From Essays After Montaigne
But I bewaile his particular indiscretion, in that he suffereth himselfe to be so blinded and deceived by the authoritie of present custome, and that if custome pleaseth he is ready to change opinion and varie advice, every month, nay every day, and judgeth so diversly of himselfe. When he wore short-wasted doublets, and but little lower than his breast, he would maintaine by militant reasons that the waste was in his right place: but when not long after he came to weare them so long-wasted, yea almost so low as his privates, then began he to condemne the former fashion, as fond, intolerable and deformed; and to commend the latter as comely, handsome, and commendable. A new fashion of apparel creepeth no sooner into use but presently he blameth and dispraiseth the old, and that with so earnest a resolution and universall a consent, that you would say, it is some kind of madnesse or selfe-fond humor that giddieth his understanding. And forasmuch as our changing or altering of fashion is so sudden and new-fangled, that the inventions and new devices of all the tailors in the world cannot so fast invent novelties, it must necessarily follow that neglected and stale rejected fashions doe often come into credit and use again: And the latest and newest within a while after come to be outcast and despised, and that one selfe-same judgment within the space of fifteene or twentie yeares admitteth not only two or three different, but also cleane contrarie opinions, with so light and incredible inconstancie, that any man would wonder at it.
In The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander posits that his "quality without a name" (a combination of beauty, comfort, and vitality) can be achieved in architecture only through egoless design and construction. "[M]ass-developed houses," designs by "the more 'natural' architects, like Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto," and "'funky' relaxed hippy-style architecture, with irregular redwood facades, and old-fashioned country style interiors" will not have this quality:
These places are not innocent, and cannot reach the quality without a name, because they are made with an outward glance. The people who make them make them the way they do because they are trying to convey something, some image, to the world outside. Even when they are made to seem natural, even their naturalness is calculated; it is in the end a pose.
In this country, this quality is most often found in simpler, more functional structures, like fruit stands, fishing boats, concrete yards, and steel mills:
...because the people who made them simply do not care what people think of them. I don't mean that they are defiant: people who defiantly don't care what people think of them, they still care at least enough to be defiant--and it is still a posture.
In The Nature of Order, a four-volume study, Alexander attempts to expand his ideas from the realm of architecture to cover beauty, art, science, and the rest of the universe, which might at first seem to be a bit of a stretch. But his explanation of the relationship between egolessness and beauty, comfort, and vitality suggests to me that he might be on to something. Dressing yourself, choosing your tools and shelter, and any number of other practical life decisions are an odd and ultimately shallow way to communicate with others, and decisions made in that way are far less likely to achieve their practical goals. Whatever can be said by dyeing your hair blue, smoking a cigar, or driving an SUV can't be very rich or interesting. Yet there's no practical reason for those decisions--they can't be understood as anything other than attempts at self-expression. It's when people seek to make a statement that their decisions are least likely to result in beauty, comfort, or vitality. Is there anything less attractive or more upsetting to your sense of peace than a woman trying to walk in stiletto heals?
And just as I believe that Alexander is basically right about the inverse relationship between ego and his quality without a name, I believe he's right about the positive relationship between timelessness and that quality. In this post-modern era, it seems that everyone speaks of the fickleness of fashion with a knowing laugh. Jokes about the rise and fall of hemlines go back to at least the middle of the last century. But you can't walk on 42nd Street without seeing people who still dutifully follow every trend without a trace of irony: men posing with cigars, young adults covered with tribal-style tattoos, girls with their bellies rolling over low-cut pants--I see each of those every day on my walk to and from the subway. In some cases, your reaction might be that whatever style is on display is no longer in fashion (because once everyone's aware that something is in fashion, it no longer is). My reaction is one of pity. These poor souls will someday look back at pictures of themselves and be horrified that they didn't dress now the way they will then--a process that will repeat itself every five years or so without any dawning of the insight that they've been through this before. They work to always be doing something new without realizing that they're merely doing the same thing over and over again.
8:00:26 AM 
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