Rethinking Men

Man Up!

Anthony Synnott, Ph.D. — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:57:17 +0000

One of my friends explained her break-up with her husband: "He wasn't man enough for me." Synchronicity being what it is, unexpected, some of the women in my class (I teach a course on men) were complaining about men. Elizabeth said "They need to man up. " I asked what that meant. Melinda explained: "When you go out with them, they order white wine and baguettes! It's like going on a date with my sister!" As we all laughed, she added: "They need to hit on us more!" Who knew? I thought that all this hitting on women was a problem, and gave men a bad name, and was borderline sexual harassment. But perhaps that only applies to an older generation. Or perhaps it's a problem until it stops, and then there is a bigger problem - then the old problem seems more like a solution, when men were men, and... Who knows?

Anyway, it's a bit different for guys, who (if they knew the phrase, not everyone did) said it applied to encouraging some guy to (as Nike has it) "Just Do It!" - finish the job, ask her out, lift it. I recently moved and, as two guys struggled with a loaded filing cabinet, I overheard one guy say to the other: "Man up!" - which takes us back also to traditional masculinity as strength.

There is some support for my female students' views. A recent British study found that 61% of young British men said that they did not "feel masculine" compared to only 35% of the men born from the 1920s to the 1940s (The Brylcreem Mandom Survey, 2008). (What does masculinity feel like?) Again, it is shown in the mama's boy phenomenon: in the UK, the Office of National Statistics reports that almost one-third of men and one-fifth of women aged between 20 and 34 still live at home (BBC News 15.4.09). The young men are comfortable in their nests and do not want to face the world. Hollywood has picked this up. In "Failure to Launch" (2006), a serial womanizer played by Matthew McConaughey, has to be lured out of his parents' home; and in "Made of Honor" (2008), another serial womanizer played by Patrick Dempsey finally decides to commit. These are all the new boy-men, manettes.

"Man up" is the theme in "Gran Torino", in which a racist Korean War vet (played by Clint) befriends a young man being bullied by his family and by a local gang. He tries to teach him to be a man, first by working him hard, physically, and then by example. He eventually figures out that the only way to protect the boy and his family from the gang is to provoke them to kill him (he was dying anyway), which they obligingly did, and were promptly arrested. The boy gets the girl and the Gran Torino, but the unfortunate message is that to exemplify manhood, you might have to die. (But you will anyway).

In "Iron John" the poet Robert Bly described many contemporary young men as "soft". He described them as "lovely, valuable people," gentle but not happy and with low energy: "life-preserving but not exactly life-giving" (1990:2-3). He suggested that the reason for this apparent demise or decline of masculinity was primarily father absence due to work, since the Industrial Revolution, but also due to divorce and desertion, prison, addictions, early deaths or emotional aridity. Bly argued that it takes a man to teach a boy how to be a man. This may well be so, but father-absence is not something new.

A second factor is relative peace, thank goodness. In past centuries, men have almost always had to be prepared for war. In that sense, men have always known who they were: potential fighters and heroes, and dead. A third factor is the prevailing culture of misandry, generated by so many, but not all, feminists and pro-feminists. This male negativism in popular culture, based in victim feminism, blames men for the real and alleged oppression of women - but ignores the adversities of men and boys, and also the victimizing women in class and race systems - and must have a negative impact on men. Minority men, Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims, are probably the prime victims of misandric attitudes and policies. Women are not the only victims in this life, and misandry is psychic castration.

This misandry will be discussed in another post, but has been extensively researched by Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young (2001, 2006).

A fourth factor is the rapid and deep changes in gender relations since the 50s, and the invention of the pill. The pill facilitated a rapid decline in fertility, which in turn facilitated a rapid increase in women, freed from their biology, into the labour force. The 60s witnessed almost simultaneously the sexual revolution, the women's movement and the gay rights movement, which in turn generated the fledgling men's movements in the 70s, polarized between asserting women's rights or men's rights. The debates over rights and entitlement persist with BGLTI rights. But as occupations were integrated, and rights equalized, so masculinity was being re-defined.

The bread-winner and provider role is now shared or, often, reversed, and the warrior role is now optional and open to both sexes. In the recent meltdown of the U.S. economy, about 82% of the jobs lost have been men's jobs, 2.7 million: in manufacturing, banking, construction etc (NYT 6 Feb 09). And more since then. The re-definition of male roles and masculinity is accelerating, as are female roles and, presumably, femininity - and in opposite directions: each replacing the other. The old gender roles do persist to a degree in terms of self-concepts and occupational distribution, but with nothing like the same rigidity.

