A Hairy Evil

When one learns that it is a man’s intention to emphasise “the potential of facial hair both to uphold and more interestingly to subvert patriarchy,” [1] one may well begin to wonder anew at the world—to wonder how the world should ever have come to contain so feckless a witling with so great a capacity for wasting time and ink in the explication of his facile designs.

.....Surely anyone with the faintest spark of curiosity must wonder at how it ever came to be written that “[t]here is an undeniability about facial hair which makes the world seem real again”; and one might feel a great resolve to understand to the fullest of one’s ability the history of thought that led to the claim that “[i]n reading facial hair within the semiotic system as put forward by Roland Barthes we find that it is a cover for the various myths of masculinity, and the myths of a civilisation based upon patriarchal values”.

.....It comes to something when an academician feels bold enough to claim that the myths of a civilisation can lie hidden behind a beard. Some might call it progress.

[1] Michael John Pinfold, “I’m sick of shaving every morning”: or, The Cultural Implications of “Male” Facial Presentation”, Journal of Mundane Behavior, Vol. 1:1, February 2000.

http://www.mundanebehavior.org/index2.htm