Shirts and Skins: What Plato and Lauryn Hill Reveal About Self-Respect

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Lauryn Hill, the rapper and singer whose words and delivery drip both with genuine struggle and hope. I was struck by her song “Doo Wop (That Thing)” in particular for its meditation on a perennial theme: Women’s self-respect, and self-respect in general. She argues that dress is at the forefront of this problem:

Talking out your neck, sayin’ you’re a Christian.
A Muslim, sleeping with the jinn,
Now that was the sin that did Jezebel in.
Who you gon’ tell when the repercussions spin?

A cross-necklace does not a Christian make, neither do self-affirmation nor regret change the nature of “sin” or otherwise regrettable acts. Hill takes one side in the long-standing debate by admonishing her listeners not to dress a certain way to please others because it’s not true self-respect. This stance is regularly upheld by social conservatives. Its counterpart is often the argument that self-expression should imply sartorial bombast—in other words, the idea that a woman shows confidence by showing a lot of skin.

I think both sides of the issue make faulty arguments where modesty is concerned. On the one hand, “liberals” should take better account of historical determinacy. Culture determines how people think and act just as people in turn shape culture; the philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle through to Hegel and Marx demonstrates this again and again. So, “self-expression,” is an idea fraught with contingencies. If the self relies on some degree of cultural constitution, then participating in and affirming that constitution is more likely than not an unreflective act of un-freedom, of servitude. As Jacques Ellul writes, “[f]reedom is not static, but dynamic; not a vested interest, but a prize continually won. The moment man stops and resigns himself, he becomes subject to determinism. He is most enslaved when he thinks he is comfortably settled in freedom.” This problem merits further reflection from those who equate dress with simple self-fulfillment; cultural determination requires attention.

On the other hand, even if Ellul is right, that does not mean someone couldn’t find a form of meaningful self-expression through what seems a debasing of self-respect. Thus, it is incumbent upon “conservatives” to argue, and not just from religious principles (and I say that as a religious man), why it is that respect and freedom inhere in “more tasteful” garb. Theoretically, self-respect can just as easily be culturally determined, even if it’s characterized by resistance to the prevailing paradigm. So we need to unite the concepts of intrinsic dignity, self-respect, and public persona. Blaming the Sexual Revolution won’t suffice.

Even if we were to unite these concepts, there remains the old Platonic problem: Is it possible to rule people with reason? How do we spread and support the truths of reason without succumbing to mere authoritarian compulsion?

I do not claim to offer any solution here. But it is important to consider the reality of cultural determinacy. We humans shape our social existences and they shape us. The issue of self-respect is subject to this conundrum, and ignoring that will not lead anyone to a better understanding of human dignity or its proper expression.