The New Man: Who Knew?

Anthony Synnott, Ph.D. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:45:38 +0000

Gentlemen: are you feeling unnecessary? Useless? Superfluous? Irrelevant? You might be, after the recent announcement that scientists in Newcastle, England, have created human sperm from embryonic stem cells. The research team has already created baby mice from such cells. While the sperm are not fully functional yet, they will eventually be useful for understanding male infertility. Obviously they could also be useful for fertilizing eggs and creating baby humans, although this is illegal at present in the U.K. - which will make men unnecessary even for semen, as we are currently unnecessary (though convenient and cheap) for conception.

And, gentlemen, that is not all. A recent study published in Science of the Total Environment reports that at least 50 chemical compounds used in packaging are capable of interfering with hormones by leaching into the food supply. These include bisphenol A (BPA), which mimics estrogen, and phthalates, which block the production of testosterone. Toxic chemical food contamination is feminizing men, though how much is not clear.

The alarm was raised last year by the CBC documentary "The Disappearing Male." Researchers reported that sperm counts have been halved in the last 50 years, most of the remaining sperm is abnormal, male genital defects have increased 200% in the last 20 years, and male birth rates have declined steadily every year in more than 20 industrialized countries. Pollution as well as ingested chemicals are thought to be responsible. The new male is disappearing.

Further information is presented by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie in Slow Death by Rubber Duck (Knopf, 2009) which follows the first alarm about pollution in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962). Neither deal explicitly with men. Everything is affected by our increasingly toxic environments, as we know: air, water, temperature, worms, duck, men, women and children. Men especially it seems.

So it appears that men are about to be replaced by lab productions at the same time as we are simultaneously disappearing and being feminized by chemical compounds and pollution.

What is the new man to do?

Perhaps consider that in a few more years researchers will be able to create eggs from stem cell embryos to go with the sperm, so women too will become increasingly unnecessary, useless, superfluous and irrelevant in the conception process, while at the same time they are being further chemically feminized: a process that may already have started with earlier menarche.

In the future, then, we will all be increasingly feminine and unnecessary for conception, while the new men disappear and become increasingly infertile. Who knew?

What Is Ugly? Part 2

Anthony Synnott, Ph.D. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:59:16 +0000

Dede Koswara is known as " The Tree Man." He is an Indonesian villager who is covered in warts from head to toe and has recently undergone his ninth operation to remove them. His condition is thought to be the result of HPV and a rare genetic anomaly. Normal life is impossible for him, both physically and socially. (Le Journal de Montreal 13.2.09). His situation is strikingly similar to that of John Merrick, the so-called Elephant Man, in his pariah status. Merrick's experienced physician remarked : " I supposed that Merrick was imbecile and had been from birth. " (Ugly = stupid). But he learned he was wrong. The man was " highly intelligent" (Montagu, 1979 :17-8). The doctor was deeply prejudiced by Merrick's appearance. Mary Shelley's " Frankenstein " (1817) was prescient : the monster was ugly but a good man, in accord with Rousseau's concept of human nature; and the villagers judged by appearances that he was evil and persecuted him. (Ugly = evil - because evil is ugly).

The fourth story is about the ABC program " Ugly Betty " which is thought by some to be expanding our aesthetic horizons and is marketed by ABC as such. In fact the opposite is the case. Betty is portrayed by the stunningly beautiful America Ferrara. The ugliness is removable and is not even skin deep. ABC could have employed a genuinely ugly woman to play Betty : to be rude, someone like Susan Boyle or Connie Culp; but the corporation did not. Far from challenging the beauty ethic, ABC reinforced it - but argued hypocritically that it was doing the opposite. Oh well. Indeed the visual media, both television and magazines, are powerful exponents of beautification. The announcers and stars are usually attractive - to attract viewers. The programs include make-overs and cosmetic surgeries; and the articles instruct men and women on how to improve their looks: hair, abs, butts, weight, clothes etc. and often in most unrealistic time periods. It's (almost) all about image and appearances. Appearances may be deceptive, as our folk wisdom advises, but they also constitute an important component of our social capital. Attractiveness really does attract.

Ellen DeGeneres laughingly talks to this very point in her TV ad for some cosmetic product : " Inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty." i.e. beauty trumps goodness. But the word-play indicates the union of the literal and the metaphorical, inner and outer, beauty and goodness. In our culture beauty and goodness are integrated as one, and have been ever since Homer and Plato, at least (Synnott, 1993).

