I just read the linked article about tattoos. Now there's someone who's gone off the high side. "I don’t believe that people without body modifications are really even fully birthed and evolved humans"?! Um, yeah, right, whatever. So, in her conception of reality (cue the "What colour is the sky in your world?" question), the essence of being human is the ability to alter one's body. Right. No, fuckhead, the essence of being human is to be able to alter one's environment by externalizing one's mind. We were doing that long before we ever had the spare time necessary to even think about covering needles with plant dyes and shoving them under our skins, or poking sharp awls through dangling flaps of skin and hanging bits of pretty stuff from the holes.
The writer of that article is a bigot with an unusual prejudice. There's no significant difference between saying "I don’t believe that people without body modifications are really even fully birthed and evolved humans" and "I don't believe that people with brown skins/non-Christian religions/non-culturally-standard sexual partners are even fully birthed and evolved humans." No difference at all.
In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that people with tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications should simply consider the Sleeves shirts and the media attention to be (as usual) yet another vagary of fashion, and let it go at that. Were any of us with Technicolour tonsures -- and fellow-travellers -- any more than annoyed when every second MTV T&A act started showing up with pink/green/fire-engine red "do"s? Or what about the recent appropriation -- yet again -- by the popular culture of everything punk? Some people have been doing that as a lifestyle for a generation now. Is that bothersome, because it's fashionable, and not a "commitment" (oh, please!) or a "lifestyle"? If any of us were bothered, we ought to re-evaluate the insides of our heads.
what you said. the blind arrogance of some people just amazes me sometimes. hell, i have three tattoos, and while getting them was a pretty liberating experience that's too complex to go into here, i can't say as how they make me feel any more evolved or "fully realized".
besides, i'm pretty sure having your head up your ass doesn't count as a body modification.
The author refers to the old saying that people with tattoos don't care if other people have them or not, and then refers to their own article as an expansion of that position....... which it most clearly isn't.
Not that the rest of the logic impressed me, but that bit was easy to pin down.
I'm in some ways more bothered by the suggestion that a person's 'truth' might be so fixed, so limited, that only permanent modifications could possibly express it. I'm about more than one thing, and when I bother to put together a 'look' it varies - not because I'm lying, but because I'm expressing different truths at different times.
I didn't say well-reasoned, and I did say rant. There's some obvious rectocranial inversion there, but there's also explanation of what's upsetting, not just shouting. (Whether anyone not similarly biased see the explanation as "valid", it still explains a mindset and point of view, and is thus useful for understanding the position even if only to understand what's wrong with it.)
I won't say I agree with everything in his article, but a few points:
...the essence of being human is to be able to alter one's environment by externalizing one's mind. We were doing that long before we ever had the spare time necessary to even think about covering needles with plant dyes and shoving them under our skins, or poking sharp awls through dangling flaps of skin and hanging bits of pretty stuff from the holes.
Probably not so long between one and the next. In a spiritual sense, the body is part of our "environment" as a house for the soul, and people have been altering it for thousands upon thousands of years. Think of all the "primitive tribes" that still do it as passed down from their ancestors. Early tattoos were of protection symbols. A Native American tribe used suspension in their religious ceremony. Tattooing and piercing used as a rite of passage. Et cetera.
"I don’t believe that people without body modifications are really even fully birthed and evolved humans"
Sounds like a religious statement to me, and one of the tenets of the Church of Body Modification is, to quote from their website, "It is our belief that by practicing body modification and by engaging in rituals of body manipulation we strengthen the bond between mind, body, and soul and ensure that we live as spiritually complete and healthy individuals." I am guessing he is a member. I won't argue about his being a bigot.
Or what about the recent appropriation -- yet again -- by the popular culture of everything punk? Some people have been doing that as a lifestyle for a generation now. Is that bothersome, because it's fashionable, and not a "commitment" (oh, please!) or a "lifestyle"?
Yes, there are a lot of the "old school" crowd who laugh at the kids who shop at Hot Topic using their daddy's credit cards. The saying is, "I remember when I had to rip and pin my own clothes! They can buy theirs already made for them!" There are people who won't shop there just because they feel "their scene" is becoming too mainstream. How alternative/counter-culture can it be if they offer it at the mall? On the other hand, hair dye, piercings and even tattoos these days aren't necessarily so permanent.
