The Meaning Behind Tattoos- Weber

            In this blog we will be focusing on Max Weber and what his thoughts on tattoos would be. Weber looks at the actions and behaviour of an individual or society as a whole.  He believes that by looking at the actions/behaviours he can figure out why people do what they do. A word that Weber uses a lot is Verstehen, which means to interpret or understand. This sociologist tries to understand individual’s actions and motivations. Weber explains that actions can be either observable or imaginary. When he says observable it means the physical action that has been done. Weber thinks of imaginary actions as figuring out the real meaning behind the actions that we say and do.

            Weber would look at tattoos as the actions/ behaviour that individuals do. This is an observable action that society can see on various individuals. Tattoos are becoming more familiar to today’s society, so this action would be viewed at on a society basis not so much an individual basis. You could most definitely look at why certain individuals get the tattoos that they get. This would be the imaginary action by wanting to know certain meanings behind each tattoo. Some people just get tattoos because they think it looks cool while other people get tattoos because they have some sort of meaning behind it. For an example, I have two tattoos which both have sentimental meaning behind getting them.

This particular tattoo that I have I got because my grandma and I were really close. She passed away suddenly. The writing on this tattoo is from one of the last cards that my Nanna ever gave to me, which says, “I miss you so much.” I added birds to it because she used to sit outside and watch the birds. She flew away way too soon. 

My blog partner also has a tattoo with sentimental meaning behind it. Stephanie has three calla lilies with the name Stephanie written among them, going up the right side of her spine. Her best friend Stephanie died of a very rare cancer when she was 16. They first met in a field full of flowers.

Weber categorizes social actions into four different categories: instrumental-rational action, value-rational action, traditional action and affective action. Instrumental-rational action refers to the advantages and disadvantages you receive from doing that action. Value-rational action is when you strategically make a plan up to achieve a goal. Traditional action is when a behaviour turns into a habit. Lastly, Weber describes an affective action as a display of unchecked emotions.

Every action or behaviour that we have is a result of one of these social actions and can be placed in a category. Just like getting tattoos, the meaning behind getting certain tattoos can be placed into one of those four categories. Weber would question society as to why people are getting tattoos in the first place, what is the point of it. If Weber understood why one individual got a tattoo it would help him understand why others get tattoos as well.

In today’s society the population is filled with individuals that have tattoos. Some people get them for various reasons. Some have a lot of meaning behind it, others get them just because they look good.  It is incapable to generalize why society as a whole gets tattoos because there are different motivations behind every tattoo. One thing that is correct is that every individual has their own reason behind their actions and behaviours to get certain tattoos. Everyone has a reason behind their actions and behaviours, just because individuals have tattoos on their bodies it shouldn’t make them any different then anyone else.

Tattoos and Body Modifications as Delinquent Behaviour– Durkheim

Functionalism highlights a societal equilibrium. If an incident were to occur that could potentially disrupt the natural order and flow of the system, society, as a whole, must change and adjust to reach and return to a stable state. According to Durkheim, who focused most of his life on this theory, society should be examined and defined in terms of functions. Society is a made up system of interconnected part, where no one part can function and change without the other. These fragments make up the whole of civilization. If one part changes, it has an impact on society as a whole.

Durkheim took crime and delinquent behavior and viewed is as a natural and necessary event in a social system. He anticipated that crime and delinquent behavior would led to reactions from society about crime and that these collective reactions would be used to create a common agreements of what people believed to  be moral  and ethical norms by  which  to govern their society. These commonly held norms and values led to boundaries and rules for the society.

Body modifications, such as tattoos, can be viewed and analyzed from a functionalist’s point of view. Durkheim’s notion of social facts, which are a part of a functionalist theory can be relate to body modifications. Figurations as part of Durkheim’s social facts: External, General and Coercive. The individual is caught up in, but in some instances, resist society, whether is it unconsciously (by altering the body), or perhaps consciously (by modifying the body). A social fact is any method of acting, whether altered or not, equipped for pushing over the individual an outer imperative. Along these lines, this permits us to ask how do/have social truths characterize what changes are extreme and which ones are standard? Social facts generate a kind of "informal dress code," which body modifications occasionally disrupt and sometimes don’t.

