Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote. In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six -- so far -- "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you). Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling -- thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism -- of believing that appearance matters. That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste.
And no doubt denim is the MacGuffin that writers use to hide the fact that they cannot think of anything better to write about. The fact of the matter, of course, is that neither denim, nor cartoons, nor games are any indication of good or bad taste; that denim is not considered formal wear is entirely an arbitrary convention; and clothes do not make the man or convey deep truths about the soul.
What bothers me about the essay is that Will's sense of what is juvenile and adolescent is completely absurd. Suppose we all accepted his recommendation and, like some weird cult all dressed like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Suppose we stopped playing video games and only watched Paramount musicals. Suppose all that. What then? We'd have adolescent, juvenile men dressing like Fred Astaire. In fact we already have had such a thing. Today's self-indulgent, adolescent men in jeans were the sons of yesterday's self-indulgent, adolescent men in khakis. People who locate masculinity in ties and bourbon, Fedoras and cigars, are no more reasonable or tasteful than people who locate masculinity in jeans and beer, ballcaps and pizza. The great and terrible self-deception in Will's essay is the assumption that Will's generation, or perhaps Will's father's generation, produced men who were not juvenile and adolescent. But the childish self-indulgence, where it wasn't forced out of a person by the Furies or bad fortune, can be traced as easily then as now.
There is, indeed, only one path to maturity, and that is to set one's sights on higher things than oneself, whatever you happen to be wearing. Maturity is nothing other than gracious prudence, practical wisdom laced with good will toward others. It can be found in jeans and ballcaps. It can be lacking in slacks and a tie. And these days few indeed can be said to have it, not because of what they wear or how they play, but because they have sterile hearts that shirk the burdens that come with loving one's neighbor.
