is justified.

In other words, I am looking for something that would satisfy Socrates at the time of his interlocution with Protagoras. Of course, I am just guessing what this would entail, because the idea that I have read so old and seminal an author is, of course, absurd to you.

See, the problem here is that you are once again reducing this to (1). The point here is that society has performed experiments to see what causes lust. Its not just based on which body part incites lust though it would certainly be part of it. It is also a matter of how it is revealed sometimes.

All of this is taken in to account when a dress is tried out, the reactions are noted by a community, and standards are modified and passed down.

Some errors might creep in, but over-time, the errors would disappear (now you can perhaps use some of your statistical knowledge here to better understand this).

In short, this involves you understanding how a culture formulates any standard at all when it holds something as a core value (usually that comes from religion). If you think about how it happens, and think about how you yourself form beliefs and standards of data that you cannot collect first hand yourself, it would be clear to you that this is just how it takes place in a larger scale.

The reason why you object to this is because you are not the one that collected the data or you are not sure the data was collected accurately. But the problem is that not everyone can obviously start collecting data every-time they want to try out a new dress, and not everyone is capable of or have resources to do such experiments (besides the impossibility I suggested).

So it is how human society operates. This is a observation rather than a proof. You are confusing this as a result of some logical inference that can be evaluated using Socratic logic. It is not. It is just a mere observation on how humanity operates.

 

[severus68]

I am not sure you have even been reading all my posts so I don’t think it is justice on your part to ask me to answer your questions.

Here are couple of reasons why I think the above.

I was always referring to traditional values around modesty rather than modesty as a traditional value it-self. I separated modesty to be a core value of culture. You don’t seem to have grasped the difference and are asking me to give you other ‘traditional values other than modesty’.

Secondly, this thread is specifically dealing with modesty as it applies to dress. While modesty is important in other areas, it is not any less important in dress either. That is a issue we must discuss and is being discussed here. But now you seem to want to discuss something else which I don’t see the point of doing.

It seems like your goal is to try and get me a topic you are comfortable with and just spiral this discussion in some random direction. I like to have more confined discussions on topics. If you like to go broad, I humbly and respectfully suggest you find someone else.

You are still avoiding questions. I believe thewanderer asked you for a list of values. You put down those who ask you questions you do not want to answer - to distract perhaps?

 

[OurBeloved]

You are still avoiding questions. I believe thewanderer asked you for a list of values. You put down those who ask you questions you do not want to answer - to distract perhaps?

I pointed thewanderer toward a place to find the list of values. Since the actual list of values themselves are not the discussion but the validity of turning to these values is the question here, I don’t think there is any need for me to mention specific values on this thread.

Again, this is displaying that you are not reading my posts yet you are demanding answers. Don’t you think that this whole thing is a bit unfair?

 

[AthenaC]

OurBeloved -

There is a glaring hole in your reasoning. Namely, the experiments that “society” has performed are biased. You have heard the phrase, “History is written by the victors,” no? Well, the values of “society” are those who are in control or have a higher status. Namely, men. So the results of this “study” favor the men and are biased against women; which is exemplified by the fact that you all have spent over 20 pages arguing about how modest women should be, with literally a handful of posts suggesting that men should think about this principle as well. This is further exemplified that any standards of dress out there objectify women - as the no-longer-quiverfull blog masterfully articulated, modestly objectifies women. On the other end of the spectrum, I don’t think anyone here will dispute that revealing fashions objectify women.

While women have it better in America (for example) thanks to our Judeo-Christian roots and the fact that Jesus treated women as moral agents responsible for their own actions and destiny, the fact remains that men have historically (and still do) enjoy a measured advantage. And when they do, they set the rules the way that serves them best. It has been brought up in this thread before, but that is what Islamic culture exemplifies in the expectations of modesty for women. This is what happens when men are in control - they set the rules such that they control women. It is true in the Islamic world, and it is true here, albeit to a much lesser extent, since as a woman I am clearly free to call this out for the baloney that it is without fear of being stoned.

 

[severus68]

I pointed thewanderer toward a place to find the list of values. Since the actual list of values themselves are not the discussion but the validity of turning to these values is the question here, I don’t think there is any need for me to mention specific values on this thread.

