There's nothing rational in getting a tattoo -- unlike say trimming your hair in a specific way so it doesn't get in your eyes or shaving your beard regularily because you hate how the beard itches your face when it grows out getting a tattoo seems like a purely emotional decision which they somehow rationalize in their minds and expect the rest of us to accept their rationalization.
You just speak with
way too much confidence for someone who knows so little about this subject. First, I said "rationality", not "rational", although I would argue receiving a tattoo can be perfectly rational. Rationality, as in, "the quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic." I'll expand more on why receiving a tattoo can follow reason and logic later.
That's what you can read in the press supposedly from people who have them. I didn't do the survey myself.
I have no idea what survey or press you're talking about. I'm sure you can drum up a quote by someone who claims to have received a tattoo to "express" their "individuality" but that isn't necessarily representative of an entire population of people.
You can appreciate art without turning yourself into a canvas full of toxic ink.
We can agree there are different art forms, correct? Oil on canvas, manga, and tattooing are all different forms of art. If you take a classic sailors tattoo, like say "The Rock of Ages," and draw it on canvas it is no longer a tattoo. If you want to appreciate the art form itself you either have to give or receive the tattoo. There's no other way to experience and appreciate this particular form of art. As for toxicity, well, just like with everything there are varying degrees of quality. It might surprise you to know that many people pay upwards of $1000 for a medium sized piece from classically trained and educated artists. Likewise, there are many different brands and qualities of inks.
The fine "human tradition" you are speaking of was also most often used to brand slaves, bandits, fugitives, prisoners, etc throughout the history. Those who did it for artistic or spiritual purpose seem like a minority, not to mention that modern people aren't big on spirituality anyway.
I don't mind people keeping even such a sordid tradition alive if that's what they want, but trying to assign new meaning and purpose to erase what has been done with it in the past stinks of historical revisionism and that bothers me more than tattoos themselves.
Using tattoos as identifiers or brands is actually a relatively
recent use for them. Historically, they were used by cultures around the world for various purposes, none of which had to do with identification of slaves or fugitives. Primitive tribes would use them to mark young warriors as a rite of passage. The tattoos indicated that the young man had finally become one of the warrior men of the tribe. Sailors used them to indicate particular voyages (there is, for example, a specific tattoo to indicate you crossed the Atlantic). Soldiers used them to indicate that they were veterans of particular campaigns. Christians used tattoos on their children so that the children would know they were baptized in case the parents were martyred before the children were old enough to understand. Which of these reasons is illogical? It seems like the most perfectly logical thing in the world to me that a young sailor who made his first Atlantic crossing would receive the tattoo to indicate that he had. It's like a medal or ribbon that can't be lost or thrown away. Modern people don't usually receive them in quite the same way, but like I said, to appreciate this particular art form you have to participate. There are also still plenty of veterans that do commemorate their campaigns with tattoos.
Tattoos were of course also used to indicate various affiliation in prisons, a practice which is widely accepted to have started in the Russian gulags but probably predates that by a fair bit. However, to pretend that tattooing is a "sordid" tradition is simply misinformed. Many royals throughout history have had their fair share of tattoos as well believe it or not. People received tattoos for
many reasons. The idea that only criminals and slaves received tattoos is plainly false.
I've yet to hear a compelling rational reason for why modern people do it. Your explanation didn't help.
What you really mean here is that you've "yet to hear a reason for why modern people do it that I accept." Frankly, your prejudice against tattoos doesn't make it irrational or illogical and I'm not sure why you have the hubris to believe that your brain process is so logical that you are the appointed arbiter on what is rational or not. I think most people who have tattoos understand the logic behind why they got them much more than you understand your own hatred of the practice. Before I ever got my first tattoo I once heard that the only difference between those with tattoos and those without is that those who have tattoos don't care if you have them or not. I guess it's still a true statement. Luckily, I've never actually run into anyone in the real world who seems to hold such an irrational hatred of such a benign tradition.
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