The display of emotion is at the heart of the millennial zeitgeist. Presidents and prime ministers parade their passions and their frailties. World-famous footballers weep openly on the international pitch. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people mourn a British princess they never knew. The fervor for "emotional intelligence" has fuelled a raft of initiatives, from circle time in infant classrooms to postcompulsory key skills curricula and business management theory. In team meetings at work, our managers are now as likely to ask us how we feel as they are to seek our opinions. Emotional openness has become a requirement of public citizenship for the twenty-first century.