Butch Up, You Curly Wuss!

I always find it strange when a news story gets picked up by the media at large and then you start to see various news outlets reprinting the exact same article word-for-word. For example, there's THIS ONE that is identicle to THIS ONE and THIS ONE and THIS ONE and MANY MORE.

The mystery deepens when you actually read the 98-word article and wonder what made news outlets decide this was worth repeating.

I'm reprinting it here, which sort of makes me a hypocrite, but I'm doing it to make a point. So just bear with this for a sec. Here's the article:

Report: Crying No Longer Taboo At Office
Tears At Work Once Seen As No-No

In "A League of Their Own," Tom Hanks told us there's no crying in baseball.

But there's more and more crying in the office. The Wall Street Journal reports shedding tears in the cubicle is no longer seen as a no-no.

Jean Twenge, an author and psych professor at San Diego State, said young workers are more comfortable in showing all sorts of emotion.

She added many Generation-Y'ers burst into tears at negative feedback. Even guys need to reach for the hanky.

Some see male tears as evidence that men are getting more in touch with their feelings.

Alright, let's start with the beginning. Note that references to fifteen year-old movies is not the definition of a "snappy lead."

Why would it matter what Tom Hanks said about crying in baseball? Tom Hanks does not make canonical statements on the dogmas of manliness. This isn't John Wayne we're talking about here; this is Tom Hanks, the prototypical Sensitve New Age Guy. No one's going to bust your chops if you get misty when Gary Cooper delivers Lou Gehrig's "I-Consider-Myself-the-Luckiest-Man-on-the-Face-of-the-Earth" speech just because a neurotic Tom Hanks comically yelps the phrase "There's no crying in baseball!" in a Gena Davis movie.

The second sentence of the article is just as bad in terms of twisted logic. Let's illustrate the point by replacing the terms "crying" and "shedding tears" with the phrase, "getting eaten by bears:

"There's more and more people getting eaten by bears in the office. The Wall Street Journal reports getting eaten by bears in the cubicle is no longer seen as a no-no."

See the logical fallacy? Just because something is happening more often does not mean that that thing has gained approval. If I see one guy getting eaten by a bear, I disapprove. If I see ten guys getting eaten by bears, I still disapprove. The number of guys getting eaten by bears changes nothing.

Instead of changing the quantity of guys getting eaten, you need to change the quality. For example, if the ten guys getting eaten by bears were a bunch of Generation Y brats crying over getting negative feedback, I would be more disposed to applaud.

What is with these Generation Y people, anyway? Never have I been so happy to miss a cutoff. Because, the fact is you can say, "Some see male tears as evidence that men are getting more in touch with their feelings," but everyone knows that the only reason "some" would say that is because we know full well that these Gen Y wimps are just going to lose it if anyone tells them to just stop sniveling. Remember, these are the guys who can't take "negative feedback."

You don't have to be a stoic abut this. There's nothing wrong with crying. Jesus wept. But Jesus was standing outside the tomb of His friend who had died when He was crying. He wasn't reacting to His boss telling Him He wasn't doing a good job.

I blame the parents. It's all true what they've been telling us; America is raising up generations of cry-pussies. Even when I look around at my own generation I notice that most of them are not nearly as awesome and manly as myself or Lee Van Cleef.

America needs to be more like Japan, where they celebrated Make a Baby Cry Day today.

The Japanese have a Proverb: "the more babies cry, the healthier they grow up." Maybe if some of these parents of the Y Generation had spent a little more time having sumo wrestlers make their babies cry, their kids would not be such simpering wusses today.

Okay, I admit that last argent did not make much sense. I actually had no legitimate reason for linking to the article about "Make a Baby Cry Day" except that I really, really wanted to post the picture: