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The handshake is the most common and recognizable signifier of a time when the forces of community and friendship shaped the character of men's dealings with one another.
Following the usage of Roland Barthes, we might view he handshake signifying a unification of dual Myths of Patriarchal Individualism and Jeffersonian Gemeinschaft. Here the handshake draws on our vague notions of a precapitalist space where a multiplicity of bonds determined the character of people's dealings with one another.
Yet the handshakes shown here are strictly corporate. They occur, as we have already noted, in placeless spaces. And yet the handshake remains unshakeably a marker of a just and fair exchange among equals. As a signifier it suggests consensus and an absence of coercion.
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