I’m really not a full-time resident of the blogosphere. In fact, I only know of, say, Cory Doctrow because XKCD insists he wears a cape and blogs from a hot-air balloon. So I don’t know if Michael Arrington has a well-established history of just not liking contact with other humans ≈link≈, or if this is just a pet peeve of his. But his position is that handshaking is “medieval” and we should eliminate it with something more sanitary, like the fist touch. Or telekinesis.

 

Hand shaking goes back a long, long way. Wikipedia says it was practiced as far back as the 2nd century BC. The story I’ve always heard is that shaking someone’s hand shows that you hold no weapon. Since most people are right handed and would hold a knife in that hand, we shake right hands.

Hmm. I doubt you heard from a reliable source, Mr. Arrington. Consider that many cultures use the left hand for sanitation. Or, if you don’t believe that, maybe we shake hands with the right hand because, well, most people are right-handed. Didn’t you just admit that?

Whatever the reason for hand shaking, it isn’t needed. Like the Qwerty keyboard (which is designed to slow us down so that the typewriter doesn’t jam), it’s a relic of an older time that’s not only no longer needed but actually causes inefficiency.

This is a myth that I keep hearing over and over, and that I keep hearing disproved over and over. For starters, the Qwerty story is usually a description of why we should use Dvorak . . . and we’ve found, through testing, that Dvorak isn’t actually faster.

Besides, if it was designed to slow us down, why did they put the letters T R and E next to each other, with S directly below E? Sure, L is way over on the other side, but I can’t blame Messers. Remington or Rand for that. Wheel of Fortune hadn’t been invented yet!

I can live with the keyboard. But I’d rather not have to catch another flu or cold from a hand shake.

Of course you can live with the keyboard, Michael. The keyboard doesn’t try to be your friend.

But enough of that, if I wanted to see Michael Arrington’s opinions on my blog I’d pay him for them. Here’s my point of view. When I trained to be the incredibly awesome-sounding Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion ≈link≈, one of the readings asked, “What about touching a communicant’s hand/mouth while distributing Holy Communion?”

Now, I’m not saying that Catholics are superstitious, but we can be particular about how we expect our traditions to be enacted. Honestly, I didn’t know there was an issue, but it merited an entry in the reading. The answer was, “So what? Human contact with the spiritual community is desirable.”

That is what this ultimately comes down to. It doesn’t come down to germs, or people not washing their hands when they use the bathroom, or about some social guilt that comes with infecting all of your co-workers. A handshake is about reaching out, physically and emotionally. It’s to seal a deal, or to show that a bet is now morally binding. It’s a gesture of introduction as well as congratulation. When an organization wants to set themselves apart, they devise a handshake. The Boy Scouts shake with the left hand, purportedly because it’s closer to the heart. And the Masons? Well, there are about five Masonic handshakes, and they all have names!

What life events wouldn’t feel complete without a handshake? I would not have been pleased if the Scoutmaster didn’t shake my hand after I earned the rank of Eagle. If the principal handed my diploma and gave me a Vulcan salute instead of a handshake, I’d be displaying some hand gestures of my own devising.

I’d like to post a link one of Brett McCay’s excellent blogs called The Art of Manliness : How to Give an Impressive Handshake ≈link≈. Of course, a handshake is a gender-neutral expression, and the article reflects that. My assertion is that we don’t shake hands enough.

My other assertion is that we shouldn’t shake hands when a hug would do. But I don’t want to give Mr. Arrington a case of the fits.