A Response to David Brooks
David Brooks, the NYT's resident cuddly conservative, dedicated his column this week to tattoos. Body art is ubiquitous according to Brooks, and yet another example of the masses adopting a practice from the margins of society and thus, making it entirely meaningless. Brooks concludes that the betatted masses have simply fooled themselves into thinking they are expressing some sort of individuality, when in reality they are simply conforming to the dictates of the broader culture. Masses = fools. Brooks = wise. We have been here before.
Brooks is not all wrong. I must agree that the sheer number of per capita tattoos has increased in the last decade. I must also painfully agree that many folks sport body ink that, upon inquiry, has absolutely no meaning to them whatsoever. But you cannot shake the impression that Brooks is just another guy without a tattoo, without an i-pod, and who doesn't run triatholons who likes to write about how silly and deluded the people who have tattoos, have i-pods, and who run triatholons are.
One gets the impression that many of Brooks' insights are the product of keen observations from the safety of an enclave where people share his biases and prejudices -- maybe Westchester County, maybe Connecticut. Somewhere with lots of gabardine. So it is here. David Brooks failed to identify what is perhaps the defining feature of a tattoo.
Tattoos are permanent.
It lasts. Like it. Hate it. Grow tired of it. Share your life with someone who doesn't like it. Tough. It is there. And that stubborn permanency is what distinguishes a tattoo from virtually everything else in 21st century America. The inked masses Brooks finds so... misguided... live in a world inwhich over 50% of marriages end in divorce, careers and entire industries disappear with ease. Cities are washed away and our leaders morph from compassionate conservatives to war time presidents on the strength of carnage of their own making. Our supposedly enduring constitutional values are compromised at every convenience. Our age and even our genders are subject to medical redefinition.
Yet the tatt endures.
For every sorority sister sporting a flower on her ankle and every gym rat with some barbed wire, you find -- should you actually engage the phenomena and not just google it --some more authenticate examples of the genre. Tattoos that memorialize a lost friend or family member. Tattoos the reflect a defining moment, a religious or ideological commitment. Advice worth remembering. Outward signs of inward commitments. This thing that I will not let go of. This thing that will remain with me. This thing that, despite the gyrations of that weird amalgam of politicos, media moguls, and international money changers, that rule our world, will remain attached to me. This thing that will outlive ambition, passions of the flesh, and ideas of the moment.
It is strange in a way. David Brooks is a conservative. He hates the transitory. Loves the enduring. He is suspicious of the intellect. Trusting of the soul. You would think he would have more appreciation for the simple commitment of ink suffused in the skin.
Brooks is not all wrong. I must agree that the sheer number of per capita tattoos has increased in the last decade. I must also painfully agree that many folks sport body ink that, upon inquiry, has absolutely no meaning to them whatsoever. But you cannot shake the impression that Brooks is just another guy without a tattoo, without an i-pod, and who doesn't run triatholons who likes to write about how silly and deluded the people who have tattoos, have i-pods, and who run triatholons are.
One gets the impression that many of Brooks' insights are the product of keen observations from the safety of an enclave where people share his biases and prejudices -- maybe Westchester County, maybe Connecticut. Somewhere with lots of gabardine. So it is here. David Brooks failed to identify what is perhaps the defining feature of a tattoo.
Tattoos are permanent.
It lasts. Like it. Hate it. Grow tired of it. Share your life with someone who doesn't like it. Tough. It is there. And that stubborn permanency is what distinguishes a tattoo from virtually everything else in 21st century America. The inked masses Brooks finds so... misguided... live in a world inwhich over 50% of marriages end in divorce, careers and entire industries disappear with ease. Cities are washed away and our leaders morph from compassionate conservatives to war time presidents on the strength of carnage of their own making. Our supposedly enduring constitutional values are compromised at every convenience. Our age and even our genders are subject to medical redefinition.
Yet the tatt endures.
For every sorority sister sporting a flower on her ankle and every gym rat with some barbed wire, you find -- should you actually engage the phenomena and not just google it --some more authenticate examples of the genre. Tattoos that memorialize a lost friend or family member. Tattoos the reflect a defining moment, a religious or ideological commitment. Advice worth remembering. Outward signs of inward commitments. This thing that I will not let go of. This thing that will remain with me. This thing that, despite the gyrations of that weird amalgam of politicos, media moguls, and international money changers, that rule our world, will remain attached to me. This thing that will outlive ambition, passions of the flesh, and ideas of the moment.
It is strange in a way. David Brooks is a conservative. He hates the transitory. Loves the enduring. He is suspicious of the intellect. Trusting of the soul. You would think he would have more appreciation for the simple commitment of ink suffused in the skin.
posted by Jack Reed at 5:40 PM
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