Except that, in explaining his choice of no ties at all, RMS resorts precisely to moral imperatives.

By my reading, he says people who wear ties because they feel they need to are complicit. If you just honestly like ties, I don't think he has any beef with you, provided you're not trying to force them on others.

Yeah, okay, I can see that reading. I interpreted it more like, by wearing a tie, you pressure others to wear a tie, whether you personally like it or not. I would actually agree with this, because it makes sense if you think about our desire to conform to group behavioral norms. It's similar to the pressure women feel about wearing high heels, despite that many of them love to. But you don't need to proclaim moral imperatives in order to be a non-conformist; ironically, an insistence on non-conformity is exactly the same kind of pressure that conformists exert.