Why The Beard?
"Dear Mr. Glass: My name is Virginia and I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say that men shouldn't have beards. Papa says, 'If you see it in Mr. Glass's website, it’s so.' Please tell me the truth: Why do you have a beard?"
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, I have a beard. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no beards. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. Not have a beard! You might as well not wear shoes! Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No beards! A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, beards will continue to make glad the heart of society. *
* apologies to Francis Pharcellus Church
It's Science
In Evolution and Human Behavior, a journal article (DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.02.003) suggests that facial hair may have an impact on how others perceive individuals with beards.
It's Technology
The science humor publication Journal of Irreproducible Results proposes the beard-second, or the distance that a standard beard grows in one second, which is 10 nanometers. Due to this small distance, the beard-second is useful when measuring lengths on the scale of viruses. The method of obtaining this small distance is similar in concept to the more familiar measurement of length used in astronomy for large distances, the light-year. A light-year is 9.46 trillion kilometers, since 9.46x1012 km is the distance that light travels in one year. If we converted a light-year into beard-seconds, the distance would be close to 1024 beard-seconds.
It's History
Even so, beards come into and go out of fashion as society changes.
According to Christopher Oldstone-Moore, there have been four major beard movements in history. Prior to the Fourth Beard Movement, beards were favored in the early 19th century by socialists and radical reformers who wore facial hair as a form of protest.
Stripped of its subversive connotations after the revolutions of 1848, the beard spread into the bourgeoisie and then into the ruling class.
It's Charity
Adam Garone has an impressive moustache, and it's for a good cause. A co-founder of Movember, Garone's initiative to raise awareness for men's health — by having men grow out their moustaches every November — began as a dare in 2003.
Now, it's a worldwide movement that raised over $800 million and funded over 1,200 projects in more than 20 countries.
TED Talks: Healthier Men One Moustache At A Time