In last Sunday's New York Times, David Brooks cast a friendly yet critical eye at the burgeoning trend toward tattoos. His central themes were the impermanence of permant expressions . . .
They don’t always work out — on the reality show “Miami Ink” a woman tried to have her “I will succeed thru Him” tattoo altered after she grew sick of religion — but the longing for permanence is admirable.
and the superficial nature of tattooed nonconformity:
And that’s the most delightful thing about the whole tattoo fad. A cadre of fashion-forward types thought they were doing something to separate themselves from the vanilla middle classes but are now discovering that the signs etched into their skins are absolutely mainstream. They are at the beach looking across the acres of similar markings and learning there is nothing more conformist than displays of individuality, nothing more risk-free than rebellion, nothing more conservative than youth culture.
It's a fun essay with obvious targets, but like so many in this genre it confuses the part for the whole. For a more extensive look at the psychology of tattoos and artistic enterprise, check out this extensive article from the Frederick News Post, replete with observations not usually found in local suburban papers:
The mother-son answers make intuitive sense and even seem complementary in that each represents a distinct side of the sex-as-power theory of male-female relations. But, as it turns out, the centuries-old appeal of trans-cutaneous body adornment is many-sided -- and perhaps that's one reason Ms. Dearstine's venture is doing so well.
FLASHBACK EXTRA:
Longtime readers of the BofG will, of course, remember this:
Just we have long worn clothing has as "an extension of the skin" both to warm our bodies and to define ourselves, many now freely using their skin as an extension of their soul. This should not come as no surprise. Back in 1964 Marshall McLuhan observed that
After centuries of being fully clad and of being contained in uniform visual space, the electric age ushers us into a world in which we live and breathe and listen with the entire epidermis.
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