Why do humans cry? The question confounded no greater mind than Charles Darwin’s.
The evolutionary biologist believed “the secretion of tears serves as a relief to suffering” but in a superficial way that was no more effective than “the uttering of piercing shrieks”. Weeping was “incidental” and “purposeless”, Darwin wrote in 1872. Suggesting teariness was culturally-conditioned rather than innate, he said: “Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief.”
Were Darwin around today he’d make a poor contestant for The Celebrity Traitors, which starts on BBC this week.
Followers of the Traitors franchise will know crying is far from “purposeless”. It has saved many a contestant from being banished from the show – drawing game-saving sympathy from competitors – while entrants who never weep can have suspicion cast on them for failing to display emotion.
READ MORE
Civil servant Ian Kelly from the recent RTÉ series The Traitors Ireland experienced exactly this prejudice. His refusal to shed a tear as fellow Faithfuls were murdered was seen as a damning indictment of his character, triggering his exit.
[ The Traitors Ireland: What makes this intoxicating show so utterly gripping?Opens in new window ]
Studies from psychology help to explain why. Tears communicate distress and vulnerability in a very intimate way. Since it’s hard to fake crying, a display of emotion can increase perceived trustworthiness. A research project, led by University of Lodz in Poland, last year found crying was seen as more authentic when done by men – for the very reason they “well up” less frequently. The study, which also looked at “crocodile tears”, suggests manipulative weeping is only effective if done sparingly – if it works at all.
The significance of crying goes much deeper, however. In world religions, crying is seen as an expression of empathy, and a refusal to shed tears is associated with cold-heartedness.
In the Bible, the son of God cries on a number of occasions, most notably at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Proof of his humanity is captured in the phrase “Jesus wept”. The fact he can cry shows “He” – with a capital H – is one of us.
There is a long tradition of both empathetic and cathartic crying among Jesus’s followers. St Augustine describes in his Confessions how “a great deluge of tears” overwhelmed him before his sudden conversion to Christianity. St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, goes one better. Legend has it his doctors warned him that if he continued to sob so violently during Mass he might lose his sight.
But within Christianity there are variations. Prof Thomas Dixon, a London-based expert in the history of emotions and author of Weeping Brittania, says the Protestant Reformation saw a pushback against public displays of emotion. For more austere Protestant reformers, tears were seen as a lowly tactic aimed at influencing God’s almighty power.
This distaste for crying carried though the Victorian era but weakened with each generation, according to Dixon. Certainly by the time Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne bawled his eyes out on a pitch in Turin as his 1990 World Cup journey ended, any stigma attached to Englishmen crying had well and truly gone.
The power of tears is a theme of other religions too. In Islam, we’re told the prophet Muhammad wept frequently in sympathy with both humans and non-human animals. In Judaism, tears are similarly associated with compassion – the Torah tells us Hagar wept in the desert as she and her son Ishmael faced death; God heard her cries and took pity on them.
Is a failure to shed tears a sign of moral weakness? US president Donald Trump famously said he was “not a big crier”, although he stressed he had nothing against people who turned on the waterworks. Before judging Trump for his apparent apathy, ask yourself when was the last time you had a “good” cry – “good” in sense of an empathetic or constructively compassionate shedding of tears.
Crying solves nothing on its own, but it is evidence of feeling. And that’s not to be sniffed at, if you forgive the pun.
Nor is crying anything to be ashamed of. Given the daily feed of destruction we witness across Earth through our smartphones, the more urgent question is not “Why do humans cry?” but rather “Why don’t we cry more often?”.
[ Seán Moncrieff: We may be living through the angriest period in human historyOpens in new window ]
Perhaps Darwin was right and crying is “purposeless”. But a world where no one sheds a tear would be a cold and lonely place.
[ Francis Fukuyama and the case for being ‘usefully wrong’Opens in new window ]
* A footnote for philosophy fans: The 30th staging of the Baboró International Arts Festival for Children takes place in Galway from Friday, October 9th – and there’s a philosophical dimension for curious adults and children.
University of Galway philosophers Michela Dianetti and Lucy Elvis are hosting a public lecture on doing philosophy with children – and how kids can be seen “as particular kinds of experts”. It takes place at the university’s Hardiman Building at 3pm on October 9th.
The duo are also running a drop-in philosophical lab, The Thinking Studio, where people of all ages can critically engage with big questions such as “Are grown-ups just tamed children?” and “What makes someone trustworthy?”, a puzzle not just relevant to Traitors. It runs from Oct 10th-18th at Urban Lab, Nun’s Island. See: baboro.ie
