garland

Absweetmarie--I applaud your discussion on the way language is used and/or deliberately misread to alter others' arguments. It's wearing to spend time and energy to go back and highlight remarks in order to say, "no, that's not what I/he/she said." The slight argument reframings just muddy what could be good discussion. Not just hear, but overall in society. Winning an argument becomes more important than hearing different points of view and honestly creating an opinion. Ad hominem language use, using value-laden words and then innocently denying the judgmentalism, all make informed, congenial discourse difficult to maintain.

It could be a fascinating topic of discussion in itself.

Oivoiv

"Just because you would place higher priorities on that free time and ready cash does not mean that you get to judge how others spend theirs."

I can judge people any way I want.

cosmicfish

Fair enough, but don't think for a second that it gives you either moral superiority or any positive distinction. It just makes you look small and sad. And revelling in it, as you have done, just makes it worse.

Consolation

cosmicfish, you are clearly passing judgement on others yourself. And have done so pretty much throughout this thread.

Look, EVERYONE judges people at some point. Rational and generous-minded people try to keep an open mind and try to catch themselves making judgments based on unexamined assumptions or insufficient evidence. And they try to be open to revising their judgments when new evidence presents itself.

I don't see a complete absence of judgment as either possible OR desirable.

FinanceGrad

[quote]Quote: I can judge people any way I want.
Fair enough, but don't think for a second that it gives you either moral superiority or any positive distinction. It just makes you look small and sad. And revelling in it, as you have done, just makes it worse./[quote]

This thread is beginning to take the tone of the "sweats vs no sweats" thread that was going strong a few weeks ago. It really baffles me that so many cannot understand a simple fact that people will judge you no matter what you do.

The pro-tat crowd has a right to get their tattoos and love them, and the anti-tat group has the right to think they're lame. The pendulum swings both ways, and neither group has a justifiable reason to be upset about it.

********
Now as far as what the OP was asking. I don't really associate tattoos alone with drug use and "loserville".

BunsenBurner

cosmicfish, with all due respect, I do not see the poster "claiming superiority" in his/her post. If you made a decision to have a tattoo embedded in your living organ and think it was the right one, why can't you simply live with your decision without assuming that anyone who does not find your decision aesthetically attractive or medically sound attacks you or tries to show their superiority by stating their position?

cosmicfish

Yes, I have, but to the best of my recollection I have not done so based on anyone's aesthetic or personal choices, but on their decision to condemn people who choose to look different to an inferior position. Consider Oivoiv from post #306:

If you choose to look differently than me, do different things than me, I have no problem with that whatsoever. But condemning people as "desperate, pathetic" because of those differences is something I do judge as unacceptable.

Sure, but not EVERYONE revels in it.

absweetmarie

You're right, Consolation, about the judging. I object when people act as if their own judgment on a topic is the most reasonable one. Or when they use inflammatory descriptions like "pathetic," "lame" or "desperate" to describe other people's behavior (especially when civil discussion is supposed to be the goal here, and some of the people whose behavior they are ridiculing are part of the discussion). Or when they say things like, "People who do this clearly are doing it for the shock value" and then can't let go of that assumption even after plenty of people on this thread have said that's not their motive.

cromette

FinanceGrad, I agree. Same tone. That's why I stopped posting - but here I go again. The poisonous rhetoric begins to come into play when both sides of an argument start to "dehumanize" the other side and fail to view them as a precious individual who really, they know nothing much about other than what they see in front of their face - which can be SO limiting and deceiving.

Just because someone wears sweats in public or has tattoos and piercings - even all over their body doesn't make your assumptions about their motivation, character, or anything else CORRECT.

And just because someone thinks sweats are tacky, and tattoos and piercings are disgusting, and they automatically are repulsed by these outward appearances, and may even have extreme instant prejudices against the individual does not make them heartless horrible people.

