But shoes don’t make or unmake the (wo)man
Last Feb, haters called Vivek Ramaswamy “uncivilised” for going barefoot at home. So, if shod feet are the hallmark of civilisation, US startups seem to be connecting with their inner brute. Cursor, Replo, Composite and dozens of others have strict shoe-off policies. Pundits diagnose this as the lingering effect of work-from-home habits. Young CEOs themselves sell it as a sign of friendliness. Cleaning cost is a more likely explanation – offices with no shoes need less cleaning. Or it could simply be a youthful whim. An old WaPo article about Einstein says, “As a young man…he was forever taking off his shoes and padding about in wool socks.”
Youth passes, and with it go tattoos and the urge to be different. Shoes used to be optional at Substack and payments firm Stripe in their callow years. Not anymore. Oddly, the oldest cultures continue to wrinkle noses at shoes. From Japan to Korea and India, shoes have been considered unclean, and left at the doorstep. As one Mrs AW Wilson writes in her 1888 Japan diary, with wonder: “Japanese consider it very untidy to enter their homes wearing the shoes that have trodden the streets.” Before her, the British in Burma were caught in a “shoes conflict”. They disliked taking off shoes in the king’s presence. So, when Edward VII visited Calcutta in 1875, they insisted the Burmese envoys sit in chairs with shoes on, expecting reciprocal concessions, but the ploy didn’t work. They deposed the Burmese king.
But shoes, like debt, can be a bad habit. Their first primitive use 30,000 years ago softened the small toe. Heels and ultra-cushioned soles have a role in knee injuries and collapsed arches. There’s a place for them, of course – dirty streets, factory floors – but not wearing them does not make you uncivilised. Socrates didn’t.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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