"hey, parents! do YOU have fantasies about your kids being more conformist? does teen fashion just make you want to vomit? is their 'self-expression' interfering with YOUR image? well, do we ever have a solution for you!"
How else am I supposed to incentivize kids to study hard and perform well if I can’t sell them more interesting school uniform parts as DLC??
Think before you speak, Argumate!
what kind of absolute dipshit thinks conformity comes from clothes, instead of use and fear of social power
well…I have a lot of feelings about clothes reifying power/lack of power. Clothes aren’t just symptoms, they carry and create meaning as well.
And if everyone has the same clothes
because there is a uniform everyone wears
then clothes cannot reify power and lack of power
and clothing is less of a channel for the use and fear of social power
and the cruelty of human beings that assails every possible surface that may reveal weakness, has one less surface that may reveal weakness
one vicious way in which conformity is perceived and enforced and removed
and yet it is obviously, contemptibly bad to do that
because it’s “conformity”
Look, I know I’m a weirdo nobody butting in from nowhere on someone else’s takes, but BrazenAutomaton is absolutely correct here
the point is that the incentives for schools when it comes to uniform policy are very different to what they typically tell the children to justify said policy.
also if you think that strict adherence to uniforms reduces bullying then I can only gesture vaguely at the army, the navy, the long and not particularly proud history of British boarding schools, and just about every other institution.
although you could say that the sheer ingenuity with which children can come up with ways to signal and enforce differences while technically still conforming to the uniform code is itself a lesson, of sorts.
Thinking that school uniforms will erase class distinctions is like thinking that a poor defendant in court will be assured of a fair trial if he wears a suit and has no visible tattoos.
But I’m genuinely curious. Is there ANY reactionary, right-wing, or conservative position @brazenautomaton won’t argue is actually what’s best for the vulnerable, poor, and downtrodden, and any liberal or progressive position that isn’t actually virtue-signaling by elites who hypocritically intend to actually edify their top position in a class hierarchy, not undermine it?
see this?
this is why I am constantly begging you people to NOTICE THINGS GOD DAMN IT
see the thing that fills your field of vision no matter what way you orient your eyes
see social power
YOUR ENTIRE WORLD IS SOCIAL POWER
EVERYTHING
WHY CAN’T YOU SEE SOCIAL POWER?
WHY DO YOU FIND IT CONTEMPTIBLE TO NOTICE THINGS?
exactly!
well, not quite; again, this assumes that it’s all about the kids.
a better pitch might be “parents, are you terrified that you might be a bad parent and your kids will fail at life because of you? well, just get a load of this school uniform! don’t they look smart?? now, would a bad parent have kids that looked like this? I don’t think so.”
YOUR ENTIRE WORLD IS SOCIAL POWER
EVERYTHING
No. Not everything.
There is more than one thing. Really.
For example, in addition to being social power, there is also actual top-down coercive power. That is also a thing.
The most basic argument against uniforms (in whatever context) is the same as the baseline individualist/liberal argument against any kind of restriction or regulation. “People want to do this thing. We’re therefore pretty sure that there would be value generated by allowing them to do it, both in the abstract sense that it is good for people to do what they want to do unless there’s a compelling reason they should be prevented from doing so, and in the concrete particular sense that they’re likely to know what they’re talking about when they talk about inputs to their own welfare.”
With school uniforms in particular, you can add in the usual arguments about the people imposing the costs not being the same as the people who suffer the costs in any way, and therefore being well-positioned to ignore massive amounts of value-destruction for the kids in order to achieve small aesthetic benefits for themselves. Also the usual arguments about child agency being very widely ignored in all contexts.
The “it’s conformist!” line is more than a little unsophisticated, sure, but…in fairness, people who want uniforms do often expressly advance the argument that it will make the uniform-wearers more conformist in their outlook, and that this is a good thing. “Sartorial uniformity will make the [kids/soldiers/etc.] feel that they’re part of a hierarchical collective, it will encourage them to respect channels of official authority as part of their identity, it will encourage them to bond with one another and to separate from non-uniform-wearing outsiders.” So it seems perfectly reasonable to respond with “to the extent that this is true, it is actually a bad thing, or at least not uncomplicatedly a good thing.”
(As a general matter, people who claim to be individualists are often actually my-subordinates-should-be-perfectly-obedient-extensions-of-myself-ists, and I am very much in favor of discursively calling out that particular form of sleight-of-hand.)
All that said: on the other side of the scale, there are a number of good arguments for uniforms, including school uniforms. One of the best of which is “school culture often involves a lot of social pressures and high-stakes status games revolving around clothing choice, and eliminating all of that by coercive fiat can be a great kindness to the people who would otherwise find themselves enmeshed in that.” The thing you’re saying is important. It isn’t wrong, even a little.
Except for the part where you claim that it’s everything.