These are all classic examples of uglyism and beautyism: the prejudice and discrimination exercized against or for individuals on the basis of their physical appearance. Add to that propoganda, the uglification of rival groups. We hear of beautification, but less of our cartoonish uglification, physical and moral, of our personal or tribal enemies.

Ugly is not often in the news. Usually it's beauty : beautiful people, how to maximise beauty, cosmetic surgery, beauty competitions - there are no ugly competitions. The good-looking people look good, lovely, divine, heavenly. The ugly look bad, they look like hell and they are as ugly as sin.

Ugly is repulsive. A financial services company president laments the collapse of the TSX, S & P 500 and DJIA in the March bear market as : " Awful, ugly, terrible, horrible" (Pett, 2009). Karl Rove protests a comedian's jokes about Rush Limbaugh : " These were nasty, vicious, mean, ugly comments " (Time 25 May 09 :15). In Israel, a Catholic priest argues that criticism of Pope Benedict XVI for being biassed between the Arabs and Israelis was " very nasty, very ugly and very embarassing as an Israeli " (Martin, 2009). This long list of synonyms indicates how repulsive ugly is. And the wide range of application indicates its prevalence.

Ugly is not only stupid, evil, awful etc, it is also criminal. The Economist comments: " As the economic tide recedes, it exposes all manner of ugliness, from the the gargantuan fraud of Bernie Madoff to books-fiddling at Satyam " (25 April 09: 39). This is evil as ugly : a reciprocal and symbiotic relation.

Ugly applies to far more than bear markets, jokes, criticism and crime. It applies to almost everything: ugly weather and ugly moods, situations, architecture, even ugly truths. Ugly goes far beyond the physical to the metaphorical and, with people, to the metaphysical.

Indeed, and here is the crux of the matter, at last, we still apply the medieval doctrine of sympathy, that everything is related : the body mirrors the soul, the outer reflects the inner, the face expresses the self, the physical is the metaphysical. Uglyism lives - and is itself both morally repulsive and largely invisible but everywhere.

What Is Ugly?

Anthony Synnott, Ph.D. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:52:22 +0000

Ugliness is ugly. Beauty is beautiful. The two are opposed as binaries. But the words are not simply descriptors. They are also moral evaluations. Consider the meanings listed in the Concise Oxford for Ugly: " Unpleasing or repulsive to sight...morally repulsive, vile, discreditable, unpleasant... " etc; and for Beauty : " Combination of qualities, as shape, proportion, colour, in human face or form, or in other objects, that delights the sight...; combined qualities delighting the other senses, the moral sense, or the intellect... " The physical and the moral are equated : the one IS the other. Beauty = good : physically and morally delightful. Ugly, on the other hand, = evil, bad. These two equations constitute our usually invisible and unrecognized cultural aesthetics, especially as they apply to people: U = E and B = G. (The second binary is the converse : that evil is ugly and good is beautiful, but that is for another day).

This aesthetics is not only enshrined in our language, but also in our literature, media and daily practice - as exemplified in four recent stories.

Susan Boyle became a phenomenon after winning a variety show contest by singing. Why? Because in plain terms she is 48 and almost ugly; though euphemisms are more prevalent : dowdy, frumpy, plain etc. Both the audience and the judges appeared to be amazed that this middle-aged woman could sing so beautifully and look so bad - sing like an angel but look like a wreck with, as Nancy Gibbs remarked in Time, " eyebrows like live mice " (18 May 09) - which is not very polite. We are more used to the union of beautiful voices and beautiful people, like Shania or Beyonce. Anything less is a discrepancy, a disjunction, a contradiction. Things should match. Boyle illustrates the widespread prejudice against the ugly, but also the invisibility of this prejudice. Time magazine commented : " So SHE can sing. So what? " (4 May 09 :18) (Why Time capitalized " SHE " rather than " sing " is not clear; to replace " it " perhaps? Which would be even more rude). So what? So... this clarifies our aesthetic prejudices. Tanya Gold asked perceptively in The Guardian : " Is Susan ugly? Or are we? " (Collett-White, 2009). The answer I think is " Both ", but we must note again this confusion or elision between the (ugly) physical appearance and the moral judgement on us for our (ugly) prejudices. The physical is the moral : i.e. U=E.

