Mostly Economics

Not really connected to economics but an interesting article on tattooing in France. It is by Theodore Dalrymple of City Journal..

He says earlier only thieves and sailors had tattoos. Now, all common people are putting tattoos.And it is not just for some fun. It is much deeper as people attempt to have a real personality in an impersonal world.

Tattooing is an inchoate symbol of an equally inchoate rebellion, but in France even rebels seek the bureaucratic embrace of the state. The French association of tattooists, the Syndicat national des artistes-tatoueurs, is pressing the government to recognize tattooing as a bona fide profession, with all the corresponding benefits. Incidentally, tattooists who work informally, without paying taxes, are known asscratcheurs.

Why do people get themselves tattooed? There was a time when it was mainly sailors and criminals who did so, but that time is long past.Libération offers four vignettes of people who have recently had themselves tattooed, without explaining how or why they were chosen. ..

…It is all too easy to mock this farrago of drivel, but something both sad and serious underlies it. Neither Edouard nor Serge are stupid; moreover, they have between them something like 50 years of education and training—but they are lost souls. When, for example, Céline, a 31-year-old carpenter, tells Libération that she wants to “express something of myself” by having a “tribal” pattern tattooed round her navel, one senses a desperate (and failed) attempt to have a real personality in an impersonal world….

Hmm.

It will be really interesting to read a more sociological/behavioral kind of study to figure this rise of tattoos..What does it really indicate?

This entry was posted on January 10, 2014 at 5:28 pm and is filed under Academic research & research papers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.