Point
David Gruber (2L)
At best, “awareness” is but the first of many steps towards solving a complex problem. But its import has been taken way out of proportion.
People are aware of cancer. The type that targets the prostate is particularly infamous. The best estimates say that 14% of men will get it at some point. Meaning if you know at least 7 men you can’t not be aware for very long.
Anyways, awareness isn’t the end game. What, pray tell, happens once we’ve achieved widespread “awareness”, and stamped out all the “stigma”? There’s still the little matter of… you know… finding a cure. That was supposed to be the point of all this. But all the fetishizing of awareness has given us fourteen years of foreplay without ever coming close to touching a prostate.
After more than a decade of this silliness we’ve gotten about as much awareness as moustaches can provide. At this point all you’re raising awareness of is how little you resemble Hollywood archetypes of manhood like Sam Elliot. And also how recently you’ve recovered from the traumas of puberty.
Let no one take this to mean that the issue of men’s health should receive any less attention. But we can still maintain some perspective.
For example, repopulating the planet is also a valid health/environmental concern. Many Western countries are growing at below replacement levels. Precious few chaps will emerge from the moustachioed month as dashing as Mr. Feldman. For most of you, your repugnant whiskers are doing violence to the sex drive of any man or woman who makes the mistake of casting a gaze in your direction.
I’m not saying that women are so repulsed by your ‘stache as to threaten the survival of our civilization. But do expect a sharp dip in birth rates circa next August.
Okay, but Movember Canada does raise $40 million a year for men’s health issues. Are these fugly boy-men not valiant martyrs in the war against mother nature?
I submit that they are not. Why? Because charity doesn’t work.
Even thriving charities are absurdly wasteful. And cancer foundations are some of the least efficient, spending 30 or 40 bucks for each $100 they raise. The Canadian Cancer Society actually spends more money on fundraising and administration than on research.
With a fundraising and admin budget of about $2.5 million, Movember is relatively efficient. Still, the charity model for allocating funds requires researchers to spend incredible amounts of time applying for research grants, rather than actually doing research (some say soliciting dollars is now their main preoccupation). And that’s just when your donations actually go to research. The rest of the time they’re funding programs to raise yet more “awareness”.
If it isn’t plain yet, allow me: moustaches don’t cure cancer. Not even a little bit. If used improperly they may even contribute to the spread of venereal disease (think about it).
This frivolous activity only succeeds in making you feel like you’ve done something righteous, without having to inconvenience yourself in the slightest. It may even be fun. In other words, it’s all about you. Big problems get solved through major investments on the scale of a space race or a world war, not some cheeky bake sale or read-a-thon.
But if you absolutely cannot be without a furry upper lip, you can at least follow proper tonsorial technique: Grow out your whole beard and trim only once you’ve reached the desired length.
As Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert said, “all the best people shave twice a day.” Surely he has to have been right about something.
Counterpoint
David Feldman (2L)
There are so many great reasons to participate in Movember that it almost seems unsportsmanlike to list them. Dave got stuck with the moronic side of this argument for follicular reasons out of his control and he deserves a round of applause for his valiant attempt to support it. But he’s still deeply wrong.
Now, I love an anti-slacktivism pile-on as much as the next guy. Dave isn’t the only guy in the room savvy enough to roll his eyes at a website that tells him that “The Mo is the catalyst for change.” But the charge won’t stick here, for two reasons. First, the Movember Foundation raised almost 150 million dollars worldwide last year. Not 150 million likes or shares or retweets—real scratch. That’s more than the CIBC Run for the Cure has raised in five years, with the entire histories of both Tough Mudder and the Enbridge CN Tower climb thrown in for good measure. That money, which was raised with one of the lowest cost ratios around, has been pledged to or spent on 577 projects in 21 countries, including hard research, treatment and survivorship programs, and, yes, awareness and education.
Second, and maybe more important, awareness actually does matter here. Movember isn’t interested in catching warlords or ending greenhouse gas emissions. It’s directed (in addition to mental health issues, which not even Dave can argue we’re too aware of) at two cancers whose survival rates, with early detection, are above 95%. So when Dave says the endgame is finding a cure… well, maybe it’s not.
Awareness matters because we men are silly babies. We ignore problems and hope they’ll go away. We ignore problems that aren’t going away because we’re afraid to have our fears confirmed. Hell, most of us won’t even ask for directions, let alone a prostate exam. Instead, we let our health issues fester, multiply, and metastasize, suffering in silence, committing suicide four times more often than women despite lower reported rates of depression, and dying of curable cancers. If looking sillier than usual for a while can help change that situation even a little, then count me in.
Which, for me, is the heart of the issue. Ultimately, Movember means the same thing all civic involvement means: the willingness to look ridiculous by joining a movement in support of a cause instead of sneering from the sidelines with your arms crossed and your upper lip gleaming.
In other words: stop being such a fucking hipster and grow yourself a damn moustache.
