When they pulled you from the wreck, you still had on your shades

Since today is Opposite Day* and all, I thought it would be interesting to turn to a subject about which most people have at least some questions, namely, hats.  What is—what might be—the opposite of a hat?

Now, I have learned through sore experience that one cannot necessarily expect people to start out with the principle that allows the inquiry to go forward, namely, that for two things to be opposites they must in some relevant way be similar or of the same kind, despite the fact that this idea is at least as old as Chuang Tzu* (how old, I hear you asking, might that be?  Pretty damn old, man).  So I state at the outset: the opposite of a hat shall be some kind of clothing, or at least something worn (so that, e.g., a beard, while not clothing, is in the realm of possibility).

Now, I shall proceed by a rather simpleminded methodology, viz., enumerating some properties of hats (properties which I consider essential to hatness) and then looking for something which either has the opposite of those properties or, at minimum, their absence.  So, what do we know about hats?  First, a hat is open on the bottom and covered on the top (visors are not hats).  That is to say, a hat is essentially a covering-over.  If you are bald, it conceals your baldness; if you have hair, it covers your hair up.  (That a hat is open on the bottom is necessary for this interpretation, for something which enclosed on all sides would effect a qualitatively different sort of concealment.)  Second, a hat is, in the absence of double-headed persons, singular—and even if a person were to have two heads, it's doubtful that he would have a special hat which somehow accomodated both of them, or which were* like two conventional hats joined physically or notionally into a "pair of hats" (the way when people first started growing second legs, pants became conjoined into pairs of pants, which we now think of simply as pants).  So, since two is the opposite of one*, we will eventually look for something which is dual.

And, you know, a hat goes on your head.

Starting with the last attribute first, we must consider what the opposite of the head is, and whether the opposite of something which goes on your head is something which goes on the opposite of your head or something which goes in your head (e.g., braces) (or possibly something which goes in the opposite of your head).  Now, the candidates for oppositeness to the head are, in my mind, the stomachal region (producing as a candidate the cummerbund, say) and the feet.  However, I see no logic by which the gut would be the opposite of the head that would not also establish it as the opposite of the feet, and I find any solution which would have the headly and footly be identical in opposition to the abdominal abominable.  This leads us inexorably to conclude that the head and feet are opposites, which is kind of obvious, really, but now has been established with rigor, baby, rigor.  But it is not yet known whether or not we should look for something which goes in the head or on the feet.  You might think it would have been better to settle that first.  It could well be argued that braces or a retainer make an admirable opposition to hats in that a hat is worn as a decoration which makes one more attractive, while both braces and retainers are worn out of dental necessity.  However, this does not actually constitute an argument that either braces or retainers should be included for consideration in the first place (at least not the way I've set things up).  In fact, we must look on the feet: for we are working, if you recall, from the basho of clothing, and clothing is not worn in the interior of the body.

Many things, of course, are worn on the feet: shoes, socks, sandals, spats, etc.  Spats can be eliminated outright (spats are nothing more than hats worn on shoes).  Between shoes, socks and sandals, though, finer argumentation is called for.  They are all pairs, and one might be tempted to observe of socks they are patients, not agents, of a concealing, and in that respect seem to be the opposite of hats.  Moreover they are only partial agents: some socks, at least, stick up beyond the top of the shoe, and are visible.  Furthermore, the hat is an outermost layer, while socks are innermost.  However, the fact that socks do not appear to be orientable the way hats do is a stumbling block.  Recall that a hat is closed on top and open on the bottom.  One might want to say that a sock is open on top and closed on the bottom, but that's silly.  That's just silly.  A sock's foot-hole is not its top.  A sock fundamentally rejects top/bottomness in favor of aroundness—the sock goes around the foot.  A pair of socks could not possibly be the opposite of a hat.  Shoes do have tops and bottoms, but a shoe is closed on the top and bottom.  We are left to consider the sandal.

We would not want to awarded the title "opposite of hats" to sandals merely because they have outlasted the other objects of our consideration! No, the sandal too must prove its worth. Now, clearly, the sandal has both a top and a bottom. Not only that, but it has material all over the bottom, and some material on top, thus establishing openness even more vehemently than openness simpliciter ever could have. But what's exceptionally interesting here is that the sandal is both the patient of a concealing (the bottom of the sandal being obscured from view by the foot) and the agent of a revealing. For the straps of the sandal call attention to the top of the foot and thereby bring them into the open: this partial concealment gets in the way of our passing over the foot idly and therefore causes that which is unconcealed to obtrude on our consciousness. Thus I have demonstrated beyond all contention that a pair of sandals is the opposite of a hat.

