Has anyone noticed the "new normal" whereby politicians - not to mention others in public life - feel constrained when cameras are whirring to greet their colleagues with a hug or even a kiss, gender-regardless ?
We feel it demeans both the office and society to have such intimate expressions of human feeling displayed for all and sundry, President Obama being the latest victim of this disease.
It demeans the office of President of The United States - arguably the most powerful position in the world - for either the President or his business visitors to embrace one another. It suggests a false intimacy that cannot cover the fact that POTUS has no equals. If Mr Obama wishes to embrace his real friends in private, that is entirely his business, of course. A handshake is the appropriate way to show mutual respect, and it is congenial for both sexes - especially, we would imagine, for men not yet "so comfortable with their bodies" as the modern rubric goes, that they really wish to hug anyone in public except their wives and children (maybe sisters, cousins and aunts, too, if they are liberal or hip enough to feel so inclined !)
Routine hugging in public - by President or peon - also demeans the special nature of intimacy. We embrace those whom we truly love and have long known. In so doing, we are sharing a part of human nature that Christ gave us, Love. We are affirming that we stand with them in a special relationship. Fling this special sign around with random abandon (as well-intentioned but naive churches inflict on their attendees in a most horrid fashion at the mis-named "passing of the peace" - better called "gassing at Mass") and you cheapen the depth and mystery of the most special human bonds.
Happily, whatever his other faults, this horror of the modern age does not appear to have infected Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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