Cry Me a River

Three days ago in Ottawa, Ontario, Justin Trudeau held a press conference to talk about the latest tariff situation with the United States and his impending departure as Canada’s prime minister. He “teared up,” as mainstream media put it, when recounting how he has fought for Canadians during the near decade he has been in office. “I have always put Canadians first,” he declared. I thought that an odd way to phrase it, since it echoes the much-maligned MAGA movement here in the States. Maligned, that is, by Trudeau himself and many of his confreres in the Liberal Party.

I don’t fault the man for putting his country first, but I have to wonder about the tears. It reminded me of Christoph Heusgen’s emotional farewell at the Munich Security Conference last month. Reacting to Vice President JD Vance’s address two days earlier, Heusgen concluded–dejectedly– that “our common value base is not that common anymore.” Overcome by emotion, he could not finish his speech and had to leave the podium in tears. Immediately, sympathetic attendees flocked to the stage and hugged him.

I thought of both incidents on Friday when I went to the optometrist for an eye exam and to order new glasses. The online survey they always send afterward asked me to evaluate the salesman who helped me choose my frames. These surveys are almost always hyperbolic and, in a marketing sense, divorced from any product or consumer reality. The questions often involve subjective assessments of behavior on the part of the doctor, staff, receptionist, etc. The one in particular that stood out to me asked if the salesman had treated me “with compassion.”

I don’t know what they were looking for, but, honestly, I had no idea. Compassion as a category never even crossed my mind. From what I remember, I think the guy was trying to wrap up by noon. He might have had a turkey sandwich with alfalfa sprouts and lite mayo waiting for him in the breakroom for all I know. That’s it, and I appreciated the nudge toward the door. I want to spend as little time as possible around people in lab coats and face masks. Yes, they wore face masks. In fact, we all had to wear them. The salesman informed me in all seriousness that they were going to mail the glasses to me instead of my picking them up, “…because of COVID.”

Crying, compassion, COVID–they all go together, I suppose, except that I can’t help feeling that I am sitting in a stiff wooden seat in high school auditorium, watching a play. I’d say musical, but the only time I feel rhythm is during my Monday night tap dancing lesson. The rest seems like an obvious rehash of old anxieties and rage. The rage almost always occurs on social media, where it is inescapable, with occasional forays into road rage. Apparently, crying makes only certain people react with compassion. But it enrages others who then perform all manner of stunts on the road, sometimes with deadly effect.

Now that I think of it, maybe if I had started sobbing from the weight of the world as I sat there trying on full frames, wire frames, round frames, and square frames–half of the illuminated wall–the salesman would have shown compassion, which I then could have rated on the evaluation. But since I didn’t make a performance of it, he must have felt no need to console me (another “C”). So, I simply passed on the question. With any luck, if enough people pass on the question, it will give pause to the marketing firm that designed the survey (I doubt it).

Some people may be inclined to look at crying as a show of strength and self-confidence, even among politicians. I don’t, but then I don’t do yoga anymore. To me, it shows a lack of self-control at best and a desire to create narcissistic drama at worst. I wouldn’t restrict it to funerals and visits to the Grand Canyon (see above), but neither would I include it in a leadership repertoire, whether in government or private business. People want to know that the person at the wheel knows where he’s going. I say “he,” because it’s still more acceptable for a female leader to cry, although I don’t recall Margaret Thatcher (Atilla the Hen) crying during the war over the Falkland Islands. And Giorgia Meloni of Italy is more likely to make others cry than cry herself.

Still, crying has its place. I am sure that it has been used to one’s emotional, diplomatic, political, and even physical advantage throughout history, to say nothing of crocodile tears. We’ll see if Trudeau actually steps down.

For further reading, see Tom Lutz, Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears (1999: New York, W.W. Norton). Image credits: Luke Jones, Andrej Lišakov, Nathan Dumlao, Carol Pietrantoni, Charlotte Knight, Sam Barber. Want more? Go to Robert Brancatelli. The Brancatelli Blog is a member of The Free Media Alliance, which promotes “alternatives to software, culture, and hardware monopolies.”