Thursday 7 August 2003

Pic of the day: Due to a lack of photogenic mooks, today's picture is shamelessly stolen from ClanBob. Yes, you are supposed to see the whole thing and then keep reading for hours, the way I did when I first found the place. Bookmark me before you click, will you?

Looking crooked

I saw this guy walking down the main street of Kristiansand. Somehow he stood out, and I looked more closely. He looked halfway Latino ... a bit too pale and too tall, but his features reminded me of a Latino. Nothing special about that, though - Kristiansand has a significant Latino minority, mainly of Chileans, and they are an urban group more likely to be seen downtown than their numbers would say. (They are also less likely to have a regular job that keeps them indoors during the day.) I don't usually notice them unless they are quarreling loudly. No, that was not what made this guy stand out. What made me notice was that he looked like a criminal.

I mean, this guy looked like something out of a movie or a comic. It wasn't his clothes, which were casual. It was his face and his body language. He looked as if he wanted people to think he was a goon or a mook ... you know, the kind of mass produced criminal which the hero gets rid of without stopping to ask their name.

It was all I could do to not hail the guy right there and ask him why ever he would want to look like a crook. But common sense prevailed. (It is said that common sense is not common at all, but I think we can make an exception for flagging down violent-looking males in the street and asking them offensive questions.)

***

But really: Why would you want to look like a criminal? Even if you actually were a criminal, it would make sense to look inconspicuous. Gets you in a lot less trouble with police and such. And if you're innocent, you definitely want to look innocent, so as to not have your life messed up through the interference of the law or, more likely, competing goons.

Yes, even if the crooks are on top, it makes no sense to look like a crook. Look at the dictators, "presidents" and generals sending young people off to die far from home for some nebulous and imaginary cause while they enrich themselves. (I was primarily talking about developing countries with their frequent military coups here, but whomever the hat suits ...) These guys are certainly worse than your random crook roughing up the occasional shopkeeper, yet they look like they're ready to kiss babies. A good crook may look decisive when needed, but not crooked.

So, the big question is why. Why do low-level crooks, and probably a few non-crooks, look the part? It is not a matter of features you are born with, primarily. It is certainly not a matter of race. Over time we may learn to associate certain ethnic groups with certain negative traits, but that is not what I am talking about. No, it is a development of the facial muscles. You scowl and sneer and look arrogant for so long that you actually develop a kind of mask. Just like a blacksmith can easily be told apart from an office worker even if they were identical twins, so can you tell at a glance that this person spends his life bullying.

Archaeologists and anthropologists tend to explain anything they don't understand by "religion", while sociobiologists think it is "sexual selection". Now I cannot imagine many religions explaining this irrational behavior, unless they're all Satanists. So the question remains: Do chicks dig people who look like they're about to attack random bystanders? My best guess is yes, based on the large number of pirate novels for a female audience. While I have never had the pleasure of reading through one of these, and while the genre seems to be almost entirely out of fashion here in Norway, I know it has been quite popular.

Evidently Evolution, in its wisdom, has found it useful to attract women to guys who are likely to have a run-in with the law or with others of their kind and disappear from the scene temporarily (in the first case) or permanently (in the other). Yeah, that makes perfect sense when there are reliable, hard-working providers to be had for a song.

Perhaps it is a result of selective breeding at a much earlier time, before any kind of civilization, when it was each man for himself. Except ... there has most likely never been such a time. Our species cannot survive by raiding each other. You can do it temporarily, but not on any large scale. We were way too vulnerable to other predators to rough it alone, and we were way too puny to hunt alone. Even raising a kid takes a village. No, we've been social creatures since the day we became human (at least) and cooperation is what keeps us alive.

Perhaps it is religion after all. The voices in my head say that women may want men who act threatening, because it makes themselves innocent. It does not make a whole lot of sense, but a little. It is kinda like Christian girls are more likely to become pregnant as teens, because they wouldn't think of sinning so they don't use contraceptives. (I guess this applies to Christian boys too, except they don't get pregnant, more's the pity.)

Well, luckily there are pretty few of them. (The goons, not the Christians.) Most people look a lot more innocent than they are. I guess perhaps we may write it off as some kind of brain damage ... in which case it was just as well I didn't ask.