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An Answer to Doc Bastiat: The Link Between Transgenderism and Tattoos
In our popular culture, self-expression is counted among the highest of virtues. Both transgenderism and tattoos are a visceral manifestation of one’s inner self upon the body.
Now, this is odd because the same people who promote self-expression are often self-proclaimed materialists. Yet self-expression points to an inner world that can be in conflict with the given nature of the material universe. It’s like people have a soul or something.
I learned recently that Hegel and Marx had some fundamentally different ideas with regard to the nature of the world. Marx was a materialist and Hegel was an idealist. An idealist believes that the finite world is a reflection of mind which alone is truly real. Think of when college students or English Professors say, “This is my truth,” or, “That is their truth.” They are idealists and not materialists.
Old-school Marxism is now pretty much replaced by Wokism and Wokists absolutely hate human nature, human limitations, and the reality itself because reality isn’t moral enough for them. Think of how the Wokists are ignoring basic economics with regard to inflation and how they ignore basic math with regard to energy production.
For much of the pre-enlightenment world, there was a kind of magical thinking where feelings and sacrifice can alter the physical rules of the universe. The body represents nature and tattoos and sex-change surgery represent human will conquering nature. It’s fascinating and relevant how all the religions that oppose tattoos are also opposed to transgender surgery. In these religions, the body is made by G-d and cannot be altered as the body belongs either to almighty G-d or to your parents. It reminds me of Jordan Peterson mentioning that G-d can be used a metaphor for an unmovable reality in Biblical stories. To paraphrase, something he said, “In my years as a psychologist I realize that nobody ever gets away from ignoring what’s true with either themselves or the world around them.” Peterson and most religions advise humanity to grapple with their nature as a male or female as we can’t really change it.
In conclusion, post-modernism is a way to ignore realities deemed unpleasant by leftist impulses. When you don’t grapple with reality but rather focus on perceptions and opinions, you inevitably make an idol of feelings. I think this is why transgenderism is so popular right now followed by tattoos. We live in a tyranny of feelings.
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Great post! Unfortunately their denial of reality makes it impossible to argue with them as “their truth” is ever malleable. It took me too long to realize that.
So if we cannot argue with “their truth” what is to be done?
Not sure about tattoos. Tattoo self adornment has been around a long time, as a kind of art, as evidence of some rite of passage, as evidence of inclusion in some kind of exclusive society, as a visual evidence of a kind of rebellion, even, as art. Art, is of course, a subjective thing, and can be overdone. Tattoos are art to one and ugly to another. There is a point when the statement made overwhelms the canvas, so to speak, and that might be where tattoo become more self mutilation than adornment. However, sex change surgery is different. It alters ones nature and humanity by rendering oneself sterile. The facsimile will NEVER be real. It is entirely an artifice of desire estranged from reality. So it is always false, a lie, a construct around a lie and diminishes the person who submits to it. They can never be whole again and even if the entire world is told to accept the lie and smile, reality will never go away. It is abomination of feelings. We can oppose it because it is fruitless and futile. It is harming those who are loved. Those who condone and laud it are monsters peddling false promises. It should be outlawed.
Enjoy life to the fullest as a visible counter to their nihilism. Celebrate and embrace our history and triumphs without the constant disclaimers. Most people would rather be celebrated for what is good in them than to be constantly berated for what is bad. Look forward with optimism.
Defeat them at the ballot box at all level of government and other institutions. Use the courts to enforce existing non-discrimination laws and our current constitutional protections. Inoculate our children. And constantly expose the consequences of their disastrous rule and promote the classical liberal ideas of individual freedom to those that are not hard left.
Doug, good points, though I find it difficult to understand how others view tattoos as “art.” Some do demonstrate artistic talent, but the same thing could be displayed on a t-shirt or hat, without having to permanently alter the body.
My main question about your explanation is your assertion, correct though it is, about tattoos having been around for a long time. This is doubtless true, but it is also true that as recently as the 1980s, we tended to view tattoos quite negatively. They were not common in our culture, except among the criminal classes, and maybe sailors. The proliferation of tattoos does seem to indicate a significant change in our culture.
Henry, on your main thesis, I have an alternative idea. I’m not sure whether it’s actually different from yours, or a different way of saying the same thing.
My impression is that both tattoos and the trans-thing amount to an overt rejection of our traditional culture, and its expectations about our behavior and appearance. There’s been a glorification of such rebellion for a long time, at least since the long hair of the 1960s.
Very interesting ideas – let me think them over a bit.
Great post!
Tatoos are simply a gateway to piercings, gauges, and more.
However, it is curious how often those who will go to extremes to “protect the environment” or some other “endangered” entity, are also eager to engage in self-mutilation.
Yes. To me tattoos are a puzzle. My internist’s assistant is a very sharp, beautiful and personable young woman whose right arm (she always wears short sleeves) is completely covered by tattoos. Some day, I’m going to work up the courage to ask her, “Why?”
People of that progressive mindset are obsessed by identity. Specifically their obsession is identifying themselves with the groups they belong to. As much as they talk about self-expression, it seems like their only concept of “self” is in terms of intersectionality. They don’t care about individuals (I don’t think they even believe in individuals).
I think almost all of the evils we are currently dealing with emerge from this. And I think it’s what drives the phenomena we’re talking about here. Only a few years ago, very few people claimed to be transgender; it was a vanishingly rare phenomenon. It is more common now because it has become a community (better yet, a marginalized community) you can become part of. Someone who adopts a transgender identity is saying “I felt like a nobody in the normal world, so instead I will join this fringe community where I will feel welcomed and celebrated.”
