I have long hair and -- no surprise -- I like long hair. To me, it belongs that way, on both men and women. But if you happen to have short hair, don't get all offended and stop reading here. I'm not advocating a cloned society of Cousin Itts and Elviras. I'm not selling hair tonic or other hair care products either. I just want to admit and fully disclose my hair bias up front; it's why I am not running the country maybe -- too busy grooming my hair!

Some people prefer it short, I know -- by God do I ever know! They consider short hair to be unobtrusive, manageable and hygienic. (And maybe they also wonder at the term "longhair" being synonymous with "intellectual" -- I sure do!) But I have a short tale to tell -- what some eggheads even call an essay -- about my hair, your hair and the...well, let's just call them the hirsutistically challenged people.

There's a long history of conflict over long hair -- some of which is detailed in Charles Mackay's classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Some believe razed hair makes them less animal-like, more divine or spiritual. Or that a shorn head marks a passage -- or, like the Bororo of Brazil, a sign of mourning. However, I am not mourning and I am not passing. And I think the real essence of the divine resides in the animal, not in the baldness of the mewling babe, nor the elderly, nor the cancer patient. Hair, for me, is a sign of strength and youth and health and, even, freedom.

Back in the days of yore when wild-haired hordes of barbarians were hacking their way through the Roman Empire, they wondered where all the Roman soldiers and real men had gone. In their cultures, warriors had long hair; slaves, short. So when these longhaired barbarians came upon their first Roman army and sliced through it like butter, they assumed that they had merely cut down a garrison of slaves, that the real fighters had yet to be encountered. And, of course, Rome fell. (And good riddance, too; it was long becoming Christian anyway.)

You may disagree with me, surely, and prop up your bald and shorthaired idols -- G. Gordon Liddy, Uncle Fester, Anton Szandor LaVey, Jesse Ventura, Adolph Hitler, the Creature From the Black Lagoon and anyone else you care to --, but the argument is a matter of personal preference. I certainly respect the relatively static styles of some of those people myself. I mean, those hairless styles successfully worked for them, making them forever memorable characters and icons. But their visual institutionalization might have been crystallized in another stylized guise -- one with long hair and, maybe, could have been as effective or more so.

Cultures and subcultures each have their own social standard in regard to personal appearance. In Nigeria, for example, the Ashanti attribute long hair to murderers. In America, long hair belongs to a mixed bag of characteristics and/or stereotypes: that of bikers but also hippies; heavy metal thugs but also assorted artists, musicians, Native Americans and dopers. In fact, who knows for sure anymore who looks how and why? We need the social context -- the rulebooks. Today we still have Christians pointing to Chapter 11 of First Corinthians (part of their rulebook) to decry long hair while pictures of a blue-eyed, longhaired Christ contradistinctly weep in agony behind them.

With all the different hairstyles, it's hard to believe people would choose the most bland and basic ones. But it happens. I don't always know what I like, but I especially know what I don't like. It's the one look I can't stand: that shorthaired, Leave-It-to-Beaver, church-going, modern military-type, Republican Party, preppie haircut. It stirs up irrational resentment in me, plain and simple. Who are these people fooling with that posture of upright citizenship? Even Superman adopted long locks of rebellion to shake off his stale Boy Scout image. (Between you and me, I hear he was having trouble getting laid.) Now, Superman can pal around with other longhaired hipsters, such as Conan the Barbarian and Howard Stern.

I guess what I'm ultimately getting at is that when the ancient pagan warriors come back to ransack America in its declining years, it won't phase me a bit to watch personal grooming habits die out, hard and on the frontlines. We longhairs may have our day once more -- us werewolves and Vikings, rock stars and industrial hairdryer salesmen, not to mention specific personalities such as Jenna Jameson, Goldar the Space Avenger, Marilyn Manson, Lily Munster and the new Aquaman.

Then again, some days my hair takes a Hell of a long time to dry. Maybe...maybe I will get tired of the social disdain and that sneer on the loan officer's lips, of having to ask Fabio what he's using for conditioner anymore. Just maybe one day....

Nah, I doubt it. I thrive too much on the social rejection of the masses. So tell everybody to ignore this tale and go back to their hair-hating ways, as current customs deem fit.