Saturday, September 5, 2015

World Beard Day: Getting a Close Shave!

The beard revival is sometimes tied to the resurgence of old-fashioned masculinity. After the well-clipped metrosexual trend of the 2000s, the beard returned with a bang. The facial jungle for men (and for women) is sometimes associated with the gender culture. But is that all there's to it? PomoNews investigates. 

As a blog that has as its central theme, the cultural destruction of Western civilization we can't very well abstain from commenting on the renaissance of the facial hair. It comes in trendy bushy beards, goatees, designer stubble and the ironical female mustache. As explanation for the trend religion comes to mind (the Muslim beard comes in various varieties), as well as the Freudian sexual connotation, and the gender bending approach of the Postmodern hipster. From the school of behaviorism we have the scientismic rationale of Dr. Cyril Gueter who holds that the distinguishing characteristics among apes are correlated to beards in humans. (Source) But man isn't an ape. None of these explanations is quite satisfactory. We have given the issue some thought and have come up with a philosophical perspective that is also missing from "What a beard really says about a man". (Source)

Ages of reason and epochs of anti-reason have alternated throughout history: humanity advanced during the times that objective reality was the standard of truth, while in the periods in which mysticism, emotion, intuition and feelings are the preferred tool to knowledge, stagnation and regression is the order of the day. During the Dark Ages, in the medieval period and during the Romantic epoch facial fluff was all the rage. It was out of fashion in Greco-Roman times and during the Enlightenment. Around the time that America proclaimed independence in 1776 facial hair was at its lowest eb in human history, only to resurface during Romanticism and again in our own depressing PoMo era. It's no surprise that to many beards are a political statement against Capitalism. (Source) What's more, they're "dirty as toilets"! (Source) Want to save civilization, your health and the economy? Get out the scissors, sharpen the blades, whip up the shaving cream and chase out that inner, irrational Catweazle! Go on...treat yourself to a close shave on World Beard Day ✂

This posting is dedicated to the unsurpassable wit of ✕ ANCÊTREIV ✕ @ancetreIV