Current Events, Masculinity, and the Science of Facial Hair Signals

‘No Shave November’ starts this coming Tuesday, which I take to mean we should talk about the science of facial hair. But first, to speak to what’s been in the news the past couple of days, let’s do a quick recap.

According to Commodore Vanderbilt at Not the Bee, GM is suspending advertising on Twitter until it sees the “direction of the platform under their new ownership.” As a direct competitor to Musk’s electric car company, the move by General Motors is likely influenced by several factors, not just feigned concern over politics. Meanwhile, Daniel Payne at Not the Bee highlights “absolutely crushing levels of irony” as Twitter users unhappy about Musk’s recent acquisition complain they have nowhere else to go online to still be a part of the important public discourse in the public square. 

The Blaze’s Cortney Weil also provides an update on a recent ruling by a federal judge that an independent election integrity group is permitted to monitor ballot drop boxes in Arizona, over and against the objections of Democrats who say that making sure they don’t cheat is an attack on our democracy. And at the same time, Zachary Stieber writing for The Epoch Times says the FBI has asked for 66 years to comply with a FOIA request regarding what was on the computer of Seth Rich before he was murdered in 2016. 

Leif Le Mahieu at The Daily Wire has just made us aware that a member of Democrat Congressman Beyer’s staff was just fired for ties to China. And The Denver Post’s Conrad Swanson published a piece in that outlet earlier this month titled ‘Election deniers infiltrate ranks of poll watchers and election judges ahead of November midterms, Colorado clerks warn.’ But this all really is curious unless it matters to election integrity who the staffers, poll watchers, and election judges are, and what they do.

But all these stories bring me again to the question of beards and why men should grow them. Thankfully, Antonio over at The Art of Manliness wrote a helpful piece back in 2014, last updated in 2021, which will guide us through the science of facial hair aesthetics as it pertains to human psychology.

In short, though a man’s clean-shaven face may cause us to think he is a more sociable team player, full beards on men are perceived as, no surprise here, more manly. Then come other adjectives to drive the point home, like ‘assertive,’ ‘dominant,’ and ‘aggressive.’ Some may even say that a man with a full beard looks more ‘good’ in comparison to a man with stubble or nothing at all.

Yet manly men are not always and everywhere valued. For instance, when an agreeable candidate is desired, or when women are looking for more short-term romantic occupations, men with less facial hair may be preferable.

What I am saying, then, is only this: that we men ought to be intentional in putting our best face forward. Indeed, American society at all levels, in all spheres, needs good men who are both good and manly. If one of the ways those necessary good men can signal their goodness and manliness is by growing and maintaining full beards, so much the better that we view the same as not merely subjective ornamentals, or decorative negotiables.

At the risk of being understood here as making a value judgment, I will repeat myself: we ought to encourage men to grow full beards as a symbolic embrace of virtuous masculinity.

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