Matters of size

Size matters, they say. By ‘they’, of course, I mean society. In so many ways we are taught (especially these days, in the modern era) that the bigger the better, the larger the stronger, the taller, the further, the faster - the better. From time to time one reads surveys which say taller men earn more, lead more people in firms, have more children, etc. It seems that this is especially true in Holland, where the average height in the male population has increased by 20 cm in the last 150 years. Now the Dutch are the tallest people in Europe (average 184cm for men), and it would be hard to find a part of Europe that more people admire without reservation.

It’s not only size, of course, but all forms of measurement.…