You mentioned US army schools, they are hugely subsidized and the catholic schools, well they get huge amounts of charity. Economically they are dependent on government subsidies and local/foreign charities.

But what you are missing is, both army schools and catholic schools get proper consumer support freely.

I mentioned IF a school does not respect consumers freedom it will fail. Both Army school and catholic school provide that freedom, even the religious Islamic schools (Madrassa) gets proper consumer support (in India) because they are based on consumer freedom.
Only those students go their who really want to learn Islamic religious manners, only those students go there in Navy private schools like T.S Chanakya (India) who want to have a career in Navy and they then accept the Navy dress too. The agreement is free. And those dress codes are feasible for their respective career options.
That is not so in Afghanistan though, or taliban ruled SWAT. There, if a girl goes to school, she gets a bullet shot at her head.

Now consider this, a student looking for training for cricket, or football, will he agree for a school’s dress code which forces everybody wearing a Priest’s dress?
How can a cricket player play or practice in a priest’s dress? he cannot, its not feasible.
Can Sania Mirza play tennis while wearing a full Hizab and Burqa which is strictly enforced in vast region of pakistan and Afghanistan?

So the issue is of feasibility.
Not all students are forced to study in Madrassas, or catholic schools, or Navy schools, only those who consider such schools feasible for their career options go there, it is their freedom and those schools respect their freedom.

The thing is, the course they teach in Madrassas, or in some catholic schools is not rational. We criticize both. Why won’t we?
We criticize national army and national navy too and we support privatization of security system.
Criticism is different than enforcement.
But now consider case of taliban.
All students are required to study ONLY in Madrassa, all books talking of Evolution, should be burnt, anybook which is not respecting islamic tenents of Allah (or catholic tenents of Bible for a catholic theocratic society) should be burnt, Every girl who refutes and tries to engage with boys should be announced a witch and should be burnt alive in an open marketplace so that she may become a role model for other girls, Any woman going outside without her husband or father as the escort will be raped in the market.
Any home playing some music in a party of family gathering will be attacked andd burnt etc…. can you expect people agreeing for it?
Do you think such institution are viable? Do you think such societies are free?

Then what caused the end of Dark ages? Why did people revolted and opposed the theocracy of Europe? it was not viable that is why it changed.

P.S, Gandhi always wore Dhottis, his ardent student and closest friend Jawahar Lala Nehru never used a Dhotti, he was always an ardent fan of western dresses, obviously made by Indian workers with Indian material. Now in the era of globalization, no one can restrict consumers only to use native material and production, Outsourcing is so common and necessary.

And well, look at Indian Parliament, 90% of representatives of India, the MPs and MLA’s wear modern dresses. That’s how India works.
Nobody opposes Sharad Pawar, or L.K Advani, or Manmohan Singh or Ahluwalia, or A.B Wardhan or Prakash Karat, when they wear suits shirts and pants. Although, if Sonia Gandhi chooses to wear a western Gown for attending a parliament session, things will go awry.
People enjoys the bold and beautiful pictures of Indira Gandhi riding a horse in cowboy suits, or catwalking on Paris fashion shows when she was young, showing her beautiful physique. But when she became PM, she was expected to wear a sari. The thing is, this burdened expectation of collective groups on an Individual just because she is a woman and is holding an official position (governmental or private) is simply irrational. Now some women succumb to this irrational and uncalled expectation and accept it, some women may deny succumbing. Many denies it.

Nobody demanded Kiran Bedi to wear a Khaki Sari while encountering terrorists and killers, when people attack Sania Mirza, for wearing those little sexy dresses on tennis court, why don’t they attack the Army headquarters where the female army personals also wears those western dresses which although are not a part of that so-called Indian culture but are the demand of their situations and are purposive?

Its the induced discrimination against females. It won’t remain for long.

I do not know why you and gopi are making a fuss about that article.
Anyways, regarding this article, trust me, in a free society, its not possible nor viable for a person to run a school successfully even while restricting and enforcing any sort of dress codes, let alone Talibanese dress codes, that is not properly feasible and obviously beneficial for the students in the specific streams of their education.

As for example, if a college says that during the mechanical engineering classes, while working on machines, it is necessary for students to wear a Khaki shirt and pant so that their dresses may not get ruined by oil etc, and they have to use rubber gloves, most students will readily agree. For a school to run successfully in a free market, it is necessary for the school administration to give importance to the free status of students too. otherwise, economically it won’t be viable for it.

Anyways, you don’t need to nitpick over that article, the issue was better dealt in the previous post http://www.reasonforliberty.com/current-affairs/the-dress-code.html

Now about your post, the simple thing is, any theocratic organization proposing any irrational belief, restriction or ruling, cannot simply make people accept it without using force. That is why Iran uses police and military force to enforce the dress codes. And even after all those brutalities and enforcement for their irrational rules and regulations, people do not follow them, they revolt. As you can see here http://www.reasonforliberty.com/current-affairs/the-dress-code.html

To accept irrational is not in human blood nature, that is why Evolution is the process, entrepreneurship is the way, innovation is the answer and liberty is the aim, liberty to evolve.

What a crap joke.

Gandhi gave up wearing baggies made up of cotton, because those pants were not made by Indian clothmakers. He had no objection against modern dresses and their viability/usability, the problem was, he wanted to help local workers.

Now a days, local workers make much better world class dresses than any group of British workers.
Now a days, Indian native fashion designers innovates and produces much better outfits for all seasons and occasions in much charismatic ways, so only the term is modern, otherwise everything about those modern dresses is Indian. Those modern dresses are current Indian culture.

