It's a principle shared by quite a few people, and about twenty to thirty years ago was quite culturally important. Wikipedia has a really interesting section on anti-tie sentiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necktie#Anti-necktie_sentiment The world has moved on so fast we have forgotten how recently this was a genuine issue where this stance was something people felt was relevant to them.
For RMS, it will likely be related to the counterculture, anti-business or anti-capitalism stance. For a long time, a suit _and tie_ was the uniform of going to work, until well into the eighties or later in many places. (The British didn't even stop wearing bowler hats to the office until the sixties!)
In the late nineties, wearing casual clothes to work in the office was seen as one of the perks of freedom the growing programmer culture had (this is back in the days when Google was 'don't be evil' and everyone was excited about tech.) I'm starting to feel old because while I was still in school at the time, I remember people dressing what today would be quite formally in the office, and it being a really big deal that tech companies had different standards. It was the kind of thing people on Slashdot (remember that?) celebrated about tech.
So - the symbolism of a tie, or being anti-tie, seems very in line with his old-school counterculture hacker ethos.
In Parliament a Top Hat was required (until 1998) if an MP wished to raise a specific type of point of order. As nobody had one, they had a shared one they would throw around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nbGxk7cLqY
Wigs were abandoned by British barristers and judges in civil cases only 2007.
Last year, was the first time I went to a job interview not wearing a tie (but still shirt and jacket).
> I remember people dressing what today would be quite formally in the office
I remember the cubes in Office Space (1999) characterising IniTech as depressing (people dropping by without even needing to knock on the door) and soulless, but maybe today's open plan workers think they look like privacy incarnate?
Err, yes, but it's meant to contrast to the previous part, where he has a single sentence about figuring out right from wrong.
Given his well-documented harassment of women over the decades, it's sadly ironic that he spends 6+ paragraphs on ties, and much less on more important moral introspection.
I disagree with him on many things. But I do agree on the T-shirts. I like mine without any prints or branding, especially the stupid university prints.
And I hate ties and formal attire as well, I refuse to wear it and I wouldn't work for a company that requires it.
I spoke to them in the past, that last bullet point definitely means suit and tie. I immediately noped out when they told me that. When I lived in Seattle and commuted on the bus to downtown, you could tell the few on the bus who worked there simply by how they were dressed.
I always wear chinos and a T-shirt :P I don't even own any shirts that fit. And I wouldn't do my job any better with one (in fact probably a lot worse because I'd be resentful and very uncomfortable).
> When I worked at MIT, I was shocked that MIT graduates, who due to their ability and skill could have almost dictated employment terms, instead felt compelled to wear ties to job interviews, even with companies that (they knew) had the sense not to ask them to wear ties on the job.
Is this still a thing? I've went to dozens of job interviews these last few years, including for Google and for banks and other serious institutions, and I never wore a tie at any of them, nor was it ever suggested that I should (not even by people who had a financial incentive to get me the job) nor did the interviewer ever wear one.
The tie section is interesting. When you think of it, RMS might be right about certain scenarios, especially in companies that have dress code. But many men wear ties just to look more elegant, and there might be other reasons.
I had the impression the casual suit tie evolved out of the stock tie*; if so it was even changed over time from a practical, stubby, thing to a decorative, much longer, thing.
Lagniappe: Is it just coincidence that the proper sentences are « Je vais au Canada. » and « Je vais en France. » ? Do francophones habitually go onto grammatically masculine countries and into grammatically feminine ones?
It's hard to find any phallic symbolism in the cravat, so sartorial genealogy seems a point against the idea. But one might wonder what impulse led it to grow so much longer and floppier.
I am absolutely agree with everything he noted. A tie, symbols on shirts, even cell phone owning. I am following this lifestyle except of being too shy of spying - but who is me and who is RMS.
I don't know. I miss my old days on wall St. sometimes. I work remotely from home and most days I'm in t-shirt, shorts and slippers. It's nice suit up sometimes. The only opportunity I get these days is weddings.
(There's a sartorial theory that the front-of-the-house in restaurants wears clothes approximating what the clientele was wearing a generation ago. When we get to the point where the front of the house is in hoodies and jeans, what do we guess the diners will be wearing?)
Stallman's odd eccentricities got a lot less adorable in light of https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/25/2023-11-26-RMS-on-sex.htm... and I think any discussion of his lifestyle should probably mention he is practically unable to pass on an opportunity to defend pedophiles.
> Religion offers no moral short-cut. It is up to us to figure out what is right and what is wrong.
Hard at work on this one, I hope.
> As a matter of principle, I refuse to own a tie.
> ... 6 more paragraphs about ties ...
Clearly an important principle.