Tattoos, likewise, are brands. Maybe not always; I suppose there are some people who just like the way they look, or who want some durable reminder of something personally important. But the vast majority of tattoos, I believe, are intended to identify the tribe you belong to. Indeed, the very fact that you have tattoos does so.
“Transgenderism” = “The Grass is Always Greener,” on steroids, literally, in some cases.
The trans-thing is really in a separate category. Tattoos, long hair on men, short hair on women, women wearing pants, and a thousand other things were all new at one point and all seen as unwholesome. Men wearing pants was once a new thing and it’s pretty likely that the parents of the first men to wear pants were scandalized. What would Moses or Julius Caesar think of men wearing pants? I’m sure the first women to shave their legs and armpits were looked at with derision. The first women to wear makeup, as well.
The curious psychological phenomena is that no matter what decade or century one is born into, people often believe that how things were when they grew up was wholesome and natural. Deviation from that benchmark is unwholesome. It’s comical.
Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s hard to imagine changing one’s gender, like changing one’s style of dress, as being simply another fad.
But I’m not sure how else to describe it. Trans-sexualism has become very popular, very quickly. Like any other fashion trend. I find it interesting.
So to me, it seems like a trend. A fashion, like any other. But I agree with you – surely “the trans-thing is really in a separate category.” Surely.
But golly. I’m not really sure why I think it’s in a separate category. It sure seems like a fashion trend. I don’t understand fashions, and I don’t understand trends. So I’m not well equipped to define them.
Surely this must be different than other trends, right? Right.
But why, exactly? It sure seems like a fashion trend to me.
I can see it as a fad. Consider how prevalent it suddenly is.
Sure, it’s (kind of) new, but it is exceedingly popular as a cause and as a topic of conversation. And children lap it up.
Another way to consider if trans-genderism is a fad.
Will it be equally popular in 25 years? 50 years?
Hard to say. Perhaps it will. I doubt it. But perhaps.
I suspect that in 25 – 50 years, there will be a lot of people with tattoos and mutilated genitals who feel a little silly…
I’m looking for opportunities to invest in tattoo removal. It’s gonna be big in 20 years.
And the long hair of the 1860s too?
Hate to spoil the idea of this post, but there are on the telly these competitive Tattoo shows similar to Project Runway for fashion or Top Chef for Chefs where Tattoo artist contestants have to demonstrate the ability to show proficiency in the various facets of tattooing from creativity, use of line , color, difficulty etc. in a competitive series of trials to win the grand prize with the best show of this kind likely to be “Ink Master”.
Since my daughter likes to watch these shows( she has no tatts or inclination thereof), I am somewhat familiar with them. What is interesting is that although many of these Tattoo artists come from some pretty dysfunctional family situations, it seems a majority of these artists, while they are definitely rebels, are actually religious and conservative.
The Tattoo culture just represents a facet of American life that I think most of us who comment here at Ricochet are simply not familiar with, so they generalizations made above in other posts really don’t hold much water in my book.
Combine it with a medical practice based on re-attaching genitalia and it’s a slam dunk.
What are we going to name our new chain clinic?
This is way too complicated. Getting too old for this stuff. Dr. B, can you translate for me?
The Torah forbids cross dressing.
Dr. Boone, you say? No, please, please–Dr. Boone is my father, and he’s an actual physician. I’m just a philosophy teacher.
But seriously, I hope this helps you or some other reader:
Hegel is a 1700s-1800s German philosopher, and one of philosophy’s greatest troublemakers. Marx comes a little bit after him.
Hegel has this clever idea called “dialectic.” “Dialectic” used to mean logic or dialogue, but in Hegel it’s a method of thinking through things by trying to resolve contrary positions. Find a thesis like “Knowledge comes from experience” and an antithesis like “Knowledge is built into the mind from the get-go,” and then try to find some synthesis that integrates both theories. Then repeat: Treat that synthesis as a new thesis, find a contrary position, and integrate them next.
But this isn’t just Hegel’s method of thinking through things. It’s also his theory of how history works. History is the story of the conflict and eventual synthesis or integration of conflicting political positions, political systems, and groups of people.
Hegel also thinks that ideas are real things, not made of matter–hence the term “idealist” (although that word means very different things in different contexts).
In his big and confusing book The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel has a clever passage on the conflict between Master and Slave and their eventual synthesis. And there . . . enter Karl Marx, stage left! They call Marx a “dialectical materialist,” and it’s because he’s like Hegel in one way, unlike in another.
Marx is like Hegel in that he also views history through a “dialectical” lense, meaning that he thinks history is the story of the struggle of different groups of people that can one day be synthesized. (Currently it’s the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, a struggle that ends when the Communist Revolution happens and all humanity is united in one class.)
Marx is unlike Hegel in that his view of history is all materialist; all is matter; ideas have no independent existence; everything we humans do and think is the product of economic forces.
Thanks St. A. Might take me a day or two to get through. But will have some questions. Just a lazy Catholic kid that was not too much into mideval history stuff. Dr. B you are off the hook.
Oh, really? Ok, cool. Bring on questions anytime. Who knows? I might actually know an answer!
(I really need to do some new videos on YouTube about Marx and Sartre. Maybe even–shudder!–Hegel. I think they all have one old video apiece on my channel. But some guy named . . . Gregory Sadler . . . has a YouTube philosophy channel with tons of Hegel!)
Who’s Sartre, you mean? Just some other philosopher.
Or Sadler? All I know is: a YouTube philosophy teacher.
I’ll take your word for it, @iwe, but I know Milton Berle was Jewish and I could almost swear I’ve seen him on TV in a dress.
I think Mr. Berle was Jewish sort of the same way that Mr. Biden is Catholic. But I’m not sure…