Again, this is displaying that you are not reading ill notmy posts yet you are demanding answers. Don’t you think that this whole thing is a bit unfair?

I have read all your posts and those of others. It is pointless for discussion if you will not address questions put to you.

 

[OurBeloved]

OurBeloved -

There is a glaring hole in your reasoning. Namely, the experiments that “society” has performed are biased. You have heard the phrase, “History is written by the victors,” no? Well, the values of “society” are those who are in control or have a higher status. Namely, men. So the results of this “study” favor the men and are biased against women; which is exemplified by the fact that you all have spent over 20 pages arguing about how modest women should be, with literally a handful of posts suggesting that men should think about this principle as well. This is further exemplified that any standards of dress out there objectify women - as the no-longer-quiverfull blog masterfully articulated, modestly objectifies women. On the other end of the spectrum, I don’t think anyone here will dispute that revealing fashions objectify women.

While women have it better in America (for example) thanks to our Judeo-Christian roots and the fact that Jesus treated women as moral agents responsible for their own actions and destiny, the fact remains that men have historically (and still do) enjoy a measured advantage. And when they do, they set the rules the way that serves them best. It has been brought up in this thread before, but that is what Islamic culture exemplifies in the expectations of modesty for women. This is what happens when men are in control - they set the rules such that they control women. It is true in the Islamic world, and it is true here, albeit to a much lesser extent, since as a woman I am clearly free to call this out for the baloney that it is without fear of being stoned.

First, calm down

Now as for what you are suggesting, this matter is not about writing history. History, once written, is not changed by future experiences because it was in the past. Values on the other hand do get refined with experiences and values that are errors usually go away when the culture goes on for a long time and the goal to be modest is still held consistent.

As for why there are more standards available for modesty for women and less for men, one could easily provide such form of an observation.

Women tend to change fashions more often and experiment with dress. Men usually tend to have one fashion that they wear for entire historical periods at times and tend to be purely functionally adjusted.

Since women were the ones who experimented, more standards are their for women to follow with respect to designing their dresses. There really is no need to bring in male domination to this issue.

This is just an observation that I think is more valid than your male domination theory.

As for Islam, we had this brought up before and as I pointed out then, Islam was actually a break from cultural values. You had a Prophet Muhammad enforce a certain dress of his choice on every woman over-night. Needless to say, there was no natural evolution of traditional values but an actual adoption of a dress out of nowhere.

Also something that you should keep in mind is that I am not giving an argument. I am making an observation on how humanity operates as I was explaining above to our brother Baelor.

 

[OurBeloved]

I have read all your posts and those of others. It is pointless for discussion if you will not address questions put to you.

I think I have sufficiently answered all questions where and when it was required.

 

[thewanderer]

I think I have sufficiently answered all questions where and when it was required.

Actually OurBeloved, I would really appreciate it if you would do more than simply say “look at the saints and popes”.

Let me try to explain a little more about where I am coming from. In the past I followed the pressure of some friends of mine to accept what they considered to be “traditional values” for modesty. This led me into the very same cycle as that of the girl in the article previously posted. I thankfully was not entrenched in this cycle nearly as long as she was. In fact, the reason I got pulled out of it was only because of a drastic change in my life due to the death of a close loved one. But I have since realized how that was all part of God’s providence to pull me out of that vicious cycle I was in. (I was also headed towards believing that the OF was invalid, that JPII and other recent Popes caused major damage to mankind etc. etc.)

Once you understand this background perhaps you willl be better able to understand why I am not going to accept any standard of clothing simply because someone tells me it fits in with the “traditional” values of modesty. And so, why I want you to actually give me specifics on this thread, of what you mean by traditional values. This is also part of the reason that I am hesitant, for the sake of others to simply leave it at obey what “traditional values” of modesty tell you too. It is all too likely that if you leave it at that, without defining what you mean and explaining why that is the correct standard there will be other people come along and read this thread and be led by it to get caught up in the same awful trap that me and so many other women have found themselves in at one point or another, and they might not be as lucky as me to get out of it as quickly as I did.

So I would very much appreciate it if you would explain exactly what you mean by traditional values.

