The next section of the book we’re looking at is on simplicity and plainness. Since Mackenzie wears what Isabel Penraeth dubbed “plain modern” clothes, we’re gonna talk a fair bit about that. For reference, Mackenzie’s everyday clothes are a blouse, a black skirt, black boots, and a white head covering. Right up until that last bit, that wouldn’t be unusual office attire.
Plain dress
Plain dress is only one part of plainness or simplicity. It’s the most visible one, so it gets a lot of attention. There are a lot of functions to distinctive dress. One of them is that it positively identifies you as part of a group. That’s good for outreach, as long as you’re not making us look bad. But that not making us look bad thing also makes it an extra check on behavior. Several iterations on Quaker swag have occurred to take advantage of the outreach aspect.
Since there aren’t really Quaker groups today where everyone dresses distinctively, let alone the same, this works out a little differently. Those of us who dress “plain” instead have our actions reflect on peace churches or Christians or people of faith in general. (Mackenzie lives near a large Orthodox Jewish community, and sometimes she’s assumed to be one of them.)
Micah asked whether all Quakers should dress like this. And so we discussed Margaret Fell’s “silly, poor gospel” line.
Adopting a personal uniform can be a discipline for people who find themselves easily drawn to things like fashion. Some people who do so are choosing to prioritize other things and declare fashion to not be a priority.
We talked about obedience as a reason to “go plain.” If the Kingdom of God is a person’s highest priority, they’re bound to do some things a bit differently. The book mentions looking and speaking differently. It’s meant to be the result of an inward change. It’s not meant to be done just because (or just because someone said so).
Plain speech
Quakers have traditionally had a way of speaking called plain speech. It’s rare nowadays. Quakerism started in a time of rigid social hierarchy. Like the Levellers before them, early Quakers tried to level that hierarchy downward. One way they did this was to refuse to use the plural pronoun “you” to refer to only one person. That was a way people referred to their social “betters.” Quakers said “thou” instead. (Fun fact: American Quaker dialect has lost the thee/thou distinction. Therefore, American Quakers who still use plain speech say things like, “thee is helpful.” In case you’re not familiar, “thou art helpful” would’ve been proper English 300 years ago.)
Quakers traditionally also eschewed titles. Nowadays, it’s normal to call people by their first name, even when they’re unfamiliar. Back when formal versus informal mattered, the Quaker style was to use both first and last names for formal. British Friends might still call their monarch “Elizabeth Windsor.”
The modern era presents new challenges for how to address this social leveling. Income and wealth inequality are growing in the US. At the same time, social modes are already leveled. What’s the next step?
We also touched back on recording ministers.
References
* Quaker Jane, by Isabel Penraeth
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