Washington Square Park, New York

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Once upon a time, when a poor farmer came to the big city, he wore his only suit and put his best foot forward. It was only criminals, hooligans, and wasters who went out in public dressed like slobs, in order to make spectacles of themselves. Back then it was also thought of as unmanly to display too much emotion. Now the opposite is true. People dress as badly as possible—I call it contrived dishevelment—and cry at the drop of a name. Looking like homeless bums, letting it all hang out, and openly revealing things one wouldn’t tell a shrink, that’s what modern man is like nowadays. In the meantime, human decency, which in reality is good manners, has gone the way of the dodo bird, whatever that is.