In Defence of the Handshake
We’re publishing an original piece today by Dr David McGrogan, Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School, in defence of the handshake. As far as Prof. McGrogan is concerned, we cannot hope to return to normal life unless we start shaking each other’s hands again. Here is an extract:
The handshake is alive and well and living in Paris – not to mention London, New York, and Stockton-on-Tees. Prohibition never eliminates a practice, as any fool can tell you; it just drives it into the weeds. And handshaking is no different. People are still doing it. And now it has a subversive edge. When somebody offers you their hand these days, it is no longer just the meaningless ritual of yesteryear – it sends some important messages, which are all the more profound for the fact that they are not consciously sent or received. Human communication is not just verbal, but physical, and one only has to think for a second to realise that our physical ways of communicating – kissing, hugging, shaking hands – are often the most significant. What words are there that can surpass a simple hug from a loved one at a time of crisis? Or a first kiss? Or a handshake on the playground after a fight?
The first unconscious message sent by the post-2020 handshake is simply stated: you and your fellow hand-shaker are simpatico. The mask-wearing, the social distancing, the fear-mongering – maybe you’ll go along with it if you must, but deep down inside, you hate it. And with that furtive handshake, both of you now know that you’re in the same club. The wheat has been separated from the chaff.
Worth reading in full.
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A few weeks ago I consciously stopped allowing “fist bumping” or “elbows” and insisted on handshaking. Everybody reciprocated. In fact, they were almost relieved. Like breaking another bogus, invisible barrier or false fear.
I have to say, I’ve never done it.
As someone who never wears a mask and otherwise goes out of his way to ignore/break every covidian restriction, I must say I am a bit embarassed I ever indulged in fist-bumping. But, when people just offer and laugh, I bump back. No more. There is – and never was – anything funny about it.
i proffer an elaborate curtsy. I like the novelty. Plus I was never a fan of handshakes.
Along with parents evening via zoom, these are the 2 pandemic changes I am keen to keep.
How about just not doing parent’s evening at all? They won’t tell you anything important, unless they’ve decided you child ‘needs special attention’ – in which case I’d get them into another school pronto.
Fistbumping at football, different. Fistbumping on the street etcetera, silly. Handshake, or nothing.
Likewise, never done it, declined the offer two or three times.
Accepted a handshake from a colleague that I rarely meet sometime before Xmas and would accept a hug from Typhoid Mary these days.
We usually do more than average handshaking here in Germany. In fact we usually do a real lot. Now it’s all bumping. From my side I’ve been back to the shake since last summer. I actually quite enjoy offering my hand to see the reaction. Have to say everyone takes it, it’s nice to feel some skin contact.
An excellent insight that gets to the heart of the matter.
The purpose of inducing antisocial behaviour is to dehumanise people. It is a basic feature of totalitarian societies.
Thus the term for those who impose it is rightly ‘sociopaths’ – unless done for limited and very specific purposes.
Those who submit are adopting imposed sociopathic behaviour – a warping of their humanity.
Ditto. masks.
I gave someone a high-five once. But he was a quarter my age and it was before the pandemic.
These days I would certainly shake hands and make sure anyone around saw it. What a rebel, eh?
Handshakes or hugs only here, anything else is rejected with a sarcastic comment. I’ve never been much of a hugger hugger either lol.
Yep – same here – never had as many hugs in my life as in the last few months
I am a contrarian by nature and so just the suggestion that I must not shake hands was like a red rag to a bull. I have since the start of this dystopian shit show gone out of my way to shake hands / hug whenever meeting friends, relations, colleagues.
Recently I met with a friend I hadn’t seen since the start of the horror, he proffered a fist to bump, my response:
“You can fuck off with that crap.”
I held out my hand and we shook as civilised people should.
I will not change.
I NEVER engaged in this idiotic activity.
Before the first ‘Lockdown’ there was a service at our church at which instead of shaking hands, hugging and kissing during the ‘peace’ we were supposed to engage in this ‘elbow-bumping’.
I walked straight out, thus missing communion. I went to get the paper and I did not set foot in church for many months.
I used to worship regularly, not any more, I am sad to say.
Find a TLM. No scaredycats or phony baloney.
Can be counted on to stand up to this (and other) nonsense. Though come to think of it, Jacob Rees-Mogg went to one.
What’s a TLM?
I was watching the Victory Day parade from Moscow on Sunday and was moved by the images of President Vladimir Putin greeting each of the proud Russian war veterans with a traditional handshake. No stupid elbow bumps or social distancing but total dignity and respect.
