“Tasteful self-mutilation” and the human heart

R.R. Reno, one of my top several favorite essayists, spent some time musing on the meaning of tattoos in our society. From an outsider's perspective, he works to an obvious point (“the permanence is part of the appeal”), and then puts that point in a larger context.

“So we are free, freer than any people have ever been in the history of humanity. The old bonds of commitment hang loosely about us. How this came about would require telling the complex history of modern western culture, but the current consequences are not hard to identify. A free soul is a slave of desires for success, desires for social acceptance, desires for all the goodies that our wealthy economy so efficiently provides, to say nothing of our primitive passions. Increasingly uncommitted—free from the limits of marriage, children, faith, devotion, and loyalty—we are more purely and more entirely defined by our social roles as productive workers and eager consumers, and by our passing desires for satisfaction and pleasure. Again, I ask myself, is it surprising that in an age with so few binding commitments postmodern men and women seek symbols of permanence etched into their bodies?”

If someone were to ask me for advice on getting a tattoo, and if I spoke more forthrightly than I generally do, I might say something like this:

“For what it's worth, I want to tentatively suggest that, instead of getting a tattoo, you could learn the particularities of your own geographic place, the doctrines of your denomination, the hopes and dreams of your ancestors. Don't just have a religion, but become a part of a church (or other religious community). In other words, don't just get an arbitrary marker of a self-constructed or desired identity. Get an actual, you know, identity.”

Which is not to say that I've never seen an awesome tattoo.