The plastic wonder Schick Quattro continues to do its job without ceremony or fault. I don't expect to notice a degradation of quality for another week or so. However, the satisfaction of using such a cheap object kind of amazes me.
Actually, what really amazes me is that the thing exists at all.
Let me explain. Cheap razors exist because of demand. Lots of people need them. More to the point, lots of people need them because we have established a clean shave as the norm. Let me exclude women and legs from this conversation because I don't have the energy to touch one of the third rails of feminism. Instead, ponder how strange it is that in most of the developed world, we expect men to have clean cheeks and chins.
Discounting men who have a religious commitment to facial hair (hipsters especially), clean represents the default option. Despite ever-advancing facial hair, men generally decide to grow a beard or mustache rather than assuming that facial hair is the norm and that it takes effort to keep it off. If men did nothing, they would have beards, yet they consider shaving several times per week the path of less resistance.
At first glance, you may assume that the clean-shaven norm results from the triumph of decades of marketing by Gillette and Schick. I think, however, that the Greeks take credit for this one.
The ancient Greeks thought that foreigners talked funny. In fact, all they heard when they talked was "bah bah bah bah." So they called them barbaroi. In turn, barbaroi came to represent the beards they wore and a more hirsute appearance in general. The word came through Latin as the word "barber," as in to cut hair. To wit, the Greeks differentiated themselves from those other people by assigning cultural superiority to shaven faces.
So, the adage should read, never trust Greeks bearing beards.
No comments:
Post a Comment