Short pants

Cosma Shalizi is annoyed by a poorly argued call for academics to dress better, and points out that the author could have made his point using actual reasoning but chose not to do so. His points are well-taken, but I also found that the article falls under the domain of application of a rule that has served me well:

When reading a work of cultural criticism, if you find that the author complains about how grown men now go around wearing short pants, you can safely ignore the rest.