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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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There is the the shallow individualism of it as well. Tattoos have been around for millennia. They used to have great spiritual and tribal significance. Now they represent that you think butterflies are pretty.
You are correct that tattoos represent a rejection of conventional norms but as G.K. Chesterton reportedly said,
In a similar fashion, transgenderism prioritizes feelings over conventional morality or even biological nature. Human feelings take priority. I still say there is a connection.
Aren’t a ton of things “shallow” individualism? When a person needs new shoes or clothes, do they buy whatever everyone else is buying? Some do, I suppose, many do not. We look for shoes, clothes, and accessories that appeal to us as individuals. Some people buy an automobile and think of it as simply a transportation appliance. Some of us are passionate about cars and spend a lot of hours figuring out what is the most perfect car for us. Then spend more hours and more money to customize it for our individual tastes. To serious, prudent people this may seem like utter foolishness. So what? You and I may not like each others’ haircuts, but you do yours, I’ll do mine.
Good grief, America is a country that millions of people around the world want to come to. They don’t want to come here so they can behave exactly as their tribal elders tell them to. People love America because it is a place that celebrates individualism. I bristle when someone says that America or modern society is too individualistic. Because it sounds like what they mean is that they know what is best for everyone else.
YES!
I wish! What are the skulls supposed to represent? Seems like there’s a lot of death-cult in the tattoo “cult”ure.
No. The “radical individualism” criticism is about the loss of shared agreement on a Higher Moral Authority and, frankly, reality itself. It simply is possible for a society to be so individualistic (relativistic, subjective) that it turns around and eats its own tail, ending up with tribes of trans, queers, blacks, whites, Latinx (ech!), and on and on. And that’s where we are. Identitarianism is societal poison.
It would seem to be contrary to an ethos of individualism to align oneself with a tribe and ostracize those outside the tribe. I suppose we are defining the term differently. When I think of an individual, I think of someone who is willing to think for him- or herself, rather than automatically following the dictates of a tribe.
I can’t say that a shared agreement of Higher Moral Authority is always a good thing. The 20th century was filled with horrible mass killings because people in
On this we absolutely agree. When people say the people in my tribe — those with conventional haircuts, facial grooming, and a lack of tattoos — are good and people outside my tribe are wicked, it’s not a healthy thing.
various countries had a shared trust that their governments knew what was best. It’s hard to get big things done when most people are thinking for themselves, but that is often a good thing, since those who rise to power are not necessarily driven by what we would call justice or morality.
But when people buy [ ] it is because they like it or like its effect on others.
When people change gender, they demand its effect on others.
There is a point where we – conservatives – really amp this up. ‘Liberals’ are often considered stupid or wicked by us and we sometimes feel contempt for them (well, not me personally).
Of course they feel the same about us but seemingly much more strongly.
The little dears.
Why the loaded language? This is typically presumptuous of religious skeptics, as if people of faith are automatons.
The unifying aspect of religion is that anyone of any color, sexual inclination, nationality can be a child of God. If it’s “tribal” it’s a universal (catholic) tribe.
To quote myself from comment #12: The trans-thing is really in a separate category. Nobody on Ricochet is saying that having a sex-change operation is a consequence-free choice, like whether or not to grow a beard. My beef is with these posts that are written from time to time that equate fashion choices with morality.
Is that what’s going on? People are equating tattoos with immorality? I don’t think so. I know some lovely people who happen to have tattoos. Some of them are even Ricochet members! I don’t think they’ve made an immoral choice to get a tattoo (or several). We have a large Samoan family at my parish, and I even like their tattoos. They seem culturally appropriate.
But, there are cultural trends (one might even call them “fads”) that people may come to regret. For instance the “non-binary, pronouns they, them, “Queen”, trans-woman (man) with died hair and tattooed from head to foot, including eyeballs (literally), who was on one of Ben Shapiro’s TikTok reviews has made deeply regrettable choices and it is immoral that he isn’t in a mental institution at the request of people who care about him. It makes me think no one cares about him. But, that isn’t quite the same as the cultural trend that has made tattoos so common, although the trend toward widespread acceptability probably encouraged the man in his mental illness to do to himself what he’s done.
I do find it interesting that dermatologists are in the top two highest paid specialists (I believe anesthesiologists are the others) and they make over half their earnings in tattoo removal. There’s a difference between morality and wisdom, the latter often being hard-earned.