 

[AthenaC]

Now as for what you are suggesting, this matter is not about writing history. History, once written, is not changed by future experiences because it was in the past. Values on the other hand do get refined with experiences and values that are errors usually go away when the culture goes on for a long time and the goal to be modest is still held consistent.

Au contraire, my good sir / ma’am / androgynous internet fellow. You mention observations of human behavior, no? A cursory examination of psychological research shows that similar trends cross disciplinary lines; as such, the observation about who controls history is applicable to who controls societal values. As such, the idea of male domination of such values is very much applicable.

As for why there are more standards available for modesty for women and less for men, one could easily provide such form of an observation.

Women tend to change fashions more often and experiment with dress. Men usually tend to have one fashion that they wear for entire historical periods at times and tend to be purely functionally adjusted.

Since women were the ones who experimented, more standards are their for women to follow with respect to designing their dresses. There really is no need to bring in male domination to this issue.

So basically, what a self-serving, male-dominated society has deemed to be “modest” for men has been well-established since the dawn of time since men’s fashions don’t change as rapidly. That piece I will agree with. However, please see my posts regarding modesty for men. In sum, men are not modest in the way women are expected to be modest. Regarding male domination, see my explanation above regarding the universality of principles of human behavior and thus the broad applicability of the “victor.”

This is just an observation that I think is more valid than your male domination theory.

Ah! An observation! I see. Well, using that logic, my observations are just as valid as yours. Where do we go from here?

As for Islam, we had this brought up before and as I pointed out then, Islam was actually a break from cultural values. You had a Prophet Muhammad enforce a certain dress of his choice on every woman over-night. Needless to say, there was no natural evolution of traditional values but an actual adoption of a dress out of nowhere.

Yes, but this was a cultural revolution that held modesty as a cultural value. According to your own posts (which I have read), this means we should include Islamic culture in our understanding of what comprises a universal “modesty” standard. In addition, the “wisdom” of this culture is such that modesty standards for women haven’t changed much in ~1k years. So, again according to your own posts, this is a change that you should celebrate. We could get into other ways the objectification and domination of women in Islamic society should be a BIG clue as to how modesty is part of a mentality that objectifies women (polygamy and genital mutilation, for example).

Also something that you should keep in mind is that I am not giving an argument. I am making an observation on how humanity operates as I was explaining above to our brother Baelor.

Ah! An observation! I see. Well, using that logic, my observations are just as valid as yours. Where do we go from here?

 

[Baelor]

See, the problem here is that you are once again reducing this to (1). The point here is that society has performed experiments to see what causes lust. Its not just based on which body part incites lust though it would certainly be part of it. It is also a matter of how it is revealed sometimes.

And the concrete determination is…? What is the answer to 1) given an adherence to traditional values? And the concrete determination of 2) is…? Again, assuming that your theory is totally valid.

Also something that you should keep in mind is that I am not giving an argument. I am making an observation on how humanity operates as I was explaining above to our brother Baelor.

As to the rest of the post and this statement, I would appreciate some hard evidence that society operates in this manner, and that its judgment can be trusted.

If you want to make the leap of faith that humanity is not risk-averse and will therefore always border on the edge of the modest-immodest boundary, if you want to make the leap of faith that the judgment of individuals in the aggregate is accurate, if you want to make the leap of faith that individuals are able to accurately identify the correct judgments of others, if you want to make the leap of faith that all factors that went into creating the “traditional values” were based on the correct methodology and ideology, if you want to make the leap of faith that the premises upon which all societies were operating were correct, be my guest.

In fact, let us assume all those things for the purposes of this post. Now,

1. Make “traditional values” governing dress concrete
2. Identify the dress that results from “traditional values”
3. Answer both issues laid out in my last post, neither of which has been identified as incorrect or problematic.

 

[OurBeloved]

Actually OurBeloved, I would really appreciate it if you would do more than simply say “look at the saints and popes”.

Let me try to explain a little more about where I am coming from. In the past I followed the pressure of some friends of mine to accept what they considered to be “traditional values” for modesty. This led me into the very same cycle as that of the girl in the article previously posted. I thankfully was not entrenched in this cycle nearly as long as she was. In fact, the reason I got pulled out of it was only because of a drastic change in my life due to the death of a close loved one. But I have since realized how that was all part of God’s providence to pull me out of that vicious cycle I was in. (I was also headed towards believing that the OF was invalid, that JPII and other recent Popes caused major damage to mankind etc. etc.)