There is another double standard here, though not entirely germane : the aesthetic prejudice applies far more to women than to men. John Lennon, Ringo Starr and
Pavarotti are more well-known for their talents than their appearance. The ugly/beauty binary discriminates by gender as well by aesthetics.

Connie Culp looked beautiful, sparkling and vibrant, until her husband shot her point-blank in the face with a shotgun. A team of surgeons worked 22 hours to transplant 80% of her face, including a nose, cheeks, lower eyelids, upper jaw and palate from an unnamed donor. This first transplant patient in the U.S. has endured some abuse. She heard a child say: " You said there were no monsters, mommy, and there's one right there. " Ms. Culp stopped and said : " I'm not a monster. I'm a person who was shot. " At a press conference following her operation she urged people not to judge others by their looks : " When somebody has a disfigurement and don't look as pretty as you do, don't judge them, because you never know what happened to them. Don't judge people who don't look the same as you do. Because you never know. One day it might all be taken away" (Leonard, 2009).

But people do judge, and probably will continue to do so. Our judging is not only built into our culture but also apparently into our brains, as we shall see later. For that child, ugly equates with monster, which equals bad and evil, so unlike beauty.

TO BE CONTINUED

Collett-White, Mike. Reuters 25.4.09
Leonard, Tom. 2009. " First U.S face transplant revealed " National Post 7 May.
Montagu, Ashley. 1979. The Elephant Man. New York : E.P.Dutton.
Pett, David. 2009. " March Markets One Angry Bear " National Post 3 March.
Synnott, Anthony 1993. The Body Social. London : Routledge.

All You Need Is Love Part 2

Anthony Synnott, Ph.D. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:52:13 +0000

The two most common theories of love are, as we might expect, contradictory. These are: "Opposites attract,"- which they often do. And: "Birds of a feather flock together" - a clone theory, - which they often do. But two other theories deserve our attention: social capital theory and chemistry theory.

Opposites really do attract as we are attracted to those who have personality attributes and qualities which we lack or need or admire and which complement our own. This is the "other half "theory, even the "better half "theory. As one friend told her husband: "You complete me." (Others totally reject the idea that they might be incomplete or need someone to complete them.) Still, extroverts and introverts may be drawn to each other, intellectuals and athletes, old and young, black and white... The attraction of difference, the unknown, the learning, the explorable, even the dangerous, the Other, is alluring. Since male and female are usually defined as opposite sexes, the theory has some validity in terms of mutual heterosexual attraction.

This theory is "embedded" in our culture : Romeo and Juliet, Tony and Maria in "West Side Story,""Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, "Cinderella, "Wuthering Heights,""Beauty and the Beast "- transgressions of family, ethnicity, race, class, personality, even species, with varying outcomes. The odds of such relationships lasting are lower than average, according to the statistics, and the more lines and boundaries transgressed, the lower the odds, according to "Sex in America " (Michael, 1994 : 48). Still, they may be fun while they last. The exotic is erotic.
And such loves do happen. Barack Obama is the product of an inter-racial marriage when they were banned in many states. Marilyn Monroe married a top athlete first, Joe DiMaggio, and then a leading intellectual. Opposites attract, but they are probably never totally opposite. There must be chemistry.

The "birds of a feather" theory is also useful in terms of understanding love; for like likes like, it loves itself in others. A similarity and compatibility of values, interests, traditions, language, age and lifestyles makes life and living together easier and less conflicted. The clone or mirror theory of love probably accounts for more marriages than the opposites attract theory. Men and women often marry the girl or boy next door, their childhood sweethearts. Such relationships may not be so exciting, and not so exotic, but the old Chinese curse: "May you live interesting lives," comes to mind.

Too bad: opposites clash and clones are boring. What is to be done? The solution seems obvious, a compromise: some similarity and commonality but also some difference and spice; some togetherness, bonding and unity but also some apartness, autonomy and freedom. If both individuals work outside the home, and so have their own lives as well as each others', then the relationship should work, in theory. But our folk wisdom is ambivalent even about such an excellent theory. On the one hand, yes: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." So true. We see this at the Arrivals area in airports all the time. But wait: "Out of sight, out of mind "and "When the cat's away, the mice will play." The cat too, come to that. So true too. Oh well.

