I'm not a big tattoo fan. Quite the opposite, actually. I wouldn't say its a sin, but its certainly not something I'm interested in. To me, most tattoos are expressions of feeling or belief that would be better expressed in real life rather than in ink-on-skin format. Take, for instance, the criminal with his daughter's name tatooed across his leg. Maybe just being a better dad and not ending up in jail may have been a better way to express your love for your child. Part of it is that tattoos are just such and easy way to express something that is, often times, hard. People get their partners' name tattooed on them rather than, you know, actually work at the relationship.
Plus, I believe that if you live your life by your own coda two things will happen: One, you'll get scars, and scars are real-life tattoos with actual stories and meaning; and two, you'll be known for your beliefs rather than having to express them in ink on your skin.
The one possible exception I would make would be for the original tattoo group; you know, the people who got tattoos when it actually meant you were a dangerous outsider. Now, a tattoo just means you have a tattoo, and some free money lying around.
So I nodded my head when I read the first part of this article. But then it went in a weird and unexplainable place. The author jumps from an explaination of tattoos and various downsides - the cost, pain, semi-irreversibility, time - to somehow deciding that people get tattoos because they spend too much time on Facebook. Without a lick of evidence. The way the article ends suggests the entire piece was a bit of a joke. But if that was the intent, the first part of the article didn't imply such. Maybe I just missed it.
Dingbats
I use this term lovingly and to be funny, not in the prejorative sense. I'm not entirely through the article yet, but this piece on a new book, Bad Religion, is interesting. From one of the first graphs:
I think I speak for a lot of secular liberals when I confess my lifelong skepticism that anyone could make a rational case for such old-fashioned ideas. And yet, you’ve done so. One thing I hope we can accomplish in this conversation is to explain to Slate’s readers how you’ve done that, and how your approach differs from what’s often understood to be the mentality of the “religious right.”
The title, Bad Religion, captures your argument quite well. Secularists look at many of today’s preachers and theocratic politicians, such as Newt Gingrich, and conclude that religion is the problem. Conservative Christians listen to those politicians and conclude that secularism is the problem. You’re articulating a middle ground: The problem isn’t that all religion is bad, or that religion is under threat of extermination—it’s that some kinds of religion are bad, and these corrupt versions are replacing the sort of religion that’s healthy and authentic.
Not much in this life should be considered actually, legitimately evil, in my view. Mostly its just stuff that infringes on another's rights. Murder; Theft, evil. I see nothing inherently evil in religion. In fact, most religions have at least some good take-away points. Mostly, religion is a way for an individual to make their way through this world, and who am I to say their way is any better or worse than mine; until theirs starts interfereing with mine, that is.
I'm not trying to interest you in a tattoo or convert you into thinking they are good ideas, but I think your points above are very black and white. People get tattoos for more reasons than expressing something that is hard or expressions of feelings or beliefs. Also, some people get tattoos to express a feeling/belief and DO what their feeling/belief is, but want the reminder there (like a ribbon tied around the finger).
ReplyDeleteI like tattoos, at least the well-done ones, and already have plans for a second one. I like the way they appear, and I like that when I see them, I'm reminded of so many things that are tied to them--the reason I got it in the first place, the experience of going, the process of working things out to get it. I have no issues with people getting tattoos for whatever reason they want (hey, it's their body), but for me, tattoos should have meaning and be art.
As for your comment about life leaving scars...sometimes the scars are emotional and tattoos can leave a representation of them in the skin when the flesh is left unmarred.
True enough, and as I said in my post, some tattoos are legit. There are always fringe members. But the vast majority of the ones I see are just tattoos for tattoos sake, sometimes with a supposed meaning attached, mostly because inking without any meaning would seem silly. I think this is true of most "mainstream" things. Its no different than being Goth. When it was 1 or 2 people it said something. When half your population is Goth, its no longer different and its message is, at best, watered down.
ReplyDeleteToo many are, in my opinion, just empty. A bad father getting his kids names, a bad family member getting the name of a dead relative they didn't visit enough. It is a "show" rather than a "do." Like people who ride their motorcycles at 11 p.m. and rev their engines - yes, we get it, you have a loud vehicle. They aren't doing that because they love the open road and the wind in their hair, which is the reason for the bike, one would assume.
I would add that , at the very least, my argument doesn't amount to "you got a tat because you spend too much time on Facebook"!
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