A Short Discourse on Shorts

And when to wear them

Linen shorts pre-hedge-fund Bill’s Khakis; cotton shirt pre-China L.L. Bean, made in Maine 40 years ago; huaraches made in Mexico, bought there in 2023.

May has arrived and with it the rising tide of tourists here in Rome. Which means the return of shorts on city streets. Although I disapprove of shorts in the city (any city) I realize I have lost that battle, indeed the war. Military tradition calls for a farewell address by the surrendering general, so as I hand over my sword, not wanting to sound like a sore loser or a get-off-my-lawn crank, I will endeavor to add some cultural context to my lost cause.

First let me acknowledge that I own and wear shorts, generally on vacation at the sea, or trekking in the mountains, or even on my roof terrace at home. Never on the town, never ever cargo shorts, never with socks, and especially (attention: Germans) never black socks.

I am hardly the first to rail against cargo shorts so I won’t belabor their awfulness beyond noting that those puffy pockets, even emptied of gadgets and pet frogs, cause a man’s hips to swell out, interrupting what should ideally be a clean, narrowing line from the shoulders (the broadest point) on down. Considering that few of us have bodies like Michelangelo’s David, tailors help us out by making suits with padded shoulders. Cargo shorts pad the wrong place.

Cargo shorts would spoil it.

The larger problem is that shorts of any kind make grown men look like schoolboys.

Personally, I put on my big-boy pants in the second grade and never looked back. Why would I choose to look like a lad unless absolutely necessary? Which would be rarely. Granting that individuals differ in terms of metabolism and heat tolerance, the fact is that humans don’t ventilate profusely from their calves. It’s not like your throat, where a tight collar and tie on a scorching day could literally kill you. It may be possible that in the history of mankind someone has fainted from hot knees, but it’s hard to see. Moreover, lots of men wear shorts when the temperature is not even close to hot. So what’s going on?

I believe shorts are part of society’s creeping infantilism.

It’s happening throughout the Western world—today I must sadly report that even some Roman men wear shorts around town—but it began in America, the locus of infantile adulthood. Consider that in America, adults age 18-20 can vote and fight in wars but not legally drink a beer. (The drinking age in virtually all non-Muslim countries is either 18 or 19.) One result is that colleges in the U.S. have become adult daycare centers. A movement led by college presidents called the Amethyst Initiative seeks to promote a debate about America’s exceptional drinking age; the school leaders, who did not sign on to be babysitters, argue that infantilizing college students has led to clandestine binge drinking—as opposed to in most countries where college students drink like (relatively) well-behaved grownups in public places. Indeed it could be argued that making booze taboo only increases its allure.

To cite a culinary example of infantilism, we have the odious adult baby-talk word “veggie,” now even condoned by the New York Times.^[1] Too harsh? Okay, vegetable is a hard word to say, especially if you’ve been binge-drinking in your dorm room. At least Brits have the self-dignity to reduce it to “veg.”

Moving back to shorts, I believe how we dress reflects how we think about ourselves, especially in the absence of dress codes. Menswear chat groups I follow are filled with lost souls scratching their heads over what the hell to wear—to work, to a wedding, or just out for a drink. The default comfort level appears to be whatever worked in grade school.^[2]

Many people, even some libertarians, fear what could happen in total anarchy. Lacking governments, police, rules, many assume society would default to chaos. We have the example of power blackouts where people not normally prone to criminal behavior are suddenly happy to smash shop windows and carry off electronics.

But if the experience of today’s anarchic dress norms is any indication, a society without rules would find men reverting to their inner five-year-olds. Am I the only one who finds that possibility more terrifying than angry mobs storming Best Buy to liberate Vitamix blenders?

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^[1] The paper’s vegetarian cooking newsletter is called The Veggie.

^[2] For the record, my Catholic grade school required black slacks, white dress shirts and leather shoes, the optimistic assumption being that at least half of us were destined for the priesthood. Sock color was free choice, orange being popular.