Tattoos

[navelluver]

I wonder if the Native Americans ever sat around the fire in front of their teepee holding a similar debate about totem poles? Just wondering.

Seems like the more we advance in this world, the more we return to where we have already been.

Perhaps the last part of your statement means some things really don't need to change.

As for the first part, I think the analogy is not correct. The whole tattoo thing is nothing more than a fad, like many of the fads which came before it. Like totem poles among certain American Indians, tattoos in tribal traditions have a real purpose serving to bind the people of that culture together, and it will survive in those spheres likely for as long as those cultures survive. By comparison, for the average person, tattoos are nothing more than a means to "express oneself." It has an opposite effect--it's intent is not to bind groups of people together, but to create a singling out of individuals, even if only in their own mind. I am confident that there will come a time when tattoos among the general public are "out of style" (if they can really be considered "in style"), they will go by the wayside, and people will wonder "why on earth did they ever do that?"