Once you understand this background perhaps you willl be better able to understand why I am not going to accept any standard of clothing simply because someone tells me it fits in with the “traditional” values of modesty. And so, why I want you to actually give me specifics on this thread, of what you mean by traditional values. This is also part of the reason that I am hesitant, for the sake of others to simply leave it at obey what “traditional values” of modesty tell you too. It is all too likely that if you leave it at that, without defining what you mean and explaining why that is the correct standard there will be other people come along and read this thread and be led by it to get caught up in the same awful trap that me and so many other women have found themselves in at one point or another, and they might not be as lucky as me to get out of it as quickly as I did.

So I would very much appreciate it if you would explain exactly what you mean by traditional values.

I am once again confused. I have already explained what traditional values are. You are asking for a specific list of values.

In other words, this would be like me explaining what the word Law means. Then you ask me what specific Laws are. Since this was not part of the discussion, and is usually where threads diverge in to oblivion, I didn’t go in to this.

I sympathize much with your past experience in heading down what sounds more along the lines of dissenting traditionalist beliefs i.e. rejecting OF, JPII etc.

But what I am suggesting to you should not bother you. It is simply to listen to the Pope’s, priests, Bishops and saints on how to best dress and use those standards to adopt today’s fashions.

So yes, as I explained to you before, you should adopt the standards regarding what you should show and what you shouldn’t show. Just because you went down the wrong road once after adopting these values, it doesn’t mean that it always leads down the same road.

To give you an example, Luther went down the road he went, partly after he became overly scrupulous of his sins. This doesn’t mean that we should abandon our sins too so that we don’t become like Luther.

So something tells me that you are aware of traditional values, but you are just reluctant because of a bad experience you had with taking it too far like Luther did.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Are you going to actually argue that sex is not currently factor in sales? WOW!

LOL! It certainly isn’t a factor in my company. Shocked? Let me ask you then. Do you need sex to promote an ERP system? I don’t think so. Do you need a Playboy Bunny to market a breakfast cereal? Again, no. What about toys? Nope. Operating systems? Nope. Laptops? Nope. I’ve hardly if ever seen any sex appeal models used there.

Your not the only one to have worked in advertising. I was scolded for not putting a half dressed female on the cover of a men’s magazine promotion.

Men’s magazines =/= Fashion
Men’s magazines =/= Whole of advertising industry

Who cares what’s “more popular” in games, that’s not what we’re dealing with. Sex isn’t less popular, is it?

In several areas? It is.

You know what your problem is? You approach things from a badly generalized perspective. I suggest you stop hanging around the religious types of the Modesty Police and actually view things a bit more logically. The fact that not everything needs sex is proof that people aren’t mindless, hormonally driven beasts. There are things that are better than sex. How this surprises you and at the same time the sexually depraved tells me your types have lot more in common with them than you let on.

Like I said, Modesty Police and Fashion Police: two branches of the same shallow tree.

. Would there be any reason for a father to tell his daughter not to wear a tight mini skirt( or the like) which has been said by fathers for years? You can tell the fathers they are doing wrong and what she wears has no bearing on anything.

I’m told by my mother not to wear a hoodie because it makes me look like a stalking gangsta. Following your logic, she’s right and I’m a guy who mugs people in his spare time.

 

[OurBeloved]

And the concrete determination is…? What is the answer to 1) given an adherence to traditional values? And the concrete determination of 2) is…? Again, assuming that your theory is totally valid.

As to the rest of the post and this statement, I would appreciate some hard evidence that society operates in this manner, and that its judgment can be trusted.

If you want to make the leap of faith that humanity is not risk-averse and will therefore always border on the edge of the modest-immodest boundary, if you want to make the leap of faith that the judgment of individuals in the aggregate is accurate, if you want to make the leap of faith that individuals are able to accurately identify the correct judgments of others, if you want to make the leap of faith that all factors that went into creating the “traditional values” were based on the correct methodology and ideology, if you want to make the leap of faith that the premises upon which all societies were operating were correct, be my guest.