Look at how other people view "the armchair quarterback" or "the weekend warrior". What Larratt is saying is that this is something he takes seriously (to the extreme of a religion) and that other people should too.
If you're entitled to your opinions, he's entitled to his. Me, I think anyone who's religious is touched in the head.
Woah, freaky.
The writer of that article is a bigot with an unusual prejudice. There's no significant difference between saying "I don’t believe that people without body modifications are really even fully birthed and evolved humans" and "I don't believe that people with brown skins/non-Christian religions/non-culturally-standard sexual partners are even fully birthed and evolved humans." No difference at all.
In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that people with tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications should simply consider the Sleeves shirts and the media attention to be (as usual) yet another vagary of fashion, and let it go at that. Were any of us with Technicolour tonsures -- and fellow-travellers -- any more than annoyed when every second MTV T&A act started showing up with pink/green/fire-engine red "do"s? Or what about the recent appropriation -- yet again -- by the popular culture of everything punk? Some people have been doing that as a lifestyle for a generation now. Is that bothersome, because it's fashionable, and not a "commitment" (oh, please!) or a "lifestyle"? If any of us were bothered, we ought to re-evaluate the insides of our heads.
And so should the writer of that article.
Re: Woah, freaky.
besides, i'm pretty sure having your head up your ass doesn't count as a body modification.
Re: Woah, freaky.
The author refers to the old saying that people with tattoos don't care if other people have them or not, and then refers to their own article as an expansion of that position....... which it most clearly isn't.
Not that the rest of the logic impressed me, but that bit was easy to pin down.
I'm in some ways more bothered by the suggestion that a person's 'truth' might be so fixed, so limited, that only permanent modifications could possibly express it. I'm about more than one thing, and when I bother to put together a 'look' it varies - not because I'm lying, but because I'm expressing different truths at different times.
Re: Woah, freaky.
Re: Woah, freaky.
Re: Woah, freaky.
...the essence of being human is to be able to alter one's environment by externalizing one's mind. We were doing that long before we ever had the spare time necessary to even think about covering needles with plant dyes and shoving them under our skins, or poking sharp awls through dangling flaps of skin and hanging bits of pretty stuff from the holes.
Probably not so long between one and the next. In a spiritual sense, the body is part of our "environment" as a house for the soul, and people have been altering it for thousands upon thousands of years. Think of all the "primitive tribes" that still do it as passed down from their ancestors. Early tattoos were of protection symbols. A Native American tribe used suspension in their religious ceremony. Tattooing and piercing used as a rite of passage. Et cetera.
"I don’t believe that people without body modifications are really even fully birthed and evolved humans"
Sounds like a religious statement to me, and one of the tenets of the Church of Body Modification is, to quote from their website, "It is our belief that by practicing body modification and by engaging in rituals of body manipulation we strengthen the bond between mind, body, and soul and ensure that we live as spiritually complete and healthy individuals." I am guessing he is a member. I won't argue about his being a bigot.
Or what about the recent appropriation -- yet again -- by the popular culture of everything punk? Some people have been doing that as a lifestyle for a generation now. Is that bothersome, because it's fashionable, and not a "commitment" (oh, please!) or a "lifestyle"?
Yes, there are a lot of the "old school" crowd who laugh at the kids who shop at Hot Topic using their daddy's credit cards. The saying is, "I remember when I had to rip and pin my own clothes! They can buy theirs already made for them!" There are people who won't shop there just because they feel "their scene" is becoming too mainstream. How alternative/counter-culture can it be if they offer it at the mall? On the other hand, hair dye, piercings and even tattoos these days aren't necessarily so permanent.
Look at how other people view "the armchair quarterback" or "the weekend warrior". What Larratt is saying is that this is something he takes seriously (to the extreme of a religion) and that other people should too.
If you're entitled to your opinions, he's entitled to his.
Me, I think anyone who's religious is touched in the head.