A third theory might integrate the first two: social capital theory. We tend to fall in love with those of equal market value: alpha males and alpha females, gamma men and women, and so on. They may be opposite or clones but often they are equal. Sometimes opposites apply in terms of youth and beauty with age and money (trophy wives and toy boys), but often both are high achievers and successful in their own fields. As alpha opposites, consider Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, Carla Bruni and President Nicolas Sarkozy, Posh Spice and David Beckham, Marilyn Monroe and first Joe and then Arthur Miller, or the quarterback and the cheerleader. As alpha clones, consider the lawyers: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, Tony and Cherie Blair, and among royalty, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The concept derives from Marx' theory of capital as an economic asset; but there are other assets : education, beauty, political power, fame, talent, sense of humor, earning potential, intelligence, youth, etc, and we can and do try to work out some sort of calculus of the worth of the other according to our own values. We talk about marrying up or down, whisky taste but beer income, people being below someone, or out of reach. This is love as market value: not so romantic, but practical.

Finally, we might say, bewailing a lost opportunity: "There was just no chemistry." And it's true : this is love as chemistry. In "The Anatomy of Love", Helen Fisher emphasizes that infatuation begins with molecules of PEA (sorry, I can't spell it or even pronounce it) and over time as love normalizes into attraction, endorphins gradually replace this PEA. But apparently attraction is also deeply influenced by the olfactory sense. New discoveries about the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) indicate that mice and men and women are sexually attracted to those whose auto-immune system is most different from their own, and therefore most complementary. This makes evolutionary sense since any children would have superior immune systems. Plus the more personal benefits are supposedly greater happiness and better orgasms - but apart from that... (Economist 12.1.08). The only snag is that the most biologically suitable person may not be the most socially suitable person: smells good but is bad. In sum, opposites do attract, not only across many boundaries but also genetically and nasally. Beauty is in the nose of the beholder. So maybe love is blind but aromatic.

"I want to know what love is "(Foreigner). I'll bet you do, mate. Don't we all. Hope this helps. But: "We murder to dissect. " Enjoy!

All You Need Is Love Part I

Anthony Synnott, Ph.D. — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:24:41 +0000

"All you need is love...love is all you need." The Beatles sang this interminably. "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love," sang Burt Bacharach in close harmony. "Love makes the world go round" is proverbial. And the value of love is ancient: Vergil rhapsodized that "Omnia vincit Amor "-- love conquers all; and by the time Chaucer's Prioress wore her gold broach, the tag had been reversed "Amor vincit omnia", meaning the same thing, only the grammar had changed -- but she probably expressed a more carnal version of love than St. Augustine's famous dictum: "Love and do what you will." "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," said Christ (Mat 19 :19). St. John states: "God is love."(1 John 4 :8).

The consensus persists over the centuries about the power of love and our need for love: to love and to be loved. Some add that love is hard work, and that compromise, a sense of humour and a bad memory are essential to keep love alive and fresh, as well as sex, the glue that keeps couples together and the oxytocins and endorphins high.

But there is no such consensus about what love is -- for two main reasons. First, there are so many types of love, and second, the two principal theories of love are contradictory.

The experts--notably psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and the rest of us--recognize many types of love: romantic, passionate sexual love, platonic love, filial, parental and sibling loves, companionate love, infatuation, puppy love, lust, patriotism, friendship, the transcendent love for humanity exemplified by Dr. Schweitzer and Mother Teresa, and the love of God (in the three monotheistic faiths) or gods. Anthony Giddens talked about congruent love, which he defined as egalitarian; and Zygmunt Bauman referred to liquid love: fluid, evanescent and always flowing downhill. All are loves, but they are not the same, and should not be confused -- but they are, all the time, resulting in rape, incest, unhappy marriages, and scandals like the Clinton-Lewinski affair.

Plus, they can all change. C.S. Lewis postulated four loves in his eponymous book, but Francis Bacon only three: "Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it." Rosemary Houghton favoured one love: "love is one, the vital human impulse towards completeness and freedom." It is "self-giving" (1971 :178-9). Bob Marley also sang one love, and had many.

"Love is a many splendoured thing" clearly, as Ringo Starr opined; but it can also be a tangled, volatile and dangerous thing. Our understanding is not helped by Lord Byron's couplet: "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart. 'Tis woman's whole existence." Is that true? Does love mean different things to men and women? Or do you reckon that the variation in attitudes within each sex outweigh any differences between us? And the practice of love is constantly changing as we change, and so do the economy, our circumstances and gender expectations. Love is tricky that way. As Shakespeare said: "The course of true love never did run smooth." More briefly: "Love hurts "(Incubus).

