The following is a high-five moment from highfivecasino.com. You know that feeling when you walk into your home, take a deep breath, and feel new? Well, that's what it's like to use Clorox Scentiva, because Clorox Scentiva smells like coconut, cleans like Clorox, and feels like energy. It'll elevate any cleaning routine to not just clean, but also make every room smell like a tropical coconut getaway. Discover how Clorox Scentiva's powerful clean and refreshing scents can transform your space.
Get yours in coconut or other fabulous scents at a nearby retail store. Hey everyone, this is Jody Sweetin from the podcast How Rude, Tanneritos. I've been needing a quick getaway with my family and the 2024 Hyundai Santa Fe is the perfect vehicle to take us there. It has standard third row seating so I'm able to pack my entire family, plus pets in the car while also having enough room for our camping essentials. Available H-Track all-wheel drive will get us through any dirt trails, and available dual wireless charging pads will ensure we never have to worry about getting stuck with a dead phone in the middle of nowhere. Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details.
Hyundai, there's joy in every journey. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. Up next, a story about beards. They're all the rage these days. Take a look around, from hip urbanites to rustic outdoorsmen, facial hair is everywhere. Christopher Olston Moore makes the case that today's bearded renaissance is part of a centuries long cycle in which facial hairstyles have varied in response to changing ideals of masculinity.
He's the author of Of Beards and Men, the revealing history of facial hair. Let's take a listen. I think we all have a curiosity about it. I have always wondered in the back of my mind what is going on. And when I got serious about researching this matter for the courses I teach, I was unable to find anything solid. So I decided, gee, I better do some work on this. One of the things I discovered in my research is that shaving is as old as civilization itself, maybe even older.
We can't be sure. Men have been altering their facial hair for a very long time for a number of reasons. Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, the founders of our Western civilization, shaved their faces.
And the evidence shows that this is because of an association with cleanliness and holiness. This would be elite men shaving to show their superiority to the ordinary run of men. There were also times in empires in the ancient world when men contrastingly grew magnificent style of beards. And this was particularly true when the ruling class promoted a warrior image of strength, such as in Babylon and Persia and ancient Greece.
But the Greeks changed course under the influence of Alexander the Great in the 300s BC. He thought of himself as a new godlike hero, so he shaved himself to imitate how the artists of the day portrayed the gods. That is to say, eternally youthful and beardless. Greek men imitated this heroic style and passed it on to the Romans, so shaving prevailed for the next 400 years. First, there was a return to beards in the later Roman Empire, but after the fall of Rome, the church in Western Europe promoted shaving for men of the cloth as a sign of order, piety, goodness. After 1300, this style was adopted overall by the laity as well. And when, with the Renaissance at the end of the 1400s, there was also a renaissance of beards in reaction against this churchly and spiritual association of shaving. Men at this time, even many of the clergy, wanted to assert a more natural and worldly masculinity in contrast with the more retiring and spiritual medieval ideal. There was a new emphasis at that time on orderliness and discipline, this time not controlled by the church but the courts, the royal courts. One should look especially at the court of Louis XIV in France in the late 1600s, where they promoted a very stylized, very elaborate and urbane style of dress, including silk stockings, ribbons, lace, big wigs, and a clean-shaven face. And by the way, to wear a big wig, you had to shave your head also.
It was all very disciplined and orderly, indicating that a true gentleman was refined rather than natural. That style was copied everywhere, including in America. If you look at our founding fathers, you will see that they also sported the stockings, the wigs, the shaven faces, according to the style of the European courts. The French Revolution helped to bring beards back. Men were interested in the idea of freedom and feeling less inclined to be orderly and disciplined, but there were also excesses in revolution.
So, many feared too much democracy and lawlessness. As a result, most respectable men in the early 19th century avoided beards and its association with radicalism, whereas naturally the radicals, like Karl Marx, proudly embraced facial hair as a sign of freedom and opposition to bourgeois respectability. There is a noticeable upsurge in beards in all kinds of places, especially Hollywood, sports, and the streets of the cities. I think that for the younger generation there's a need to rebalance the masculine presentation and put forward a more physical masculinity, and a beard is one of the ways to do that.
When I look over time, I see a pattern. You can think of masculinity in all times and places as a sort of balance, and at certain times culture tries to shift that balance one way or the other. There has to be some kind of mix of cultural discipline and conformity to authority and the norm on the one hand, and on the other hand a push towards independence and individualism. When culture demands order and conformity, we see the emergence of a shaven order. Facial hair is always associated with the inverse, that is, independence and individualism against the norm. Take the 60s, for example, when facial hair was an emblem of youthful rebellion against the establishment, while the establishment, that is governments and corporations like McDonald's and Disney, for example, fought back with strict regulations against facial hair. I think today facial hair is appealing for similar reasons, though perhaps not so much against the establishment as such, as it is to present a stronger, better defined masculinity at a time when gender is contested and ill-defined, and individual men are feeling increasingly uncertain in their identity as individuals and as men. And a terrific job on the production and editing by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Christopher Oldstone Moore, whose book is Of Beards and Men, the Revealing History of Facial Hair. And my goodness, we can just look at US presidents. They had facial hair, Lincoln on down, and then all of a sudden, they didn't have facial hair.
It's been a long time since we've had a president with a beard, but maybe soon. The story of beards, the rich, complicated and amusing history here on Our American Stories. Here at Our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith, and love, stories from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.
We can't do it without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love our stories in America like we do, please go to our American stories.com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot. Help us keep the great American stories coming. That's our American stories.com. High Five Casino is a social casino with real prizes and big Vegas hits at highfivecasino.com. The hottest games right from Vegas and all winnings go straight to your bank account.
Hundreds of exclusive games, free daily rewards, and come back to get free coins every four hours. Only at highfivecasino.com. High Five Casino is a social casino. No purchase necessary, void or prohibited, play responsibly, terms and conditions apply. See website for details at highthenumberfivecasino.com. High Five Casino. Hey, it's Perez Hilton from the Perez Hilton Podcast, keeping you in the know.
Here's a bit of our show. Taylor Swift is bigger than Michael Jackson ever was. That's nowhere near factory.
Yes, it is. Perez, then you don't remember the A's. I remember the A's. The media was the most insane thing I've ever witnessed in my life and nothing will ever be bigger. She is bigger than Michael Jackson ever was. No, she's not.
Listen to the Perez Hilton Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Amazon presents Winning Moments. Simone, that's quite the cozy book nook you got on Amazon. The Kindle, Reading Pillow, and LED floor lamp are just mwah. Yep.
So enlighten me. How are you going to celebrate? Okay, what if I turn on the lamp and take a book off the shelf and read and read and read? The end.
Shop Amazon to find the perfect thing and celebrate every day. Prohibited play responsibly. Conditions apply. See website.
