Saturday, November 13, 2010

Should a lifestyle lolita be a kind person?

I'm feeling pretty sad today. It's not new to me, but I've started to become painfully aware that I'm living in a world where wanting people to want to love and understand one another is considered naive and childish. People say to me, "this is the real world, get over it" and "too much tolerance is a bad thing", and I'm left feeling like maybe I'm not being realistic - maybe the world is full of horrible, stupid, rude people and I'm just being God's advocate (*for nerds), maybe I need to toughen up and accept a little cynicism into my life. But I don't want to! I'm sick of feeling like I'm a freak or a hippie for suggesting that we should do all we can to be kind to each other, even if they're not the nicest people in the world to us. Maybe it's the church community I grew up in who really lived by the 'turn the other cheek' mentality. I'm not claiming to always live that way, but is it so immature of me to consider that an worthy ideal? I'd like to hope that as I grow as a person I learn to react to everything in a way that's constructive, not just reactive.



I see anger everywhere around me, and it goes against everything I feel I am. Part of wearing lolita goes with a desire to remind the world what it is to be sweet and kind and polite. Does anyone else feel this way? I know for a lot of girls lolita is just clothes, but to me (and I assume this is the case for a lot of lifestyle lolis), it represents something in society that we're missing. It's a rare thing these days that we meet a person who goes out of their way to be kind to a stranger, and I want to see more of it. I can't make others do it, so I feel great wish to be that person who 'sets an example', as egotistical as that sounds. I become very angry at myself when I act unkindly, which happens so much often it shames me. I love lolita because it reminds me to be sweet to people. Am I naive?

How do you feel about lolita and the way you treat other people? Does being dressed in this sweet manner encourage you to try to be sweeter to others? Or does it have no influence on your interactions with others?I've very curious how others see this. If it was up to me, I'd respond to every horrible act over a big sweet smile and a batting of lashes and a cup of tea, with sensitive words and an olive branch.


During the canonization process of the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latinpromotor fidei), popularly known as the Devil's advocate (Latin: advocatus diaboli), was a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of the candidate. It was their job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, etc. The Devil's advocate opposed God's advocate (Latin: advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the Cause), whose task is to make the argument in favor of canonization. This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice (promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate.

9 comments:

  1. Well, I never wear sweet, so the tag of 'sweet' never really occurred to me as part of wearing the clothes. But wearing classic lolita definitely instills a sense of ... politeness? I usually want to carry myself in a way that is befitting of what I'm wearing, so a lot of times that just translates into my posture and maybe my speech.

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  2. Everyone should want be a kind and polite person even if you're wearing sweatpants. I don't get the attitude that most lifestylers have of "well lolitas shuld be luvlies" - I think I was a pretty nice person before I found lolita. It makes me sad to think that there are people who need to put on a costume to become a nice person.

    I think there are many so-called "bitches" in lolita because they get tired of people coming in and forgetting the "polite" part - part of being polite is being considerate of others. This includes when people ask silly questions in the main comm that could easily have been answered if the person had been thoughtful and done independent research(ie google it!) I'm not saying you do these things, this is just my train of thought here whenever I see this argument about clothing leading to an adjustment of attitude(and it comes up pretty often on the lifestyler blogs.)

    Teal Deer: If you want to do those things (drink tea, be nice, whatever) go ahead and do them regardless of whether you're wearing a $300 dress or you're buck-naked. When you change your behavior just because of clothes rather than because that's how you feel inside, it becomes a costume to hide what you really are.

    (You can see why I like Helga as my avatar - I don't hold back! None of my harshness is directed at you, I just see this same concept over and over and I just don't get the mindset.)

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  3. I don't necessarily see this from a religious perspective anymore, but I completely agree. It is really quite obnoxious at a time where we can have instant communication to anywhere on the planet and people still have to go to war. Why? What drives people to want to destroy another human live? Unfortunately I often turn to religion being the force behind their actions. The middle east is the prime example of it.

    However yes, there is murder and bloodshed throughout other parts of the world where religion isn't strong. Take for example the genocide in Africa. They are just mindlessly killing because they pretend to not know any better and they never see a negative to their acts. I feel that their killing is caused by pathetic lack of intelligence.

    I was quite irritated earlier in September when I was talking with my roommate. He just shrugged off all of the wars and death as if they are gonna happen, and will happen. But clearly, there is no reason to fight anymore. I understand that centuries ago we used to fight over land. Land is pretty much a joke these days because no one needs the land to farm, only farmers do. We also used to fight over religion. If people would open their eyes and start to see things more clearly, they could see that- at the least- their religions are all very similar and there is NOTHING saying that killing someone else is for the best. And finally, there is no language barrier anymore, so using a lack of understand or an insult as a cause for war is just pathetic.

    Sorry this is long to read >.< but I really get disgusted that there are people willing to make such stupid decisions (I feel we are overpopulated, so the deaths have at least 1 benefit, but we could do without them. just get birth control in the poorer countries of the world)

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  4. I am exactly the same way ;_; and have been told that I have an "idealistic view of the world" which is apparently "only going to set you up for disappointment". I don't think expecting common sense and courtesy out of people is "idealistic". It is what we are taught in school and life, but forget as we grow up

    Some people maybe associate that with Lolita fashion because they think that if you look sweet, you should be sweet. Though that is sort like expecting all Goths to be morbid or all Preps to be superficial or something... Everybody should just be polite!

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  5. I don't think being kind has something to do especially with Lolita or religion, it's being human. It's in people's nature to succumb to hatred. Anyway you should always be positive, love everyone and keep preaching love, no matter what cynical people say. You have the gift of love, don't let others take it from you.

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  6. I think everyone else has made great points. I'd say to look to being nice regardless of other peoples opinions.
    I always say I "Expect the Worst but Hope for the Best"
    I'm naturally pretty pessimistic but when I see good things happen it makes me ecstatic

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  7. Damn I wish blogspot had a 'like' button, I want to respond to everyone's comments but that seems silly. I loved what you all had to say though :)

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  8. Yes, I agree 100%~☆ (。・ω・。)

    People have told me that this is one of my better qualities - my naive trust in everyone to be a good person. Sometimes it backfires and you get hurt, but I honestly can't think any other way.
    I also find it really difficult to lie, so I basically forget that others can and do on a daily basis (oh, this backfires too). I just don't understand the need for lying (beyond a simple white lie) or manipulation.

    Not to say I haven't grown cynnical in my own way over the years, but I firmly believe in being as nice as possible to everyone at all times - this can result in me being a doormat sometimes, and it's annoying when others don't return the sentiment, but I think it's a good way to live.

    Give people the benefit of the doubt, and stand by the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anythin at all" policy (this is why I loathe 'bitching').

    I agree that the world needs more of this! There would be less wars if everyone were just *nicer* to each other, more empathetic and less manipulative.
    Just remember to keep some realism and cynnicism handy, in case of danger. Like pepper spray?

    As for lolita, I always feel like I should be extra polite and well mannered when I am wearing lolita~~ I feel like we should be setting an example or something '__';;

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  9. I feel like wearing Lolita makes me feel free to be a nice person. I get sick of people telling me I'm silly and naive for wanting to be nice and expecting other people to be nice to me, I don't know if that makes any sense!

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