Lexicon of style

[Costi]

I'm afraid you were born just a couple of millenia late for Limbo, Nicholas. You could try the limbo dance, if anything
The first rich man who brought tobacco from the Ottoman Empire here ended up with a bucketful of cold water on his head from a loyal servant who thought his master was on fire...
On second thinking, tobacco should be plentiful in the gardens of Heaven - what harm is there in a plant? But where do you find fire?

Now that we managed to hijack yet another perfectly good thread with our tobacco talk, let me tell you that, according to my experience, too, social extraction has little to do with nobility of the spirit or style. I have seen very simple men displaying great style, because one of its key elements is the economy of means it requires to find an expression. To me, genuine style (presence) is simple, direct, universally perceived - rather than ellaborate, sophisticated, and culturally contextual.

[couch]

Frog in Suit: your post prompts me to add something else. Men such as Sir Philip Sidney, Scott and Oates were held up to our generation as shining examples of manhood. I am sure that each nation has its own collection of heroes. Now they are somewhat disregarded and, in their places, football stars and other hyped-up celebrities alone hold the attention of youngsters. I think that part of this is because it is not fashionable to be elitist or exclusive or aspirational as it all too much effort to achieve and maintain high standards. Moreover, these men are often seen as 'tainted' with the privileges of their class and their associations with the 'stiff upper lip' which has been largely supplanted by the notion that it's better 'to let it all hang out'. I am not saying that we didn't have our sporting heroes too but it does seem to me that there is now a general neglect of studying and admiring superlative qualities.
NJS

NJS, I'm sure you are right, and I think there may also be a more basic neglect that is all too common--the cultivation of, and respect for, any sense of historical experience or perspective at all, in favor of the avidity and/or anxiety to keep up with the accelerating pace of life and the next new thing. I'm as keen as the next fellow to live in the present, but I value the experience I've gained even in my short lifetime, and the leverage (small enough!) that alert study of earlier periods has given my judgment. The examples of ignorance of simple practical history that have come to light in the financial and political worlds alone in recent years are breathtaking, but I see more quotidian examples around me all the time. That's merely prudential and quite apart from your point about character formation.

It seems to me that if the term 'postmodernism' has any utility, it ought to be in providing intellectual sanction for carrying the best ideas from prior eras along with us in a kind of continuing creative present, in contrast to their serial rejection/revolution/abandonment in the attempt to differentiate ourselves just to prove that we are on the "right side" of some illusory historical imperative.

[storeynicholas]

Couch - I couln't agree more - time shouldn't be 'split' into the past and the present; we live in a kind of continuum and there are important lessons to be found in the past. I suppose that each generation likes to think that it's th bee's knees in many respects but the modern world increasingly makes assumptions about this without even looking at the past. as you say, some of the dreadful results we see around us.
NJS

[ccox]

Nonchalance? Elan? Distinctiveness should be a part of the lexicon. Funny, thinking about my first two choices, "stage presence" is that magnetic quality that forces you as an on-looker to notice one actor on stage above all others. I have seen this in the famous men I've met, too. They "suck the air out of the room" the minute they walk into it. And so, I would add " quiet self-confidence".

[shredder]

Shuzo Kuki 'concluded that iki could be understood only through "lived experience". In other words, iki is not the sum of conceptual analyses of objective expression; its full signification cannot be determined by identification of generic concepts that pervade its manifestations. Iki should be defined, Kuki argued, in terms of "a mode of being"...'

Oh dear, Prof. Nara...

[alden]

Shuzo Kuki 'concluded that iki could be understood only through "lived experience". In other words, iki is not the sum of conceptual analyses of objective expression; its full signification cannot be determined by identification of generic concepts that pervade its manifestations. Iki should be defined, Kuki argued, in terms of "a mode of being"...'

And that "mode of being" is what we identify as "style." Its a bit like diets. You can't go on a diet for two weeks and be able to control and manage your weight...you have to change the way you live to do that.

I think there is a style switch that men need to turn on in their heads to make the conversion from drab to dandy. I think most men actually have more charisma and presence than they realize. But they need "to live and experience" it. They need to trust themselves and let it happen.

Shredder, in any case, it was a fun read. Non?

Cheers

Michael

[ccox]

Michael, that's it! It's a "style switch", what I've misidentified as "giving a damn." I think most men have it, but have misinterpreted what it means to be stylish. They're trying too hard for "cool", "trendy", "fashionable", when they should be thinking "stylish." That, however, requires a bit of reflection and self-awareness.

[storeynicholas]

Shuzo Kuki 'concluded that iki could be understood only through "lived experience". In other words, iki is not the sum of conceptual analyses of objective expression; its full signification cannot be determined by identification of generic concepts that pervade its manifestations. Iki should be defined, Kuki argued, in terms of "a mode of being"...'

Oh dear, Prof. Nara...

'Defined' or 'described'? I have issues with 'defined' because, if it could be defined (and the definition kept to the few), we'd be like Del Trotter, in the British TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses: "Mirrionaires, Rodders" [sic]!!
NJS

[shredder]

Michael, I haven't finished it yet. Loo-side reading material takes a long time to consume...

NJS, I think that 'defined' is the correct translation. If you read the tail end of the sentence that I deliberately excluded, you would see that you are right in a way that you probably did not imagine... I recently saw in London some chap driving about in a Reliant Regal and felt a pang of envy!

s

[storeynicholas]

Go on then shredder spill the beans! What is the end of the sentence?
NJS

[shredder]

'... as localized in Japanese ethnicity. In this way, Kuki brought to the fore this quintessentially Japanese sensibility, which was in danger of being forgotten during the wave of modernizing in interwar Japan, and gave it an elegant analysis, situating it in a system of other Japanese aesthetic sensibilities.'