How Can I Respect Myself?

It is agianst the rules to wear a hat on campus at my school. This rule is based on a system of cultural ethics that I don't agree with. I think that wearing a hat is a freedom, a freedom that we should have. So, should I wear a hat to school? I am 100% certain I would be asked at some point to take it off. To this I would say "No". I would refuse to take this hat off until either it was made legal to wear hats on campus or when a census was given to every minor in the United States and every one of them voted that I take the hat off. If I wore the hat in class the teacher would ask me to take the hat off, and when I didn't I would be ethier reprimanded or disiplined. By going to school without a hat I am agreeing to follow this ethics system. By going to school with a hat I am challanging an ethics system with my morales. I don't deserve respect if I don't wear a hat to school, because who deserves respect if they don't act accordingly to their beliefs. You are a person based on your thoughts, and necessairy actions. Where I live the rules do not bend for a persons beliefs but for a persons religion they do. Existentationalism is not considered a religion because it has no god. Should I fabricate a god to meet my hat wearing needs? No, because once I achieved having myself labeled as an Existentationalist and if I were allowed to wear a hat due to my beliefs I would have became an individual and I don't want to be an individual. I am opposing an ethics system for the the freedom of a group. I know the extremes the system would go to to force me to flow into their weak minded oppresive pattern. Once my friend failed to wear a belt to our school, he was put in in school suspension for several days for failing to wear a belt. I know that wearing a hat will have consequences. If it is worn in class the teacher may accuse me of disturbing the class. Who is desturbing the class? Me who is opposing the set ethics system, or he who is questioning me? I think we are both at fault for desturbing the class. Should I desturb the class, no. I should not wear a hat during class becaues it will be negatively effecting others. I accept that I should sacrafice a freedom for the better of others. Any time I am not in class, I should keep a hat on my head though. This way I am opposing an ethics system without effecting my peirs. Now, the consequences of wearing this hat. In any senario it comes down to who is the most powerful. Power comes from strengh. Strengh comes from numbers, technology, and work. I am nothing in comparison with the power of the system that was established before my birth. Does this mean that I should oppose something that can silence me in a frame of time equivalent to a second? According to the constitution free speech is permitted in this country. I see nothing of free speech. This does not pretain to action. The action which I would be preforming would be opposing an ethics system. This system is generally accepted by others. Now, to get back to the consequences. If I wear this hat, I may be suspended, and pressure will be put on me to take it off. An example of the pressure put on me I can base on an event that happened recently at my school. A few individuals wore face paint on campus that violated the ethics system. The principal got on the announcements and stated something along the lines of: "...You need to take the paint off, although in some cases it may be an improvement...". He is only doing his job in affirming that the students must remove the paint from their faces, but he is giving headway to the rest of the student population to put pressure on the students to take the paint off by calling them "ugly" or eating away at their self esteems. However fragile they may be. That shows that the principals morale. I could argue now that the principal is out of line. So, can I respect myself if I decided not to wear a hat due to the consequences I would face? I don't know. I can certainly expect others not to respect me. How important is the respect of others? In the end of my life it will not matter how respected I was. Infact nothing will matter. So why not just end my life now instead of going through this pointless hell?

 

Just like wearing shoes in a Mosque. I don't personally agree that Allah needs all his worshippers barefoot in there, but it doesn't mean I'm going to walk into the nearest mosque with boots on.

It's the lion's right to roar, but he's not going to do it when he's sneaking up on a gazelle, now, is he?

 

You can't respect yourself.

Welcome to Hierarchical Civilization.

As a member of Civilization, you will have to bend-over and conform to the control-freak impulse of Civilization's latent homosexuality for the rest of your life.

Your people have chosen to institutionalize you K-12 into conformity.
Are you going to rebel against them as well?

They don't understand the unconscious psycho-sexual impulses behind their motivations.

You'd only hurt them.

Do you think your going to escape Civilization?

Don't kid yourself.

Like the other two posters said, 'pick your battles carefully'

Remember, the mass of Civilized 'Men' only find freedom and self-respect for but a few fleeting brief moments out of our whole lives; if were lucky.

 

Because you see it as hell. See it as heaven instead.

Stop trying to justify your ego, that reality should function according to your desires and dictates. Your playing the role of the rebel is just your ego fear masquerading as testing Nature, seeing what you can get away with.

Instead of fighting Nature, embrace her. Drop life negative thought forms. One shouldn't end one's life because it will also destroy the possibility of ever finding happiness.

The problem is not that life is bad, it is that you see it as bad. If you see it as good the whole world will change. The problem is therefore your mind and your ego. Your mind-ego are lying to you. Now find out how and why.

 

it seems as though you've fallen into the trap of excessive intellectualizing.

one way to fight this is to stop thinking, but i wouldnt reccommend that, of course, being a philosopher.

stop fighting logic wars with yourself to such extents. its only a freaking cap.

Nike got it right. Just Do It, dont think so much.

if you think you can live with the consequences of wearing the cap, go ahead.

if you think its not worth it, then dont wear the cap.

its as simple as that.