In fact, let us assume all those things for the purposes of this post. Now,

1. Make “traditional values” governing dress concrete
2. Identify the dress that results from “traditional values”
3. Answer both issues laid out in my last post, neither of which has been identified as incorrect or problematic.

There is nothing to address in your past posts because they are allegations against a suppossed argument. I am not presenting an argument but an observation.

If I say that children are born to parents, there is nothing to prove logically. It is an observation.

I gave you an observation of how human society operates and made it clear to you why this experimentation method is not a practical way for human society to operate. Now you want me to justify how humanity operates

The point here is that if you reject how humanity operates, and come up with your own experimentation method, that works for you personally. But there is no reason to believe that the average person can adopt your methodology.

Also, are you claiming to me that humanity does not operate this way when it comes to social standards?

What you are saying can be asked about any epistemological endeavor that is based on consensus, including Science. Every person on the planet can rightfully say that they don’t accept a scientific principle because they didn’t figure it out themselves after experimentation. The entire field of academia can be rejected because there is no reason to think that the communities which were built by communities themselves have any clue of what is true. There are no guarantees.

In short, you are having a epistemological crisis of sorts if you object to how human society operates and will have to find a framework to replace the existing ones in these fields.

 

[OurBeloved]

Au contraire, my good sir / ma’am / androgynous internet fellow. You mention observations of human behavior, no? A cursory examination of psychological research shows that similar trends cross disciplinary lines; as such, the observation about who controls history is applicable to who controls societal values. As such, the idea of male domination of such values is very much applicable.

So is the belief that “male domination caused all of this” also something written by the victors? So it would seem by your claim, that the statement it-self is not really true, but just something written by whoever won the last battle…

I think you are kind of shooting yourself on the foot here.

So basically, what a self-serving, male-dominated society has deemed to be “modest” for men has been well-established since the dawn of time since men’s fashions don’t change as rapidly. **That piece I will agree with. ** However, please see my posts regarding modesty for men. In sum, men are not modest in the way women are expected to be modest. Regarding male domination, see my explanation above regarding the universality of principles of human behavior and thus the broad applicability of the “victor.”

What does this have to do with my refutation that you were false in claiming men require extensive standards on their dress?

If they have different issues with modesty, then there is no point talking about those in a discussion dealing with dress

Ah! An observation! I see. Well, using that logic, my observations are just as valid as yours. Where do we go from here?

Well, I gave reasons to believe why your observations seem to be inconsistent with what we actually observe. I think where we go from here is you accept my observations OR give alternative ways for human society to operate.

I don’t see you giving either except that you don’t like the current way it operated because males might have dominated women.

Yes, but this was a cultural revolution that held modesty as a cultural value. According to your own posts (which I have read), this means we should include Islamic culture in our understanding of what comprises a universal “modesty” standard. In addition, the “wisdom” of this culture is such that modesty standards for women haven’t changed much in ~1k years. So, again according to your own posts, this is a change that you should celebrate. We could get into other ways the objectification and domination of women in Islamic society should be a BIG clue as to how modesty is part of a mentality that objectifies women (polygamy and genital mutilation, for example).

There is no collective wisdom on modesty in Islam. This is what you don’t seem to realize. It is a forceful enforcement of a value thought out by one man over night. It never took place in a natural course. So it was an over-kill procedure.

Does it accomplish modesty in dress? Certainly!

But do we really need a burqa to accomplish modesty? Certainly not because other cultures that did uphold modesty have found ways to uphold modesty without resorting to anything close to a burqa.

Ah! An observation! I see. Well, using that logic, my observations are just as valid as yours. Where do we go from here?

I think I answered this before

 

[AthenaC]

So is the belief that “male domination caused all of this” also something written by the victors? So it would seem by your claim, that the statement it-self is not really true, but just something written by whoever won the last battle…

I think you are kind of shooting yourself on the foot here.

Not so. Before I begin, this will be my last reply to you because I am not going to get sucked into the abyss of frustration, tempting though it may be. As I already mentioned, if you have read my posts, dissent by women is not punishable by stoning, so my assertion dissenting from the dominant narrative of male domination (which I have observed … see what I did there?) is not inconsistent with the overall idea that history and societal values are written by the victors.

