Neurath's Boat

I'd heard about this before

But this is the first link I encountered which prominently mentioned that Neda Soltani, recently murdered in Iran, was a philosophy student.  I suppose it's shallow that this makes me so much more interested in the story, just as perhaps I tend to go for the Khmer Rouge as my favorite example of 20th century monstrosity because of their "kill anyone with glasses" policy.  Anyway, here's hoping the situation improves in Iran, and that we don't get too many more stories like this.

Strangeness

Hubert Schwyzer, who taught me a great deal about Kant, also occasionally talked about his days as a graduate student at Berkeley in the 60s.  Among his other stories, he reported that a great change in fashion happened at that time.  When he started, all the professors wore ties.  By about halfway through his time there, he said you could tell a professor's political views by whether he wore a tie or not.  By the time he left Berkeley, no professors were wearing ties.

Schwyzer is, sadly, no longer with us, and the story he told was of a time before I was born.  I am thus rather mystified by this piece.  Admittedly, it's about jeans rather than ties, but it's still the same fashion war that his side lost almost half a century ago.  Isn't it time to concede defeat?

(I should perhaps add that I have no objection to people dressing up.  I just object to it being mandatory, as well as its use to reinforce gender roles, which seems to be something Will considers a feature rather than a bug).