I agree and support those posting who say they have not stopped proffering the hand. It makes the other person do the same, and on the ery few circumstancesthey don’t they are left feeling and looking silly and rude.
Just do it.
A professor of law writes an Original piece in defense of the handshake! I shake my head at the absurdity of it.
This isn’t about hand shakes per se – but the closely connected hug.
My partner and I have, seared into our memory, the picture of two of our grandchildren flinching at the thought of coming near us – way back near the beginning of the shit-show when the propaganda had begun to bite.
I’m glad to say that we quickly got past that damaging sociopathy. But the wider scars will remain for a lot of children.
The last person who offered me a strong handshake last summer is now a statistic on the yellow card data. One of two people I know, and a third that I know of, who suffered a similar fate. In fact I know of the same number of people killed by the vaccines as I know people who have definitely had the virus (and recovered of course).
Gosh!
I know of two people who died from (with) the disease – aged 85, 105. I also know of three people who committed suicide during the early phases of the outbreak, and one failed atttempt. They were literally scared to death by the fear mongering. I know of one who died after ‘vaccination’ – along with numerous cases of lesser adverse reactions.
I seem to remember a story in Roald Dahl’s autobiographical Going Solo about a lady on the ship to Tanganyika who used to peel her oranges and eat them using only a knife and fork because she refused to touch food with anything as dirty as a hand. From a class of people he dubbed the “empire builders”, he claimed most of them went dotty eventually. Today, of course, it seems that almost everyone is dotty!
And I still maintain it is a nonsense to tell people to cough into their elbows and at the same time maintain that people should bump elbows. Strange practice, I’ve never done it. The baby in that picture of Boris Johnson had it right.
If I meet any of the government or SAGE, I would willingly shake them by the …. neck.
New England Medical Journal published a report.
81% of pregnant women who got vaccinated before the 3rd trimester had spontaneous abortions
Yet according to the UK Gov, every thing is just great.
According to this NEJM study
829 completed pregnancies.
700 got vaccine in 3rd trimester
129 got vaccine before 3rd trimester
Out of 829 pregnancies only 129 of patients got the vaccine before the 3rd trimester
Let us compare statistics of 1st and 2nd trimester pregnancies
So 104 spontaneous abortions (loss of pregnancies before 20 weeks) happened in 129 women who got vaccinated.
That means 81% of pregnant women who got vaccinated before the 3rd trimester had spontaneous abortions
The national average is 10-26% spontaneous abortions off all pregnancies
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104983
I do not understand how anybody could administer experimental drugs to pregnant women. Perhaps the thalidomide episode has disappeared from memory.
I too have never done it – nor stopped hugging friends that are ok with me to do so. As for being told how to hug safely by the BBC – it beggars belief – just go for it!
Handshaking becomes a rebellious act. Whoever thought. At A Stand in the Park every Sunday a bunch of (lockdown sceptic) people gathers, shakes hands, hugs, whatever. We are just so happy to be among fellow normal human beings. It feels wonderful!
Whenever our window cleaner calls, we make a conspicuous display of shaking hands in full view of neighbours and passers-by. It’s very satisfying.
Always continued to shake hands at every possible opportunity, however some of my golfing partners are a bit apprehensive. Will start to eat into that right away.
From day one, I have reserved the right, as a free Englishman to grasp the weapon hand of my fellow, by way of greeting. That right won’t change, or be substituted.
I have begun to try to ensure that someone shakes hands with someone every Sunday at church. I lead the way, three last week, and hope that others will begin to do the same.
Also, if someone has a problem with a handshake simply direct them to some hand gel afterwards. There was never any reason not to handshake.
Maybe he’s a Mason. But seriously, it’s good to get rid of another stupid idea. For many years, I was a member of a Council that used ‘handshakes’ as it’s logo on all published documents, but in my culture it’s fairly unusual anyway.
I will not do the elbow bump!
Glad to say that most of those that I would like to shake hands with have been happy to reciprocate. Those in “real” jobs (sorry Toby!) such as building trade and farmers, with a sense of perspective, have always shaken hands with me.
April of last year I chatted to an American who was “trapped” over here and we finished with a handshake. Also we were doing social distancing rather than anti-social distancing, about a normal metre and a quarter apart.
Apart from a short period of elbow-bumping for a laugh during the peak April-May 2020, I’ve been shaking hands and hugging as normal.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, your elbow is closer to your respiratory tract than your hand.
what has happened to lockdown sceptics posts for the last two days- is it only me who hasn’t received them?
Hi, like another Member I have not received the daily update for the past two days. Does anyone know why?