"Why you sag them jeans, boy?"

Once again, I've been confronted with yet another article that tries to address that scourge of older sensabilities: the style of wearing slightly over-sized pants below one's waistline in a way that exposes more of the torso than is considered acceptable by mainstream culture. The article in question uses historical examples to paint this style as representative of many things that are "wrong" with our society, even going so far as to say that this style only aids those who would destroy African American culture.

*Yawn*

Really? We're going to assign THIS much power to a clothing style? As a student of history, I could cite literally dozens of examples of older people pointing at youth culture and lamenting how it is representative of the general decline of society, a recycling of past undesirable cultural influences, or an affront to authority, examples that range from Flappers in the 1920s to Hippies in the 1960s, with their unique hair and fashion rebellions. However, my favorite example comes in the form of a quote that puts this kind of generational culture clash into its proper context:

"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers."

- Socrates


Yes, THAT Socrates. This quote is literally THOUSANDS of years old. It is a lament that continues to echo uselessly throughout the ages. The young will always try new and different things, especially if those things piss off their elders. How sagging your pants somehow represents an imminent cultural threat, when hundreds of other styles in our nation's history have failed to destroy our way of life, is beyond me.

Now, don't get me wrong; I fully recognize the context some people are pointing to when they rail against this particular fashion statement. I would like to point out, however, that those who gravitate towards this style do not do so using that same context. One parallel example is the wearing of earrings by men. A practice not uncommon in other cultures or in our own past, it became stigmatized as a mark of homosexuality by the middle 20th century. Yet here we are in the new century and I'd be willing to bet most of the men reading this have at least one earring in right now. Does this make us gay because part of Western culture defined this fashion as such at some point? I submit that pants being sagged by prison sweetmeat, or any of the other definitions assigned to that style, do not define that fashion for today's youth culture.

As we get older, we all put aside childish things (exceptions not withstanding). History shows just how harmless even the ugliest, most shocking fashion statements really are. I say let them have their fun and grow out of it in their own time; there are more substantive issues we can focus our energy on.