Posted by ChristianN (other posts) on February 06, 2014 at 17:43:58 Previous Next
In Reply to: Re: Hair History questions. posted by Long Hair In Albany on February 06, 2014 at 13:04:34:
: : Why did short hair becomes so puritanical from the turn of the 19th century to the 1950s. I know the wars had something to do with it but that doesn't explain why most the civilian males went along with it too.
: : Perhaps hollywood had an influence?
: : As you know the 19th century was pretty liberal as far as personal style went.
: IMHO short hair prevailed for several reasons:
: 1. The Wars. Lice, etc. The military wanted to crush
: invidiuality. They wanted obedient cogs to fit into the machinery of war, obiedienntly took orders and questioned nothing, Your military unit was to function as one cohesive
: unit who did what they were told and questioned nothing.
: 2. Our society wanted to crush individuality. Society wanted parents and schools to produce male worker bees who were ready to obediently go to work each day and look the same (i.e. short
: hair, no facial hair, looking neat with a shirt and tie.)
: 3. These worker bees should be happy with the lousy working conditions, lousy pay, and tyranical bosses. After all these workers were there to perform menial tasks for lousy pay. And they shouldn't care if the job they were doing was dangeous,
: the building a fire trap, or if they got black lung,
: mesothelioma, or some other disease that would kill them
: in later years.
: 4. It also should be noted that in the US of A the nature of
: citizens shifted. In the 1700s the average citizen was his
: own boss, he owned and ran his own farm/general store/blacksmith shop/etc. It wasn't until years later that the work force shifted to industrialization. Once the work force shifted to industrialization the industrialization bosses insisted on worker bees who had short hair, no facial hair, and all dressed the same. They wanted obedient workers who shed invididuality and concentrated on as much production as possible for as little pay as possible.
: 5. When you attend school starting in the early years you're
: being trained to learn what you need to learn, arrive at school
: on time, stay the entire day, do as you are told, wear your hair
: the way they want you to wear it, and to not question
: authority. One of the main jobs of schools was to crush
: individuality.
: So what are your thoughts on this theory?
4.1 The former working drones became role models and everyone shaved his face and cutted their hair to look like the big bosses.
-Christian