            In today's general public, individuals are fundamentally grasping the style of body modifications. It gives the idea that regardless of where one is on the world, it is very difficult to escape the reality of body art; the presence of tattoos. It has turned into a major piece of our general public. In a society with appearance standards, where every tries to look similar and appeal to others, many people will break away from the norms, break the rules and violate appearance expectations. Some of these deviants form deviant groups. These groups are determined by the need to accomplish social attachment and incorporation. There are many within society who argue regarding why individuals change, control and ravage their bodies including tattoos.

            There are two principle reasons that a functionalist would approach to comprehend this deviant behaviour. First of all, tattoos give individuals a group membership in a deviant groups, helping advertise self-distinguishing proof. Second, tattoos likewise serve as a limit line to what is satisfactory and what is not in our general public. In spite of the fact that tattoos expand an individual's acknowledgement into a deviant group, it additionally, builds dismissal in a traditional group.

            Tattoos have always been associated with specific groups, mainly deviance groups, and their members. Tattoos have a level of set importance. For example, if a group of people have the same tattoo, or a specific arrangement of tattoos, it suggests that these people are in a common or the same group that share a commitment to a certain set of values. For this situation, the Hells Angels, make for a prime example. All Hells Angels, wear similar jackets for show when they are on their bikes, and when they are in the bar, they all have the same or similar tattoos, so everyone around them knows exactly who they are.

Tattoos deconstruct as meaningful practices that intentionally acknowledges and shows images of otherness, not like everyone else, or who society wants them to be. This is known as a homology of deviant style, a gathering of works on meeting up around an imparted set of belief systems, exercises and inclination. Tattoos are planned to suggest that adolescent needs to be connected with a trial, risk taking group.

How Alienation has Increased the Popularity of Tattoos

So as discussed in our last blog Marx developed a theory of Alienation that was used to demonstrate what so many people in today’s society are getting tattoos even though it is seen as an intense body modification. As a recap Marx’s theory of alienation, states that an individual that has been alienated do not expand freely upon his bodily and psychological energy but instead modifies and mortifies his body and mind. Tattooing can be seen as one such embarrassment of the body. Additionally alienated people no more end up; worth through their occupations, tattooing might be seen as an inventive outlet used to build a feeling of character.

Although tattoos can still be seen as mutilating the body by some, other believe that getting tattoos and being alienated is a way of life. People make careers from being a tattoo artist, and ever becoming famous by the tattoos and cover ups they do. Social media has created an entirely new pop culture surrounding tattoos. Books are being published, TV shows are being aired and images are being circulated to help increase the popularity of tattoos and to help people better understand why so many individuals are getting tattoo when it could potentially alienate them from society.

Tattoos used to have emotional meaning to the clients and some tattoo artists even become emotional over the stories that their clients told them. However, now a days more and more tattoo artists are becoming alienated from their work,  just going through the motions of tattooing, and tattoo enthusiast are headed down  the same road, no longer caring how they modify their bodies. There was a recent article release in the Toronto Star about a Tattoo parlor in Toronto where the client buy and $80 token that they  then place into a gumball machine and . It spits out the tattoo that you are going to get… all by the “stroke of luck”.  It is completely by chance which in turn means there was no forethought.

The same goes for all the new TV shows that are on, having competitions to find out who can be the best tattoo artists by tattooing random “canvases” as they are called, who are giving their bodies over as a commodity, as if they has no attachment to it whatsoever. Ink master is one of the top rated TV shows about tattoos where there is only Alienation and a Fetishism of Commodities. No one cares or has any attachment to their finished product, or to the “canvases” they are indefinitely inking. There is also the TV show Tattoo Nightmares where the artists are covering up old tattoos with new ones instead of just telling them to go get it surgically removed, because social media has created a market for tattoo cover-ups. In this market of Fetishism of Commodities, the people or “canvases” are the products while the work and labour is the actually process of tattooing.