 

you're right. nothing matters, says the nihilist, and in my eyes he is quite right in his view of objective reality.
but the nihilist is wrong in looking at the world only through objective eyes.
we can NOT look at the world through objective eyes, because we are subjective beings.
being subjective is a part of being alive, a part of being in this form.
if you live, you will give your life whatever meaning you choose to give it.
if you die, it is only a waste of a good life.

but hey, there's six billion people out there just like you. you shan't be missed.

 

Man, it's just a freaking hat. Though I agree its a dumb rule (how does wearing a hat disrupt a class???), it's there, and though I agree with the ethic, it's not really worth it. Thoreau said similar things, that one should immediately break an immoral rule or law rather than wait for it to be changed, giving reasons similar to the ones you gave. But, this isn't really an immoral rule (like, perhaps, prohibition, or a poll tax). So it really wouldn't be worth the consequences.

I agree with what someone else said: you're thinking too much.

 

[font=&quot]Actually depending where you are, hats are sometimes used as gang symbols and rules against hats are trying to reduce gang tension.
Ultimately the whole issue is inconsequential (at least in terms of existentialism), or as others have said pick your battles.[/font]

 

You're bothered about wearing a hat to school??? Im with anyone else on the fact you're making a big deal out of nothing

The underlying evil in all of this is that you're forced to go to school in the first place.

 

I'd grow my hair out, and use jell to comb it into the shape of a hat eheh. Then if they tell you to comb your hair different, I'd comb it down in front of my eyes and try to fall asleep in in the back of the classroom with a little clip in it that says "This is not a hat, and I can see just fine" That pretty much sums up my senior year in Curent World Problems class. But seriously though, I've always liked to deal with problems by using humor because there's endless possabilities, maybe you'll even get the MIGHTY TEACHER to giggle.
Good luck ;-)

 

I just had a thought. Wear a big feather hat like Jimi Hendrix.

 

Religion doesnt need a god, we did. As a people, we were never advanced enough to accept the unexplainable, so we explain it the best we could, with pictures, and false idols. Now with modren day life, we have opened up our minds and we allow ourselves to see that there is a bigger picture, its not as A is to B as B is to A, but more complex as A is to B as B is to C and C is to D.

Maybe I'm just a DXM junkie, Shroom head, Pot Head, Coke Head, I call myself a man living by a theory, within reason. Who knows, maybe YOUR the fuck up?

 

i think you have to decide if it would cause more trouble to wear the hat or to simply not wear the hat...since its against the rules, and youd be causing trouble, thats two reasons not to wear the hat, its not like wearing the hat would benefit you in any way, anyway

 

Buy a bunch of hats...in bulk. Or go to a lost and found, flea market or cheap wholesale or surplus store and buy a lot of hats for nothing. All kinds of hats. Cowboy hats, straw hats, baseball caps, visors, indian headbands, army hats, helmets, all of kinds of headwear.

Scatter them everywhere on the campus.

Put up posters protesting the hat discrimination and call to unite in a covert operation of hat distributing and hat littering (use secrecy when doing this) all over walls, windows, cars, etc.

Wear a shirt with a picture of a hat on it.

Sing songs in the hall about hats or make up a few of your own.

Never get caught red-handed. Always deny everything. Just tell'em you think it's funny and keep doing it. Be subversive. Drive 'em fucking crazy.

 

hahahahahaha, Lib, that is the best idea ever.

 

NO!!! not in canada, not free and laid back CANADA!!! AAHH!!!
NNO. but seriously. Its not worth the drama, now if some one telss you to kill some one or something super immoral DONT DO IT.
WWow!! Then again that is good question kid. Fight for life or live for death. The power is yours kid. Good LUCk

 

welcome to the real world. The world where people send their precious children to government institutions with rules that serve one purpose, to oppress. Now you recognize the oppression for what it is!! GOOD! The best way to fight it is not by wearing a hat, but by refusing to conform your thoughts to what they want you to think and believe. Be an individual instead of a sheep. As much as they want to control you, there's nothing they can do to stop you from thinking. And when you grow up and have kids of your own, homeschool them or find an alternative school because you know why public schools are so wrong. Read Plato's Republic. It's quite enlightening, that in 400BCE, he wrote about the importance to the ruling class of institutionalized education starting at a very young age, in order to keep the working class meek and unquestioning of those with the power.

 

I say wear the hat and stand up for your rights as an individual.

 

If you despise yourself because not wearing a hat to school makes you think that you're not a man, then I say: "Whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises." Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 78

However, since you object to a dress code and try to say that it's on a "morale" basis, I'd just laugh at you. Your hat wearing needs? ROFL you're queer dude.

Listen, I respect a lot of what you say taken out of context of trying to get around your school's dress code, but you're talking ABOUT WEARING A BALLCAP. Do you realize just how immature and histrionic your position sounds? It's not like you're talking about hating yourself because you're not following some extensive doctrine, you're talking about your school says you can't wear a hat during the school day and you want to try and act the rebel. I hated kids like you in high school, why do you think it's so cool to try so hard to go against the grain over such SMALL ISSUES?

Jesus christ, just get a fucking haircut.

 

that's all that really needs to be said...