People are just people. We all have our prejudices, whether we want to admit them or not. We all have our preferences, and we are ALL precious, different, wonderful creations. When we start rising above the language that others are pointing at us and instead, listening to what they say and deciding NOT to be offended, and viewing EVERYONE as important and valid - we can all be a little nicer.

cosmicfish

The post that I was directly responding to was simply sarcastic on its own, but after the other posts by this individual it seemed to be characteristic of what I described. Please note posts 306 and 309, for example.

I do not recall objecting to anyone raising those viewpoints - I have disagreed, but nothing more. People who say "I don't like the way they look" or "they're not worth the pain and the risks" are fine with me - I have a different opinion, and they are welcome to theirs, although I may dispute some of the particulars.

My issue is with those who take those individual viewpoints and use them to cast aspersions on the character of entire groups of people.

sewhappy

What I've found really interesting in this discussion is that several of the ardent tattooing/piercing proponents seem to present themselves as a sort of beleaguered minority that mainstream society is harming or unfairly judging.

For example, cosmicfish is conflating his tattoo with his friend's death and sort of insinuating that if his linkage of his tattoo to his friend's death doesn't have us saying, "Well, golly, that makes tattooing a really good idea!" then we are heartless and not duly moved by his loss of his friend.

Sorry -- this is just absurdity!

Yes, I do judge such thinking. I think it's just stupid. And cosmicfish and absweetmarie are totally entitled to think and to some extent post really foul judgements of me. Doesn't bug me at all.

But I do think inflating tattoos/piercing into some sort of special interest, aggrieved minority status is completely hilarious:

Right. After I beat up on extreme tattooers I just go my merry way casting aspersions on other entire groups of people. Sheesh.

cosmicfish

Several people on this board seem to have relegated people with tattoos or piercings to some inferior status based on that decision. What is fair about that?

I do not expect you to be moved one iota by the loss of my friend - you didn't know him (I presume). My point for raising that issue was to note that presupposing a motivation for a particular aesthetic choice, and then judging people's character based on that assumed motivation, judges people unfairly. Several on here have proclaimed that tattoos are a choice made by people looking to shock, or become part of some counter-culture, and I was offering a counter-example.

What foul judgements have I posted of you?

Oh, I do not claim any such status - as a couple of posters on here have demonstrated, the desire to condemn people for looking different is not confined to tattoos or piercings alone, so I do not consider this to be a minority issue. I consider it an issue of people making character and moral judgements on others based on their appearance. Tattoos and piercings are just a subset.

absweetmarie

I have not posted any foul judgments of you, sewhappy. I have been perplexed by your reading of certain posts and have expressed consternation at your tone, which I feel is aggressive and unnecessarily incendiary. Your manner of communicating on this thread is not conducive to civil dialogue, in my opinion. I have not judged you as a person.

Consolation

What I am saying, sewhappy, is that take-no-prisoners argument in which it is the norm to deny--not question, but flat out deny--the patriotism, intelligence, ethics, morals, and basic human worth of someone who disagrees with you has become an accepted mode of argument due to that pollution of the public airwaves, and the corruption has spread across the aisle. Anyone who engages in a less ruthless style or admits the existence of shades of gray is viewed as "weak."

For the record, I am a liberal, an Atheist, and I strongly dislike tattoos and piercings.

sewhappy

Look, Guys. I think extreme piercing and tattooing is not good for a lot of reasons. Sure, I'm "judging" you if you do it. That is life. That doesn't make me a bad person because I observe a person's actions and formulate a judgement. And do remember, tattoos and piercings affect your appearance but it's not like skin color or any other physical trait you're born with. You act to get the tattoos and piercings. I think for many of us it has not much to do with how you end up looking but the act itself that bothers us.

Now, that said, I would be first in line to defend your right to do whatever you feel compelled to do to your body. That is absolutely your right and I certainly would not like to see doors closed on you in the areas of education, housing, employment, etc.

I am glad you are free to pierce and tattoo to your heart's content. I'm actually glad you do it. Makes life more interesting.

That said, I'd be mortified if my kids did it and I asked them after coming across this thread if they wanted to do it and they both said it they didn't think it looked good and it hurt and it was expensive. Then they asked if I was thinking of doing it, and I was somewhat pleased to realize they actually thought I might be~