Modesty

I recently participated in the local “Undie Run” that had two main objectives. First to donate the clothes off your back (and any others that you were willing to give) to the local homeless shelter in preparation for the winter. Second, to 'lighten up' the state that I live in that is so well known for its fundamentalist conservative nature. There were plenty of people there protesting their individual beefs with the state, many of which I agreed with. But for me and my small family this was an event that allowed us to support our community, prove our love of our less-fortunate fellowmen, and to enjoy the company of some freethinking people who were not afraid to stand for what they believed in.

Our participation in the event led to some drama when family and friends (of a conservative-like persuasion) stated that they thought we were wrong and inappropriate for being so immodest. So I thought I'd write a post on modesty.

I feel that modesty is a fluid term. Mostly because it is contextual. What is considered modest is largely determined on the type of activity that you are engaged in. Bathing while naked is certainly modest while being naked while working for your law firm might not be considered modest. Wearing an evening gown (see pretty much any Disney princess) when shopping at a grocery store is not modest while wearing one to a ball or black-tie event would be considered fine.

Because modesty is so fluid I don't think that it is wise to connect it to any sense of universalized morality to it. It is not only silly for a westerner to look at a humble African tribe and declare that their naked bodies are immoral and immodest, but it is most likely short sighted. If the tribe doesn't care about seeing more skin then westerners do then who are we to say that our codes of modesty are any better than theirs? Perhaps tribesmen like that are a little more mature than westerners because they don't feel the need to sexualize the human body or parts of it unnecessarily. Maybe the lack of clothes serves as a statement of equality of members of the tribe. Maybe judgments within the tribe are more easily made concerning who and individual is rather than what he/she looks like.

I personally believe that by showing some leg, shoulder, cleavage, knee-cap, ankle, etc does not necessarily determine who an individual is or what that person stands for. I don't see modesty as a line on a body that must be covered. I don't believe in condemning someone's moral code simply by judging how they look or by seeing what they do/don't wear. Ultimately I think that clothes are a social norm, but that being a social norm neither makes them right or wrong, just something our society has gotten accustomed to. In a non-judgmental world clothes would only serve to as comfort and protection from mother nature.

Modesty as a term speaks more to me when used by its other definition. I would rather people dress simply and with a sense of humility, refraining from gaudy attire. I think that that dress code might do more for us as a society rather than a dress code where people are required to cover up certain body parts for the sake of covering up certain body parts.

I'm almost finished with painting up my army of Wood Elves.  Here is a sneak peak.