Being Bald is Better?
History is filled with governments making questionable decisions. Some have declared war on birds. Some have outlawed dancing. Others have attempted to regulate the length of beards, the color of clothing, or the proper number of buttons one ought to possess.
But around A.D. 416, the Roman Empire looked at all the problems facing a civilization that was slowly coming apart at the seams and decided to tackle the one issue that truly mattered.
Hair.
The philosopher Synesius of Cyrene wrote an entire essay entitled In Praise of Baldness- This wasn’t a tongue-in-cheek little pamphlet; this man was committed.
According to Synesius, bald men were wiser, nobler, healthier, more virtuous, and generally superior specimens of humanity. Hair, meanwhile, was associated with vanity, foolishness, and moral weakness.
In other words, if you were bald, congratulations, you were basically the ancient Roman version of Batman.
Hair, meanwhile, was apparently civilization’s gateway drug.
Emperors Honorius and Theodosius II issued a law forbidding men from wearing long hair in Rome and the surrounding countryside. Animal skins were also frowned upon. Versace would be rolling in his grave.
Only a few years earlier, Rome had suffered the unimaginable humiliation of being sacked by the Visigoths. These invading “barbarians” were commonly portrayed with long flowing hair and rough clothing made from animal hides. Suddenly, anyone sporting the rugged Conan-the-Barbarian look wasn’t making a fashion statement, they were making the ‘good romans’ nervous.
Long hair reminded Romans of the people who had marched into their Eternal City and shown that the empire was no longer invincible. Outlawing the look became a way of reassuring themselves that Rome was still... well... Roman.
Rome had convinced itself that the next barbarian invasion wasn’t going to arrive with swords.
It was going to arrive with really fabulous hair.
History has a habit of staging this same ridiculous little play, only with different costumes.
When small-minded people become anxious, they often begin arguing about appearances. Suddenly everyone is expected to dress, speak, worship, eat and look a certain way.
In the 1960s, some Americans looked at a young man with shoulder-length hair and saw a menace to civilization. In the 1970s, others saw an afro and imagined danger. Later, a beard, a headscarf, a thawb, a dastar, or a kirpan became enough, for some, to decide they knew everything they needed to know about the person wearing them.
The Romans looked at a hairstyle and saw an invading army.
Which is roughly equivalent to looking at someone wearing Crocs, or sagging, baggy jeans, and concluding they’re secretly plotting the collapse of Western civilization.
Human beings have an extraordinary talent for confusing looking different with being dangerous.
History never really changes. It just gets a different barber. So chill out, grab a samosa, and remember that the most dangerous thing about most foreigners is how much they’ll ruin your opinion of cafeteria food.
Yup.