CS202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Social Distance, Individualism, Public Space
Document Summary
So, clothing is a more conservative code than language. Clothing provides society with a set of fixed messages therefore a closed code . Allows for representation of cultural categories, principles, and processes while at the same time encouraging their innovative manipulation. Clothing acts as a subtle way of maintaining a given group"s identity. Clothing is particularly suited to expressing either social commonality or social difference. Material culture is more conservative than language. Maintains a sense of familiarity and easily signals strangeness or difference. In any given society there are a diversity of clothing codes that are not always easily readable by other groups. Those who are clothing conscious in relation to the group norm tend to be more conformist and compliant in the face of authority. People who are less concerned about what other people think (exhibitionists or those who prefer practical clothing) tend to be more confident and individualistic. Social status: i. e. a suit, power in society.
