The Beard

Last week I shaved off my beard.  It was time.  During my winter stay in the hospital, I was too weak to raise my arm, let alone put razor to chin.  As an incentive to use my energy to recover my health, I promised myself I would shave when I returned to relative healthiness.  So I let the hairs on my face grow, which, unfortunately, seemed to grow faster than the hairs on my scalp.  Over the ensuing months, the white growth made me look more like Father Christmas than Ernest Hemingway.  And not a day went by during that hairy time that I did not think of Joseph Palmer.

Joseph Palmer (1791-1873) was a “reformist” from NoTown, Massachusetts. A veteran of the War of 1812, Palmer settled in as a New England farmer, a successful one, and there his story would have ended, historical references to him evaporated, this blog unrealized except for one thing—his beard. The fashion of the day dictated that men go beardless. The townspeople continuously ridiculed him for his appearance.  Even the minister cautioned Joseph Palmer that the beard resembled the devil’s demeanor.  Palmer replied that he never saw a picture of the devil wearing a beard, but he did see pictures of Jesus sporting one.

His neighbors thought the wearing of a beard so unconventional that one day several of them tried to forcefully shave it off.  Joseph Palmer fought them off, inflicting a wound on one of them with his penknife, an injury which landed the bearded farmer in jail (basically for defending himself) where he was brutally beaten and severely mistreated for months.  Eventually his lengthy incarceration became an embarrassment to the authorities who begged him to pay the relatively small fine.  Like Socrates who refused to admit his guilt, Joseph Palmer stood his ethical ground. After more than a year in jail, he was released.  He hobnobbed with the transcendentalists like Emerson and Alcott, and he became an advocate for prison reform.  More on Joseph Palmer later.

After the big Shave Off, Polley wondered how long it would be before our friends of many years noticed that the beard was gone.  As it turned out, they never did seem to notice until Polley pointed it out.  The ensuing discussion made sense.  For almost forty years they knew me without any additional hairs on my face, so when they saw me, they saw what they expected to see—the old Ralph.  I thought about this for a long time.

We see and hear what we expect to see and hear, our actions dictated by our perceptions and our perceptions formed by whatever culture envelops us.  I learned this important lesson as a teacher (see blog entry Am I Who They Think I Am? September, 2016 achives)

Consider how much effort is made to convince others to see us the way we want to be seen.  Cosmetics is a multi-billion dollar industry.

“Skincare, hair care, make-up, perfumes, toiletries deodorants, and oral cosmetics are the main product categories of the cosmetic market. Since the early twentieth century, the production of cosmetics and beauty products has been controlled by a handful of multi-national corporations– L’Oréal, Unilever, Procter & Gamble Co., The Estee Lauder Companies, Shiseido Company, to name a few. Led by the U.S., North America made up 24.7 percent of the global cosmetic market. In 2015, the U.S. was considered the most valuable beauty and personal care market in the world. That year, the American beauty and personal care business reached a market value of 80 billion U.S. dollars….

Within the cosmetic category in the U.S., foundation was the most profitable segment. In 2016, about 985 million U.S. dollars were generated from sales of foundations in the U.S.. Mascara was the second most profitable segment, with sales revenue of 941.1 million U.S. dollars. Mascara was also the leading segment of the eye cosmetic industry in the U.S.. The segment also included eye liners, eye shadows, eye brow makeup and eye combo. Together, these segments generated more than 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in sales revenue in 2016. Besides foundation and mascara, lipstick was also a profitable segment within the cosmetic industry in the U.S., generating 630 million U.S. dollars in revenue for the lip cosmetics category in 2016.”  Statistics and Facts on the Cosmetic and Makeup Industry https://www.statista.com/topics/1008/cosmetics-industry/

I contributed my share to the industry by recently changing aftershave lotions, no longer able to squeeze out any drops of English Leather left over from my college days.  And, aside from those in the entertainment industry, who spends the most energy (and money) on making people see the image they want to see than our politicians?  Consider the recent special election in Georgia which pitted Karen Handel against Jon Ossoff.  A total of 50 million dollars was spent to shape voter thinking, to make the people see the candidates how the candidates wanted to be seen.  As if the voters had not already invested in the candidates what they wanted to invest.  50 million!  Could the disabled or unemployed or handicapped residents of that state used any of that 50 million?  Could any patients with debilitating diseases used any of that 50 million?  Could the infrastructure of Georgia’s highways and byways used any of that 50 million?  Could any of Geogia’s school children benefitted from that 50 million? As a society, how much do we spend on image building?

I used to be smug about people living in the Middle Ages.  How could they believe that a person’s “evil eye” was the sign of a witch?  And based on that belief burn the individual at the stake?  How could they spend fortunes on warring with their neighbors or on far away crusades?  How could they spend years arguing over how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.  Looking at our 21^st century priorities I am smug no longer.  One of my favorite lines in literature is expressed by the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town.  “Wherever you come near the human race, there are layers and layers of nonsense.”

If I had a time machine, I would visit Joseph Palmer in the late 1860’s post American Civil War period, and I would love to ask him, after all he went through simply because he chose to sport a beard, what he thought about  hirsute trends in post bellum America.  An amateur student of the Civil War, I could not find any photographs of generals or politicians who were NOT wearing a beard. And our dear President Lincoln followed the fashion himself.  Poor Joseph Palmer—-wrong place, wrong time.  Apparently Joseph Palmer was, by all accounts, a thoughtful man.  I imagine he would say something like, despite all our flaunting of societal progress (which is usually predicated on the things we develop), far too many of us still suffer from the inability to accept people who do not look like us.  Our perceptions, based on what we expect of stereotypes, still rule our behavior rather than basing our judgements on a person’s actions.

So I am still the same person without my beard, although as my hairline continues to recede I notice I have more of my face to shave.  My friends did not seem to care whether I had a hairy face or not.  Maybe that is why they are my friends.