Silly Hats Only
The lady posed with the illuminating sign depicted not a wilderness expert in the middle of the wild (I assure you that parts of California are quite civilized these days). Her hat could be called inappropriate if we failed to accept the reasonableness of the message she is trying to impart.
In fact, that she is wearing a hat while female is rather odd when compared to the vast majority of U.S. females her age and socioeconomic status. Is there a value to wearing silly hats?
Her sign does not contain a rigorous defense of her position, so we must examine the possibilities as best we can without her assistance.
Why Silly Hats?
As anyone with a lick of sense can tell you, hats are one of the most commonly abused accessories in the male fashion quiver. In fact, whoever gave men the permission to wear baseball caps whilst not participating in that ‘sport’ and the right to do so in a non-ironic manner is truly an enemy of humanity in general and of human fashion in specific.
Some brave young men have attempted to reclaim the baseball hat by wearing it too large with the authenticity stickers still attached or by putting ‘trucker style’ baseball hats on the children of yuppies. Unfortunately, this attempt at subtle derision was taken at face value by hordes of what might be called chavs were said hordes in the U.K. rather than the U.S.
If wearing actively silly hats gave the impression to impressionable youth that perhaps their self-serious fashion attempts were patently absurd, the notion would have more than enough merit to stand as the highest maxim of tolerable polite society.
Counterpoint
In our shared culture, wearing hats at all is only slightly less silly when males do it than when females do. All hats are, in essense, silly. Umbrellas for the rain and warm toboggans (admittedly a hat, but one with a particularly specialized usage) for the cold. Beyond this, hats are pointless and infrequently used.
The lady above would have appeared no less silly wearing a bonnet. In fact, she may be making that very point: wearing hats is silly.
This doesn’t mean that wearing hats is wrong. Some of the most sober societies have been dreadfully silly but with far less purpose than the admirable young woman we speak of today.
Several admirable faiths hold that silliness is integral to the journey toward enlightenment. Arguing against enlightenment recreationally would be silly, but arguing against it seriously would be foolish.
Summary
If there are any un-silly hats, don’t wear them. Wear the silly ones instead. Eris, Bob, and Connie would approve.
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