
The War Between the Barbates: Facial Hair of the Commanders of the US Civil War - samclemens
http://pnis.co/vol2/h11.html
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Mz
This is sort of stupid. Maybe the Confederates were more likely to be clean
shaven because the Deep South is hotter than hell and there was no air
conditioning at the time of the Civil War. It seems to me that the northerners
tended towards longer beards and the southerners towards shorter ones. Perhaps
weather is a big factor there.

My understanding is the Deep South is the source of such wise tidbits as "If
you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" and they had outdoor
kitchens for summer cooking to avoid heating the entire house. This tradition
continues in some sense in that grilling outdoors is fairly popular in during
summer in the South.

I grew up in Georgia, yet I pass out in the heat of Florida. If I were a man
in the Deep South, I imagine I would be clean shaven just to try to stay cool.

This is just a really terrible analysis.

/fashion history fan

~~~
mmanfrin
The article does not push a reason why there were differences, and the
analysis is not about _why_ , so to critique it because you have your own
opinions of _why_ is _just a really terrible analysis_.

~~~
Mz
Excerpt:

 _Confederates, on the other hand, kept things looser, perhaps in deference to
a literal reading of Leviticus 19:27? Rebels also had more smooth-shaven
faces, which might be explained by several factors. Facial hair became popular
in the mid-1850’s, and it’s possible that the traditional South was more
resistant to this trend. In addition, Abraham Lincoln was the first US
President to have a beard (having, at times, a chin curtain and a goatee), and
maybe clean-shavenness was a subtle protest by Confederate commanding
officers._

It proposes several political/social/cultural reasons and says nothing about
the difference in weather between north and south.

~~~
mmanfrin
From the conclusion:

 _It’s difficult to say exactly why 9 in 10 officers went with facial hair.
Perhaps it was an opportunity to distinguish one’s self in an otherwise
uniform environment. Perhaps it was an attempt at normalcy during the
bloodiest turmoil in American history. Or perhaps there was a running bet
among officers on who could grow the craziest facial hair (our vote: Judson
Kilpatrick)._ __Whatever the reasons__, _the diversity and abundance of facial
hair will remain one of the more prominent postscripts of this War between the
States._

The article is about the process they went through to make up a fun comparison
of civil war generals and their battles. Drawing a conclusion they do not make
and then finding fault in that conclusion is not a fault of the article, but
of your own reading.

~~~
Mz
_...is not a fault of the article, but of your own reading._

That strikes me as uncomfortably close to an ad hominem.

~~~
rawTruthHurts
But no cigar.

------
ctstover
While I appreciate humor, and I have a beard myself, this is article is
utterly depressing. As if the in vogue trend towards increasingly revolting
ways in which we Americans comport ourselves, facial hair and otherwise, is
not dismal enough, we have smoked ourselves so stupid to not even be ashamed
of a piece like this. For an at least somewhat literate adult, to take even a
few minutes to research that war and be left still so unaffected they could
follow through with a bad late night party joke is nauseating.

When there is nothing left of your culture, know you are responsible. How
funny do you think it would be to live in a world with no genuine scholarly
journals? This whole "post-human dignity" generational trend is sickening.
Mocking literacy itself. If you really can't wait to see what happens after
it's all emoji and porn, then visit that very same history you laugh at. Go
get high with some gamers dumb ass.

~~~
jkern
what?

~~~
mhurron
I believe he is attempting to illustrate that no matter what you do someone,
somewhere will take offense to it.

Or he started drinking too early. One or the other.

~~~
ZeroFries
Anyone who has to start a sentence with "While I appreciate humour, ..." has
no sense of humour.