You wanna avoid it? Don’t wear pants, and always wear Dhottis, let me guess, you even do not know how to tie a dhotti properly.

purposive is rational. tight fitting jeans does not serve my purpose in delhi summers. so, it’s rational to wear a dhoti in summers & jeans in winters,right? that’s all i wanted to say.

Gopi, stop acting like that. I have already answered it in that previous post.
Nobody wears a dhoti because Delhi is Hot. There’s lot of cool stuff from cotton pants in various style including baggies.

You won’t get 1 in lakh Delhites wearing anything weird like Dhotti.

And jeans is obviously not a rational choice for most of the formal seasons, people do wear formal dresses, yet nobody wears Dhotti, its offish, too much clumsy, and does not support any purpose except that of some pujaris of some temple.

Why are you so hell bent on supporting your wrong ideas about Dhotti?

You can claim an instantaneous vote out anytime in delhi, not even 1 per lakh guys of whole Delhi wears Dhotti. Not even during their marriages. Even in marriages either they prefer Sherwani or special suits.

this post supports irrationality by allowing a school…

I think I clearly said that I don’t care whether this viewpoint supports rationality or irrationality, and I said that in view of the debate which happened in the article about “sari”.

My point here was clear, I am not passing value judgments. The site is named “Reason for Liberty” for a specific reason. It is a juncture of rationality and libertarianism. One thing all the authors on this site agree upon and that is that its Libertarian for allowing the colleges to do whatever they want(with respect to their dresses and all).

On the issue of Rationality, then rationality is a moral scale.

Its rational for you to not infringe on other individual’s private property rights. Now the other individual could be committing irrational things, but if you prevent him from committing irrational things by preventing him from using his private property rights then your action became irrational. On the other hand, if you prevent him from committing irrational things by using words, or non-violent means then you are being rational as well as you made him rational.

In simple words, if it is irrational for the college to enforce sexist segregation then you must try to convince them, use non-violent means to make them not do those things. But if you use any kind of force(like use govt, or bring a law suit) then you will be doing irrational things.

It could happen that I think college is doing the rational thing by enforcing a segregation, and it could happen that you think college is doing an rational thing by not forcing segregation, either way we agree on one thing, using any kind of force to enforce my or your viewpoint against the wishes of the college owners would be an irrational thiing.

Compare to that, if its an issue of marital rape, then we all agree that its an irrational thing, even if you think that its perfectly rational for a husband to ask for sex from his wife, if you rape your wife, you must be go to jail, or suffer punishment in some form. Here using force to make you agree to the punishment is not irrational.

I hope that clears up the air about all this Rational vs Libertarian viewpoints on this site.

“The basic idea of rational choice theory is that patterns of behavior in societies reflect the choices made by individuals as they try to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs.”

Obviously in the example of  the Chennai private colleges, it is perceived that there is some benefit to the students or they would choose not to attend. Empirical evidence may not support that premise (I don’t know) but subjective “value” becomes the primary decision driver.

this post supports irrationality by allowing a school

This post commits no irrationality because the author realizes that he is NO one to allow or disallow anyone from opening any school of any form. It is for the individuals to decide whether they would opt to study in a school with an irrational set up or not. They may choose not to join that school, they cannot choose to “Disallow” or Ban it, they have no power to do so. The person opening such a school is no slave to those who opposes such schools and ideas.

Rationality says, there is no need to ban anything, that which is not purposeful, will be eliminated by individuals by choice and not by any sort of force to ban things. And this site will criticize each irrational approach.

No one ever said that ban wearing Saris, what was said here is, using modern dresses is more PURPOSIVE, and purposive is synonym of rational.

Everything a human does is rational according to him (he wudn’t do it otherwise)

That Idea itself is irrational. You are too much confused about rationality, i would prefer not to discuss it with you.

one day i hear a lady saying this site is “all abt rationality & not libertarianism” and the next day i see a post which supports irrational behaviour!!! who’s running de show here?

Now, how does this post support irrationality?

Its always in your own hands. If you know that wearing burqa is off limit to you, you won’t be attending a university enforcing you some middle aged dress code. It is as simple as that. And if you calculate that even though you will have to wear a burqa, yet the output of going to that university will be much more than leaving that option, and you decide to compromise over the question of wearing a burqa for a period, is also your choice. You will obviously make a rational choice, both on terms of your ethics and your economics.

Yet, you cannot be forced. Nor you can be forced to wear western dresses too, its always you to decide what suits you. And this site is to express that which is rational.

if you are doing something irrational with your life, is it rational for me to stop you from doing it? Or the mere fact that I am forcing my will on you makes my actions irrational?

It depends on the relation between you two.

As for example, a mother will surely induce her will on her child about what to eat, how much to eat, when to bathe and when to sleep. The child is totally dependent on her will, which on the other hand, is her duty, her accepted duty. To fulfill that duty is surely rational.
She cannot leave/drop the child after giving birth in some guttural ditch to enjoy freedom to death.

Same way, in a business relation too, the partners surely have a pre-attained rational duty/privilege over each other to restrict any dangerous act from the sides of other partner. In case of a debate, where their comes out to be a no-way solution, the partnership breaks.

btw, nice post… this is what draws me to this site.

This means that they want to dictate how and where and when I should spend my money, to drive an initiative of which they approve. This is the tyranny of the majority, and one of the most destructive habits of a democracy.  Even worse is the tyranny of the minority, which says that my moral standards need to be subsumed by the interest of the few, simply because they are obnoxious or violent.

Theocracy? Why should a bunch of religious “leaders” dictate my moral conscience? They are just human, and subject to all the moral failings of any human (lust, greed, sloth, perversion, envy).

Republicanism. It’s the best of all systems of government. Free market capitalism,  the right to property, and the right to practice your religion in peace, all without government interference, are the supports on which personal freedom is based.