* As is clear from the fact that it was not announced, duh.
* Incidentally, on the page following that on which we read about Chuang Tzu, at least in this book, we may read that "it would be too grand too claim that while Aristotle had metaphysical assumptions, Nishida did not.  It is more helpful to note that they both rested their logical reflections on metaphysical outlooks.".  Is this not similar to saying "It would be an overstatement to call him an unredeemable asshole.  In fact he's a nice guy."?
*Using "were" here was my first instinct and I'm sticking with it.  Even if it's wrong, I figure that the subjunctive gets so little respect these days that it's ok.  Remember: Bo Diddley's a gunslinger.
*Strictly speaking, zero and one are members of one equivalence class the opposite of which contains every other natural number; however, we can afford not to be too technical here.

Comments

[ogged]

You know, we've had this discussion. I find your dismissal inadequate.

[tammy]

I think your consideration of the topness and bottomness of socks and shoes needs some refinement.

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

The opposite of a hat is a convex doodad that lodges in the hairy inner cavity of a cranial involution.

[Craig]

I think we do bettter to look at the emotional and social qualities of the hat rather than its mere physical and topological properties. Once we've identified these properties we can envision a sort of ur-hat whose opposite will become apparent. What are these qualities? A hat is:

-formal. It is true that there are party hats, beach hats, and trucker "caps" and so on, but these should be considered anomalies. The reason why silly hats are amusing, why informal hats so pleasantly surprising, is that they transgress against the inherent nature of hatness, which is stolid and serious.

-masculine. Consider H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, in the early chapters. Male characters who have been unmanned (or melted) by Martian heat ray attack are invariably described as hat-less. The narrator in fact loses his hat, much to his dismay, whilst fleeing from a tripod. And if we cannot trust Victorian socialist utopian science fiction authors to get at the buried gendered roots of hat-ness, we can trust no one.

-mournful but resolute. A hat does not cover for the sake of covering. Rather, it covers to keep out sun, wind, and, especially, rain. It is a bulwark against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (especially if made of metal) and against the wild forces of the natural world. A hat is man's felty act of defiance against the vagaries of fate.

The ur-hat, then, would be a brown felt bowler, worn by a sad-eyed banker with an elegant mustache in the City of London in 1892. It's opposite is feminine, informal, joyous. In short, the sun dress.

[Craig]

I note with shame that I have completely discredited myself by using it's as a contraction. I only slept three hours last night, but I am aware that that is no excuse.

[Craig]

I note with shame that I have completely discredited myself by using it's, the contraction, where its, the possessive, was actually required. I only got three hours of sleep last night but am aware that That Is No Excuse.

[ben wolfson]

A hat is an inessential accoutrement added to one end, shaving one's toes is an inessential cosmetic removal at the other.

If shaving one's toes were essential, you'd be on stronger ground, I think. Also, note that here you've switched from your original suggestion—shaven feet—to an action. I really don't think that the activity of shaving one's toes can be the opposite of a hat. You need to lay out exactly what you mean in greater detail.

Craig, my ancient nemesis, I'll deal with you later.

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

I would find the sundress theory compelling, were it not that women also commonly partook of the chapeau. Indoors, no less.

[Craig]

Do not men sometimes wear both hats and sandals? Similarly, one might expect women to wear hats indoors, even though this runs against the basic nature of the hat. Opposites can be near each other and qualities diluted in this fallen world of dross. We are not dealing here with the mere vagaries of worldly facts but with platonic essences.

[ben wolfson]

Fancy writin' don't make compellin' arguin', Craig.

[Craig]

It's just that the quality of my thought is so high. What I'm saying is, the mere fact that women have been known to wear hats indoors speaks to the inherent qualities of women, not of hats.

[ogged]

If shaving one's toes were essential, you'd be on stronger ground

Ok, this is a fair point. (The thing/action distinction is easily avoided by rephrasing.) Certainly though, one can imagine certain peer circles in which hairy feet are unacceptable.

[ben wolfson]

You can rephrase it, but then you're still stuck with the fact that a hat is an article of clothing, and having shaven toes is a state of being.

