Posted by Charles (other posts) on February 14, 2014 at 02:29:58 Previous Next
In Reply to: Hair and Ideology posted by Anthony on February 08, 2014 at 02:16:30:
: I don't want to start any political arguments here. There is good and bad in every ideology, and for me the criteria is how well the freedom and dignity of the individual person is respected. So I'm not here to promote "right" or "left" or anything.
: However, I do notice that the North Korean "Commies" are all too aware of the meaning of hair length. This is totalitarianism.
Interesting topic.
North Korea's fear of long hair has less to do with ideology than with conservative Asian values and attitudes.
Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, Singapore which is anti-communist also made life difficult for long haired men there, though it has since relaxed on that.
China under Mao used to regard long hair as a symtom of western "decadence" but today has long haired rockers who outdo their counterparts in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
It also could be because long hair on men in ancient China was prevalent amongst royalty and nobility, who were anathema to both the republicans and communists.
At the time, there also was a joke that socialist Albania would not let Karl Marx in because he had longish hair.
There's also an account by a then young British communist who said he was teased as "looking like a girl" by Mao's wife Chiang Jing for him having long hair.
Back during the anti Vietnam War protests in the U.S. and Europe, most young men with long hair were either liberal, libertarian or moderately left, whilst some even were far left.
Today, it's harder to tell one's political orientation from the length of a mans hair, since some are left-liberal, some libertarian (right wing anarchist) and some even outright right wing.
The above applies more to North America, whilst European long hairs are most probably inclined more towards the liberal left.
So I don't think there's a clear line today between one's ideology and the length of one's hair.