I Cry, Therefore I Am

I Cry, Therefore I Am
2012 11 13

By Michael Trimble | NYTimes.com

In 2008, at a zoo in Münster, Germany, a gorilla named Gana gave birth to a male infant, who died after three months. Photographs of Gana, looking stricken and inconsolable, were ubiquitous. “Heartbroken gorilla cradles her dead baby,” Britain’s Daily Mail declared. Crowds thronged the zoo to see the grieving mother.

Sad as the scene was, the humans, not Gana, were the only ones crying. The notion that animals can weep — apologies to Dumbo, Bambi and Wilbur — has no scientific basis. Years of observations by the primatologists Dian Fossey, who observed gorillas, and Jane Goodall, who worked with chimpanzees, could not prove that animals cry tears from emotion.

In his book “The Emotional Lives of Animals,” the only tears the biologist Marc Bekoff were certain of were his own. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, the authors of “When Elephants Weep,” admit that “most elephant watchers have never seen them weep.”

It’s true that many mammals shed tears, especially in response to pain. Tears protect the eye by keeping it moist, and they contain antimicrobial proteins. But crying as an embodiment of empathy is, I maintain, unique to humans and has played an essential role in human evolution and the development of human cultures.

Within two days an infant can imitate sad and happy faces. If a newborn mammal does not cry out (typically, in the first few weeks of life, without tears) it is unlikely to get the attention it needs to survive. Around three to four months, the relationship between the human infant and its environment takes on a more organized communicative role, and tearful crying begins to serve interpersonal purposes: the search for comfort and pacification. As we get older, crying becomes a tool of our social repertory: grief and joy, shame and pride, fear and manipulation.

Tears are as universal (but less culturally contingent) as laughter, and tragedy is more complex than joy — an insight Tolstoy and many others have offered. But although we all cry, we do so in different ways.

Women cry more frequently and intensely than men, especially when exposed to emotional events. These differences seem to emerge around puberty, which may be related to hormonal changes but also to the influence of gender stereotypes.

Like crying, depression is, around the world, more prevalent in women than in men. One explanation might be that women, who despite decades of social advances still suffer from economic inequality, discrimination and even violence, might have more to cry about.

Men not only cry for shorter periods than women, but they also are less inclined to explain their tears, usually shed them more quietly, and tend more frequently to apologize when they cry openly. Men, like women, report crying at the death of a loved one and in response to a moving religious experience. They are more likely than women to cry when their core identities — as providers and protectors, as fathers and fighters — are questioned.

“It is no little thing to make mine eyes to sweat compassion,” said Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. And yet the Greek epics are filled with tearful heroes like Odysseus, Agamemnon and Achilles. In recent decades, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have normalized the sight of the weepy chief executive. Twice in the last week — at a campaign speech in Iowa on Monday, and addressing his campaign staff in Chicago after his re-election victory — President Obama choked up. Babe Ruth cried when he learned he had cancer, and Floyd Patterson after losing to Muhammad Ali.

Women and men alike are most likely to cry at home, in the early evening and while alone or in the company of a female friend. At the movies, we cry more if the friend sitting next to us does.

People who score on personality tests as more empathetic and neurotic cry more than those who are more rigid, controlling or obsessive. Frequency of crying varies widely: some tear up at any novel or movie, others only a handful of times in their lives. Crying in response to discord, stress and conflict in the home, or after emotional trauma, lasts much longer than tears induced by run-of-the-mill sadness — which in turn last longer than tears of delight and joy.

[...]

Read the full article at: nytimes.com

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

No Bank Deposits Will Be Spared from Confiscation
2013 05 18
As alert Zero Hedge readers are aware, this week the EURO Politburo is busy debating the dodgy subject of deposit "bail-ins." The following article very succinctly explains this odious mode of fractal fractional reserve end-game chicanery. The author encourages all of you to share it with others. NO BANK DEPOSITS WILL BE SPARED FROM CONFISCATION By Matthias Chang Esq, futurefastforward.com (with author’s permission) I challenge ...

Military Says No Presidential Authorization Needed To Quell “Civil Disturbances”
2013 05 17
A recent Department of Defense instruction alters the US code applying to the military’s involvement in domestic law enforcement by allowing US troops to quell “civil disturbances” domestically without any Presidential authorization, greasing the skids for a de facto military coup in America along with the wholesale abolition of Posse Comitatus. The instruction (embedded at the end of this article), which ...

Ancient Maya Pyramid Destroyed in Belize
2013 05 17
An archaeological group says it plans to take legal action. Despite its small size, the Caribbean country of Belize is known for a few outstanding characteristics: a spectacular barrier reef, a teeming rain forest, and extensive Maya ruins. It now has one fewer of those ruins. A construction company in Belize has been scooping stone out of the major pyramid at the site ...

Ginger: A Warming Herb
2013 05 17
Ginger is an Asian herb that is particularly well known to us in the West. Over time, and with trial and error, its stimulating properties and piquant flavor have been integrated into both our herbal “materia medica” and cuisine. Brewed as an herbal tea, ginger root is particularly helpful for those people who have underactive stomachs and difficulty producing adequate amounts ...

Australian man dead for 40 minutes revived with new CPR machine
2013 05 17
In an Australian first, doctors have used a new resuscitation technique to revive three patients who were clinically dead for up to an hour. One of the lucky survivors was Colin Fiedler, 49, who was pronounced dead at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria, after suffering a heart attack, The Herald Sun reported. Doctors brought Fieldler back to life using a U.S.-made ...

More News »