Craig: It's already been established (and by such a one as Standpipe Bridgeplate Standpipeself, no less) that women wear hats and that, therefore, you attribution of masculinity to hats is illegitimate. The speciousness of "when women wear hats, it's because of their woman-nature, and not because of their hat-nature" is so obvious I won't even bother to point it out. As for formality, the fact that you think this shows that you are mired in a romantic misconception of hat-nature. It may be that in this fallen age, black-clad adolescents with a penchant for anachronism (such as yourself) harbor a yen for the days of shirt collars and felt bowlers, but we must understand that their own understanding, which, in its modish rejection of all things youthful and fun, seems invested with authority, is merest phantasy. One notes that your analysis can be turned around: Why, one might ask, does the formal hat please you so much? Simply because it denies the true essence of hat, which is having fun. The ur-hat on this understanding is a yarmulke: worn with utmost formality to conceal oneself from the gaze of god. (And don't think I don't detect the weensiest trace of Jewish guilt in your analysis.) But I believe that the hat is many and various, capable of embracing formality and frivolity. When our first ancestor covered over his or her head to escape the gaze of this earth's yellow sun, questions of formality were not operative.

Further I note that a sun dress and a hat can both be both clothes for sunny weather. In fact, I bet a brown felt bowler would go pretty well with a sun dress of an appropriate color.

[Matt Weiner]

The ur-hat on this understanding is a yarmulke: worn with utmost formality to conceal oneself from the gaze of god.

Making its opposite the foreskin. PWNED!

[dave zacuto]

Didn't we have a conversation about this once? I seem to remember it being inconclusive.

[tammy]

Standpipe Bridgeplate Standpipeself
Are you trying to irk me, Ben?

I take issue with your arbitrary notion of what oppositeness entails, viz., that the opposite of a hat should be an article of clothing but should have a certain number of other characteristics not-in-common with a hat.

We need, as you say, rigor here. What is the opposite of a thing? It is possible that opposite of a thing is that thing that is unlike the thing in every way. This thing, however, is hard to find, if indeed it even exists.

More likely, the opposite of a thing is that thing that is like the thing in every way except one important way. In this sense, your left hand is clearly the opposite of your right hand.

The hat, then, must have an opposite that would be a hat, were it not hat-deficient in a certain way. A hat that you wear on your feet would be a good candidate. I think that a shoe (not a pair of shoes) is very much akin to a hat that you wear on your feet and is therefore likely to be the opposite of a hat.

[ben wolfson]

I think your consideration of the topness and bottomness of socks and shoes needs some refinement.

Socks: radial.
Shoes: I admit that they have tops and bottoms, but a true shoe has a covered top. There are some shoes, mostly women's but also formal varieties of men's, that have open tops, but I think these are properly considered dressy sandals.

(As for "Standpipeself": Blame Weiner.)

[Matt Weiner]

He's just following my obiter dicta.

[tammy]

Your understanding of socks and shoes verges on incomprehensibility. What are you talking about, shoes have closed tops? How are you going to get your foot into a shoe with a closed top? Your ankle no more makes the top of a shoe closed than your head makes the bottom of a hat closed. Furthermore, socks very definitely have a top and a bottom. The way they are oriented in space when in use is an important part of their sockness and certainly dictates where the top is. Socks, like shoes, have open tops. Q.E.D.

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

You can rephrase it, but then you're still stuck with the fact that a hat is an article of clothing, and having shaven toes is a state of being.

If there were a Nair-type product that worked only on toe-hair, would that satisfy you? Or would you still object that hairless toes aren't essential enough?

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

The Nair-type product being the opposite of a hat, of course.

[Matt Weiner]

The product wouldn't be worn--but is that just another aspect of its oppositionality?

[ben wolfson]

A product that one wore to cover up toe hair would be the closest to acceptability that I can currently conceive.

[ac]

I was thinking, as I was reading, before I got to the comments and its clarifications, that the opposite of a hat would be a speculum.

[apostropher]

According to this paper by Chudnovsky and Seymour:

Let n >= 0. Let A = {a0, a1, ... , an}, B = {b0, b1, ... , bn} and C = {c1, ... , cn} be three cliques, pairwise disjoint. Let G be the graph with vertex set A[B [C and with adjacency as follows. For 0 <= i, j <= n, let ai, bj be adjacent if and only if i = j > 0, and for 1 <= i <= n and 0 <= j <= n let ci be adjacent to aj, bj if and only if i 6= j 6= 0. Let X ` A [ B [ C with a0, b0 /2 X; then the strip (G \ X, a0, b0) is called an antihat strip.

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

There once was a gyno named Glenda
With opposites on her agenda.
Each patient disrobing
Got 'stead of a probing
A stetson upon her pudenda.

[ben wolfson]

There's a problem with your limerick, SB: the last line scans.

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

I am dirt.

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

Obligatory ligature: discussion continues here (to Ben's consternation).

[apostropher]

This comment, however, can only be read here. Exclusive!!! Must credit Waste!!!

[ben wolfson]

A++++ WOULD READ COMMENT AGAIN