Sailors, Playboys, and Intellectuals

In the Etro main collection for menswear Spring Summer 2012, "sailors, playboys and intellectuals all meet up amidst the colours and fragrances of Provence". Sounds like quite a gathering indeed. Tony Stark the "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist" would surely approve.

The assembly of sailors, playboys and intellectuals is itself decked out in a brilliant (in both senses of the word) combination of clothing. Nothing less than what we'd expect from Kean Etro, a maestro of colour and pattern (John Galliano and Paul Smith lay good claims to that title as well), whose runways showcase the wildest mix of hues, checks and paisleys that somehow avoids becoming kitschy. Bringing these groups together may simply be an exercise of artistic license, an excuse to bring together even more patterns and styles of clothing for creative purposes. Yet there may be something more lying beneath the aesthetics. Marcel Proust encouraged us to reach a suitable level of receptivity, with which we can learn as much from a soap advertisement as from a pensée by Pascal. Let us now attempt to do so from a fashion collection.

What would bring the playboys to mix with the sailors and intellectuals (presumably not ladies since this is menswear we are talking about; let us also presume that said playboys are heterosexual, and that, give or take a few multihyphenates, each attendee belongs to only one of the categories)? All three groups contain curious, exploratory individuals who value autonomy for pursuits in their respective fields. Some may even be driven by the search for something unattainable, where each port, lady or theory is a step closer to the promised land. It is only the act of seeking which sustains and unites them. That the event is inaugural and unusual ought to be enough to pique their interest. Or perhaps the air of exclusivity that surrounds an invitation-only event is the key to enticing these men. They will find welcome respite from self-exile within the heterotopia of the party.

Now that they've come together, what can we expect? The sailors can regale everyone with tales of distant lands. Their adventures with exotic maidens will surely interest the playboys, who can offer some exploits of their own in exchange. The intellectuals though, are a mixed bunch. Some may choose to observe in a detached manner, noting and theorising on nautical and playboy cultures. Some may actively gather evidence from the anecdotes, palaver and badinage, broadening their knowledge of women and seas. Yet others may offer wisdom of their own, in a bid to improve the savoir-faire of the sailors and playboys, and participate somehow in these alternate lives.

A further list of archetypes which frequently recur in fashion editorials includes bikers, pilots, soldiers, cowboys, tribesmen, aristocrats, rock stars and artists. Combinations of these have surely occurred at some time as well. The trappings of these groups grant their glamour to the pictures, which promise to fulfill the fantasies of readers, buyers and creators alike. This could also be the draw of cosplay. In this at least, Walter Benjamin was mistaken - the mechanical reproduction of an outfit has its own aura.

Beyond the world of fashion, practitioners of seemingly unrelated disciplines may congregate as well. Most famously, TED brings together luminaries from almost any field to speak. Doctors, scientists and engineers brainstorm during the invention sessions of Intellectual Ventures, and collaborate in CIMIT. At the MIT Media Lab, you will find musicians, architects and philosophers among the scientists and engineers, not simply imagining the future, but living it. The Santa Fe Institute is home to "mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists, chemists, neurobiologists, immunologists, evolutionary biologists, ecologists, archaeologists, linguists, economists, political scientists, and historians, among others." Quality is not compromised for quantity either, with Nobel laureates, Pullitzer winners and MacArthur fellows in the mix. On Edge.org, the world's most complex and sophisticated minds are put together in a room at the edge of knowledge, asking each other the questions they are asking themselves. This harks back to the good old days of fin-de-siècle Vienna, whose coffeehouses and salons were both factories of thought and theatres for wit.

Fiction provides us with rich hunting ground for such ensembles. In the novel Blindsight, the team sent to intercept the extraterrestrials included a linguist, a biologist, a soldier, a vampire with superhuman intelligence, and an informational topologist. Superhero teams often feature personnel with different talents, such as in the Avengers, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. In role-playing games, we tend to form parties with characters of different classes. Marvel vs. Capcom is the apotheosis of such partnerships, with characters having not just different skills, but also origins in different fictional universes.

The synergy of teamwork comes from the diverse skillsets which members bring to the table. In multidisciplinary collaborations, synergy is maximised by the radically different perspectives and expertise gathered, which is manifested as different sets of knowledge and concepts. The general applicability of many concepts allow them to be extended to fields outside those in which they were originally conceived. The sum total of knowledge and concepts at the team's disposal is not static either - combinations of ideas, especially those which have not met before, often give birth to new ideas. This allows problems to be noticed where previously unseen and redefined where once intractable, then tackled with a wider repertoire of solutions. Of course, members must have a core set of knowledge and concepts in common (and applicable to the task) for communication to be possible and collaboration to be fruitful.

Yet there is an allure to such gatherings which goes beyond their efficacy in solving problems. The multiplicity of ideas and possibilities on parade is in itself a seductive prize. We are attracted to diversity as it allows us to hedge our bets against contingency. But mostly, that attraction is an acknowledgement of our finitude, and a wish for transcendence. As humans, we are limited in space and time - we can only be one person at a time. In meeting someone who has led a different life, we can feel what it would have been like for us to have done so. And in joining forces with them, we can become part of a whole which is more than the sum of its parts. Each part is also changed by its encounter with the others; first it is redefined by its relations, then it is altered to give a better fit. Ideally, the group is a crucible of compossibility, where ideas and people can coexist and participate in becoming.

With globalisation, people and ideas of different cultures are coming into contact in greater numbers than ever before. Much of this contact has been positive - just think of the sumptuous spread of cuisines we can find nowadays in our cosmopolises. Yet multiculturalism has its issues. A perceived clash of cultures has led some to a retreat into intolerance. The alternative of tolerance that has been encouraged by policymakers does not do much better either, for it suggests that there are problems to be tolerated within other cultures.

A true appreciation of diversity is simultaneously invigorating and humbling. It helps us realise that ways other than ours may be right as well. That some of ours may be wrong. That the same is probably true of every other way. Some postmodernists take that to mean that everything is relative and there are no truths. But that is not the case. There is a truth, but it will only emerge in an open discourse that acknowledges all points of view. That is the true value of diversity. It unlocks paths to progress, and staves off the essential boredom of existence.

What can we take to be true then, given this epistemic humility? Only one moral remains - we must embrace all diversity except that which seeks to reduce it. I refer to such plagues as anti-Semitism, totalitarianism, fundamentalism, and xenophobia. This gives us the set of all sets which do not exclude other sets from its membership, where the way out of Russell's paradox (is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves a member of itself?) is that it is not a member of itself. Thus, diversity essentially requires the exclusion of such unsavoury groups. It is a pity that some countries, in misguided all-or-nothing attempts to accomodate diversity, accept even Neo-Nazis and hate speech.

This view of diversity gives us a few issues to grapple with. Critique seems at first glance an instrument of exclusion, and hence an enemy to diversity. Yet wielded properly, it is rather an instrument of improvement. Diversity itself moves away from those which fail to respond to critique.

Should we try to create diversity, since it is valuable both for itself and as a means to an end? Perhaps, but sometimes forcibly creating and imposing diversity ends up stifling and injuring it instead. Painting the flowers in your garden in many shades is deleterious for their health. Bringing in new flowers or rearranging those already present may enliven said garden, but may have adverse effects on all these plants as well. Such is the thin line treaded by urban and economic planners.

Sometimes, components of the diverse force others out of existence by superiority or circumstance, even without actively seeking to exclude. This must be allowed to happen, or else there is no way of progress or exclusion of those inimical to diversity. This is analogous to selection and drift, the driving forces of evolution. Yet we need not be as blind as those forces. What matters is that the process takes place via truly open discourse, where critique can lead to survival not of the fittest, but of the best. Majorities and minorities alike must be unbiased and receptive to the arguments of others, and weigh everything before deciding. Perhaps this can only take place when everyone in society can acknowledge their biases and discard the unwarranted ones. Perhaps that requires the abandonment or transcendence or perfection of our humanity, which we are nowhere near.

The metaphysics of this view of diversity gives us a Hegelian dialectic, where Unity breaks into Difference and ends in Compossibility. This is not dissimilar from Leibniz's view that this is the best possible world, other than his best set of compossibles was chosen by God out of hitherto inexistent possibilities, whereas we have to find ours by navigating a sea of diversity, loving all the beauty which we meet and thinking all the truths we discover. Yet what more can we ask for, than to journey towards our utopia as sailors, playboys, and intellectuals?