The feminization of love and the valorization of mothers over fathers is part of this debate. Fathers' work as providers is not seen as love, but as duty, while mothers' loving at home, and traditionally as care-givers, is not seen as work. Neither perception is valid, though common; and the reality is reversing rapidly anyway as men's work is evaporating and women are becoming the majority in the labor force.

Therefore, the many types of love, the gender debate, and the constant change make love difficult to theorize. But we can try.

Minding Your P's & Q's

Anthony Synnott, Ph.D. — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:32:42 +0000

Don't you get fed up with people some times? Their bad manners, stupidity, selfishness, thoughtlessness? Of course you do. You hate their road rage, line-up jumping, loud talking on their cell phones in elevators, on trains and busses, their inability to realize that they actually do have to pay at the grocery check-out counter. They wake up with a start when presented with the bill and start the fumble for handbag, purse, exact change, in pennies, which they never have. The guys and gals in packs who force you off the sidewalk, the drivers who cut you off and who are going too fast or too slow instead of, like us, the correct speed?

I could go on - actually I will. The smokers who blow smoke out of the side of their mouths, straight into your face as you walk by (well, they would have to be smokers to do that wouldn't they?). The hardware store assistants who see you coming and sprint away, and the shop assistants who pester you, the spitters, the litterers, the people who dpn't pick up after their dogs, the people who are cruel to animals, and especially the predators and criminals abounding, and so on. (Full disclosure: I lined up to pay at the grocery the other day, and realized that I had forgotten my wallet. Dumb!). (OK. It's not quite full disclosure, but it will have to suffice).

We label ourselves Homo sapiens, which was really rather sweet of Linnaeus, but that does seem optimistic, utopian, even delusional does it not? Hopeful, though, and hope is in the air these days.

The Greeks started this, as usual, in the "polis," the city-state, from which we derive 21/2 millennia later the power : politics, the management : politicians, and the required behavior : politeness. The Romans followed, as Romans did, with the "civis" : city. Hence, the civilians and civility. But politeness and civility are now it seems rare commodities. Two useful books discuss all this in depth: Benet Davetian's "Civility" and P.M. Forni's "Choosing Civility : 25 Rules of Considerate Conduct." That's 25! There are only 10 Commandments and 8 Beatitudes and 7 Cardinal Virtues, and I can generally remember only 3 items on a shopping list, and then I forget one. Plus there are all the etiquette books. "Manners maketh man," it is said, or it was said, in the past.

Bad manners seem to be most vexing when one is in a bad mood, if one ever is - like we somehow generate them in others, which we might; and when the weather is bad, and walking and driving are more tedious, and we are cold and wet; and they seem to be more common in large cities where we are all anonymous, stressed and from a myriad of cultures with various customs and norms. We bump along together but occasionally collide and scratch each other, often unintentionally.

It is hard to cope with oneself, others, the weather and culture clashes simultaneously. One of Sartre's characters famously opined that: "Hell is other people." Fair enough. Often exes. But so is heaven - which is what exes once were too.

We know that there are three types of people: those on their cells, in constant communication with their circles; those on their i-pods, excluding all others and totally self-involved ; and those (perhaps of a certain age) on neither. Other-oriented, self-oriented and both (or simply out of date). I suspect that civility is not much of an issue with the first two types - they are out of it anyway.

On the other hand, after I drafted this, I went out for a coffee along our main street, rue St Catherine. Three yards away a young woman was crossing the street and was hit by a car cornering much too fast, and lay prone in the middle of the street. Everyone jumped to help. One woman collected her purse and shopping, a doctor-type guy held her head and talked to her, a man directed traffic, others grabbed their cells to call an ambulance and the police, and both were there within minutes. This was H. sapiens et civilis in action.

And people do thank their bus drivers, hold doors open for others, (and sometimes are thanked with a radiant smile or with words), pick up dropped things and fallen people, return lost wallets, help lost strangers, apologize if they tread on your toes, drive with civility...and more. We cannot be too misanthropic.

So what do we do? The Greeks dealt with that too. Among the Presocratics, Heraclitus was known as the weeping philosopher: he thought about human follies and wept. Democritus was known as the laughing philosopher: he regarded the same follies and laughed. Pick one. Crying is cathartic, they say, but as a lifestyle choice I recommend laughing, since we can then laugh at ourselves rather than crying over spilt milk, or forgotten wallets. It is probably healthier too: conserves moisture. But we can also follow Linnaeus and, with our mouths open in joy and wonder, admire each other : the admiring (or open-mouthed) philosophers.