What does this have to do with my refutation that you were false in claiming men require extensive standards on their dress?

If they have different issues with modesty, then there is no point talking about those in a discussion dealing with dress .

Once again, if you read my posts, you would see my observation that men are given a pass on the modesty principle. There is EVERY point in talking about this, since modesty is a universally applicable principle, and not intended to be used as a club to beat women into submission.

Well, I gave reasons to believe why your observations seem to be inconsistent with what we actually observe. I think where we go from here is you accept my observations OR give alternative ways for human society to operate.

I don’t see you giving either except that you don’t like the current way it operated because males might have dominated women…

Please re-read what I said. It has been my observation that men are dominant, the explanation for and the exemplification of I have already explained.

Again, you merely asserted your “observations” were correct. You didn’t give any reasons why mine are inconsistent; as I demonstrated, your logic is glaringly flawed.

There is no collective wisdom on modesty in Islam. This is what you don’t seem to realize. It is a forceful enforcement of a value thought out by one man over night. It never took place in a natural course. So it was an over-kill procedure. …

After ~1k years, surely a revolution has graduated to collective wisdom. Which is exactly why several of us all agree that one cannot rely on such collective “wisdom.”

But do we really need a burqa to accomplish modesty? Certainly not because other cultures that did uphold modesty have found ways to uphold modesty without resorting to anything close to a burqa.

I don’t know - according to you, we should rely on the collective wisdom of cultures that hod modesty as a value … except the cultures that you arbitrarily don’t agree with. Which is exactly why several of us all agree that one cannot rely on such collective “wisdom.”

 

[thewanderer]

I am once again confused. I have already explained what traditional values are. You are asking for a specific list of values.

In other words, this would be like me explaining what the word Law means. Then you ask me what specific Laws are. Since this was not part of the discussion, and is usually where threads diverge in to oblivion, I didn’t go in to this.

I sympathize much with your past experience in heading down what sounds more along the lines of dissenting traditionalist beliefs i.e. rejecting OF, JPII etc.

But what I am suggesting to you should not bother you. It is simply to listen to the Pope’s, priests, Bishops and saints on how to best dress and use those standards to adopt today’s fashions.

So yes, as I explained to you before, you should adopt the standards regarding what you should show and what you shouldn’t show. Just because you went down the wrong road once after adopting these values, it doesn’t mean that it always leads down the same road.

To give you an example, Luther went down the road he went, partly after he became overly scrupulous of his sins. This doesn’t mean that we should abandon our sins too so that we don’t become like Luther.

So something tells me that you are aware of traditional values, but you are just reluctant because of a bad experience you had with taking it too far like Luther did.

Well if all you are teling me is to listen to Popes and priests etc i assure you I am. JPII and the priests I have met in mylife who have shown sound judgement.

I don’t really understand why you are confused. I asked you to either give me a universal that allows me to understand what it is that seperates ‘traditional’ values from other sorts of values or else to give me specifics. I understand that you don’t want to give specifics and have the thread completely run off track, and I appreciate that, however, I am being completely honest in saying that I still do not know what you mean by “traditional values” or why I should be expected to follow them as opposed to the standards that I have seen play out in a society that cares about all people and gives them all respect while at the same time holding modesty in thought word and dress as a very good thing to strive for. I can only assume that what I have presented as occuring in this society is against what you see as “traditional values” because of the way you responded to my example. But that has not helped me to know what you mean by the term. By all means, instead of going into specifics give me some universal which I can use to determine what is modest and what isn’t. Earlier on in this thread it sounded like we were in agreement in thinking it was clothing that is thought of as ‘sexy’ as opposed to clothing that is thought of as ‘attractive’ ‘pretty’ ‘well put together’ etc. Then you brought in the standard of “traditional values” which you have failed to explain. I do not necessarily disagree with you. I just have no idea of whether or not I do because I still don’t know what you mean when you use this term.

And as I have learned, when this term is left ambiguous it is all too easy for it to be used to mess up women’s perception of reality and wreak havoc on their lives.