            The book “Tattooed: The Sociogenesis of a Body Art” shed a lot of light on numerous aspects of the tattoo world. Michael Atkinson, the author, dives into the world of tattoo enthusiasts to better understand why so  many people are willing to Alienated themselves and their body from society and made themselves part of the commercial market. Atkinson went out into society to interview a total of 92 artists and clients to see what they thought about being Alienated and looked at as a delinquent. Most replied that they didn’t care or that people should stop judging others based on their appearance. Atkinson describes a “flesh journey”, in which tattoos were meant as a pursuit of meaningful forms of body expression rather than an alignment of one’s identity without right deviance. Basically what he is saying is that tattooing is mainly used as a form of emotional expression for that specific person and not for everyone around them.

Once you get a tattoo you receive numerous labels from those who do not have them or do not agree with the ideas of tattoos, but what those people do not understand is that by not want people they know to get tattoos, they are actually giving them a reason to get one. They are giving value to tattoos.  So called “rebels” are always wanting to deviate from the social norm, and purposely alienate themselves to find some else who actually understands them.

All in all, social media has created a bigger market for tattoo artists and enthusiasts, who want nothing more than to display their products to the world, and create more commodities and demands for tattoo artists. As the market increases and expands the does the Alienation, although people are less likely to care what others think or care that there is a stigma attached to them and what their tattoos represent.

Indefinitely Inked, The Stigmatism That Haunts Those With Tattoos

Since the time when tattoos were first created, there has been a certain stigmatism attached to them and those who have tattoos that not very many understand. It has only been in the last decade, that researchers and others have taken an interest in the history and motives behind tattoos.

History:

            Tattoos date all the way back to the Bronze age, with warriors placing dirt in wounds to stop the bleeding and the wound would heal with dirt still inside making a different colour appear permanently on the body. However back in those time, the “tattoo” was seen as a mark of honour, as the warrior fought bravely for their leader. This type of tattoo (for honour) was brought over to Canada, when soldiers would come back from war, and wanted to commemorate their fallen comrades.

            The very first precursor of the type of tattoo shop we see in today’s society was located in New York to "tat" Civil War officers. This included the first electric tattoo machine that was developed in 1891. Up to this point, the craft of tattooing has been tormented in present day society via unfair generalizations and stereotypes. Every circus had at least one tattooed person, and it was quite common with sailors back in the day. Traditional designs such as hearts and ships were actually popular with sailors. On the other hand, lately, tattoos have picked up standard ubiquity and are commonplace to the point that they probably won't have such a negative undertone. Notwithstanding, techniques for tattoo removal still remain.

Karl Marx and Alienation:

            In 1867, Karl Marx acquired this anthropological wording to depict a sensation he broadly entitled 'fetishism of commodities. Fetishism of Commodities is the state of associations in a capitalist market, in which items are seen as products; substances having a natural quality, while actually their worth is made by human work and labour. Marx contended that this perplexity of items bears incredible similitude to the religious convictions of primitive social orders, in which protests delivered by human work show up as autonomous creatures blessed with life. This view of things rose in the late 19th century against the foundation of the late Industrial Revolution; the ascent of mass mechanical creation and fast appropriation disengaged the merchandise from their makers, or, in Marx's terms, prompted "alienation”.

            In short, this is saying that Alienation is the transformation of people’s own labour into a power, which rules them as if by a kind of natural or supra-human law.

            In this blog we will try to use Karl Marx’s theory of Fetishism of Commodities and Alienations to explain the factors motivating so many people to get tattoos, when parts of society still stigmatism them as something only delinquents get. In Marx’s theory of alienation, he says that an individual that has been alienated do not expand freely upon his bodily and psychological energy but instead modifies and mortifies his body and mind. Tattooing can be seen as one such embarrassment of the body. Additionally alienated people no more end up; worth through their occupations, tattooing might be seen as an inventive outlet used to build a feeling of character.

Today’s Society

            In today’s society, even though tattoos are more common, the tattoo continues to be viewed as a sign of the bearer's alienation from what people consider the mainstream norms and social networks. People see tattoos as permanent scarring on a body that should only be modified for beauty’s sake, not for emotional need. It is seen as a voluntary stigma that symbolically isolates the bearer from "normal people”. Since tattoos are deemed to be responsible for their deviant physical condition, the mark is especially discrediting.