Thoughts experieces and why don't more men wear kilts??

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Well, Wickipedia says it best (as to who they were and what they believed.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan

The part that I see as having had a lasting impact on US attitudes is the group piety and purity. I go to eBay France, for example, and do a search for kilts. What do I find? I topless woman modeling a kilt skirt- right on eBay for anyone to find!! In the States, that would be grounds for all kinds of litigation. "My son might see it!" Boo hoo. So what? Janet Jackson flashes half a nipple for half a second and we have a heart attack! I have to ask- why? What's the big deal? The only answer I can come up with is that it's latent attitudes left over from our Puritan origins. That's why they came here, after all- to get away from all the "degradation" of European society. The Puritan movement was so extreme that deviance could easily mean death. We can't be executed in this country now for being a little but different, but we can sure be persecuted for it. That was my whole point.

This is the thing that I think relates the most:

The central tenet of Puritanism was God's supreme authority over human affairs, particularly in the church, and especially as expressed in the Bible. This view led them to seek both individual and corporate conformance to the teaching of the Bible. It led them to pursue both moral purity down to the smallest detail as well as ecclesiastical purity to the highest level.

Individual conformance- you do what the majority tell you to do, both in public and in private. That is the way mainstream American society seems to me.

Thanks for the reply.

First, let me say that I think your characterizing Americans as "homophobic" is not only off-base, but way out of line. Pole, after pole, has shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of civil unions for everyone; that they are in favor of spousal privilege being extended to same sex couples. What they do object to is what they perceive to be an attempt by the government to regulate the ability of the churches to define what is, and what is not, a sacrament of the church. Clearly, what the government needs to do is get completely out of the marriage business, and leave that to the churches.

Using the existing body of civil rights law the president should instruct the justice department to draft model legislation for all the states to use in creating uniform "civil union" legislation. This legislation would then replace the present "marriage license" laws of the several states, and would give same-sex couples the same legal standing as mixed-sex couples. Once a couple had gone to the court house, paid their five dollars, and signed the "Decree of Civil Union" that would be it. In the eyes of the law they would be legally joined together. Marriages, and the ceremonies attendant there on, would then be the sole realm of the church, and would be conducted at their discretion and in conformity with the laws of their specific denomination. My personal belief is that if the church is going to baptize someone, then they ought to marry them as well. I'm sure other members of the vestry probably don't share my views. But at the end of the day it should be the priest who decides who he will baptize, marry, or bury. Not the Government.

As to the other points you have raised:

In my opinion, and experience, your basic thesis doesn't stand up. Individuals want to conform, they are not directed to conform. Since the dawn of time humans have lived in packs, tribes, clans, communities-- simply to survive from one generation to the next. This "communal mentality" is instinctively bred into us as a species, the same as it is bred into a pride of lions or a pack of jackals.

It has nothing to do with "mainstream American society"-- it is the same in any country you would care go to. Societal norms do vary from culture to culture; for example, The Empire of Japan compared to the United Kingdom. Both are inhabited by an island race of people, somewhat removed from the social development of their continental neighbors. Both developed cultural traditions some what similar to, but broadly different from, those of their continental neighbors. And, compared side by side, these two island races of people are totally different, except for the fact that in both cases the people conform to their local societal norms, and are generally uneasy with anything that does not appear to conform with their social or tribal beliefs.

This is a universal human condition, not a uniquely "American" problem.

As far as blaming latent "puritanism" is concerned, one might as well blame latent "Catholicism" as it is the single largest Christian denomination in the United States; I'm sorry, but I can not accept that deeply held spiritual convictions-- and those of the early Puritan settlers are totally in line with the core theological tenets of all mainstream Christian denominations in so far as they relate to the individual faith of the believer and the workings of the church-- in some way impede universal social acceptance of wearing the kilt. What impedes universal acceptance of the kilt is the fact than most people don't want to wear the kilt, just as most people don't want to wear ear muffs in summer. It's that simple.

What I do get from your post isn't so much an argument concerning why more men don't wear kilts, but rather your general unhappiness that there are social standards of behavior with which you personally do not agree. And that's fine.

Undoubtedly "community standards" in France regarding topless models on e-bay are different than the community standards in the United States. France also has laws which permit all sorts of draconian police measures that would not be tolerated by American "community standards". I don't mean to imply one set of standards are better than another; on the contrary, I believe that community standards have to be taken in their entirety to be judged if they are, or are not, beneficial to the community as a whole. Inevitably this means that some members of that community will chafe at some of the standards-- as you have regarding the Janice Jackson incident-- while the vast majority will either embrace them, or shrug them off as really not important.

You said, "We can't be executed in this country now [emphasis added] for being a little but (sic) different, but we can sure be persecuted for it." Staying on the topic of kilt wearing, this seems to be a wildly hyperbolic statement as I don't know of a single instance in the United States or Canada where someone was executed because they were wearing what others considered to be "funny" clothes. And that would include the judicial acts of the Puritans.

As far as persecution is concerned, just who is it that has been continually harassed or ill treated by society as a whole because he wore a kilt? Or white socks with sandals? I say continually harassed and ill-treated by society as a whole because there is a world of difference between the coarse comment made by an ill-mannered person, and the sort of institutional persecution meted out to Jews forced to wear a yellow star stitched to their clothing in Nazi Germany.

The bottom line is that the kilt is, and undoubtedly always will be, "minority" clothing. Those of us who have regularly worn the kilt regard it as ordinary clothing. We do not think of it in terms of social defiance-- or social acceptance. Those who do regard the kilt as some sort of counter-cultural, socially defiant statement would probably be the first to abandon it if it gained wide-spread social acceptance.