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LESSoN TWENTY-FIVE
TEXT A
American Men Dont Cry
American men dont cry because it is considered not characteristic of men to do so. only women cry. Cry is a weakness characteristic of the female, and no American male wants to be identified with anything in the least weak or feminine. Crying, in our culture, is identified with childishness, with weakness and dependence1. No one likes a crybaby, and we disapprove2 of crying even in children, discouraging it in them as early as possible. In a land so devoted3 to the pursuit of happiness as ours, crying really is rather un-American. Adults must learn not to cry in situations in which it is permissible4 for a child to cry. Women being the weaker and dependent sex, it is only natural that they should cry in certain emotional situations. In women, crying is excusable. But in men, crying is a mark of weakness. So goes the American belief with regard to crying.
A little man, we impress on our male children, never cries. only girls and crybabies do. And so we condition males in America not to cry whenever they feel like doing so. It is not that American males are unable to cry because of some biological time clock within them which causes them to run down in that capacity as they grow older, but that they are trained not to cry. And so the little man controls his desire to cry and goes on doing so until he is unable to cry even when he wants to. Thus do we produce a trained incapacity in the American male to cry. And this is bad. Why is it bad? Because crying is a natural function of the human organism which is designed to restore the emotionally disequilibrated person to a state of equilibrium5. The return of the disequilibrated organ systems of the body to steady states or dynamic stability is known as homeostasis. Crying serves a homeostatic function for the organism as a whole. Any interference with homeostasis is likely to be damaging to the organism. And there is good reason to believe that the American males trained incapacity to cry is seriously damaging to him.
It is unnecessary to cry whenever one wants to cry, but one should be able to cry when one ought to cry -- when one needs to cry. For to cry under certain emotionally disequilibrating conditions is necessary for the maintenance of health.
To be human is to weep. The human species is the only one in the whole of animated6 nature that sheds tears. The trained inability of any human being to weep is a lessening7 of his capacity to be human -- a defect which usually goes deeper than the mere8 inability to cry. And this, among other things, is what American parents -- with the best intentions in the world -- have achieved for the American male. It is very sad. If we feel like it, let us all have a good cry -- and clear our minds of those cobwebs of confusion which have for so long prevented us from understanding the natural necessity of crying.
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