Archetypes and Self Expression

[whitecoast]

A lot of these spontaneous solution don't normally address the psychosocial roots of the problems (to the extent that looking funny can even be considered a "problem"... Sometimes I think people just need to increase their Openess personality trait re: tattoos and whatnot.)

We may have been programmed to think that "accepting" people no matter how they present themselves is the "right" thing to do, but at what point should we draw the line and share our thoughts as to what is normal and clearly abnormal?

I suppose the line would be, "if they asked." And they normally don't. "Clearly abnormal" is also constrained by culture as well. People normally don't regard those with circumcisions or pierced ears or shaved heads as being part of "mod culture" but they are in an objective sense.

Pierced ears is a good example because it's considered so normal that it doesn't arouse the disgust emotion in us. When we see something abnormal about a person, our system one subconsciously assumes they have some disease we risk catching by associating with them. This is the root of the emotion disgust, and it's certainly not applicable to pierced and inked people. So when one removes that instinctive basis, as with pierced ears, what's left? Would we be discussing raising our objections to those people and treating them less respectfully or hospitably, so they'll change their ways? Would we even be having this conversation?

If we would be open to welcome such behavior, we would basically say that mutilating the self is a good thing. That wouldn't help them, or us.

You don't have to approve of someone's behavior (in the sense of whether you yourself would engage in it) in order to treat them well or respectfully as a matter of external consideration. How many people a day would we admonish for their poor diet, television taste, or alcohol use?

When I encounter such people I'm impartial to their mods or admire the art if it actually shows some sophistication and talent (regardless of whether the body's the best place to showcase it). If they ask me what makes people get mods or tattoos, I would probably speculate about the pursuit of uniqueness, or subconsciously displaying the suffering or hardships they may have gone through, etc. I'm curious to know what kind of prospective studies have actually been done on the relationship between mod culture and personality, mental illness, etc.

I also wouldn't say that by engaging in such acts (in an extreme manner), they are acknowledging their pain or suffering, it's actually the opposite of what someone would do if they would truly acknowledge them responsibly. Fwiw.

I do agree that extreme acts are more likely a subconscious expression and outlet of it, rather than a conscious one. It's almost another form of somatization. Of course it's not ideal. Nothing unconscious is ever ideal, usually. I do think this culture will go away when society becomes more enlightened and capable of handling and healing trauma as a whole. But not through ostracism programs. Through eliminating the root causes that may cause people to mod themselves.

Yeah. Why don't we just increase our openness to psychopaths!

I think this is apples and oranges. Psychopaths harm others around them. People with mods (or sugar addictions) only harm themselves. I'm not going to go out of my way to criticize people to try and save them from their own decisions and lessons. I WILL speak up if someone's actions are harming others though, since the victims often are not empowered to even have a voice or speak for themselves.

 

[Meager1]

Maybe this is the new prototype human. An intergenerational breeding program designed to produce the perfect crop for a new world order? Seems that just as earlobes are being bred out.. So is belonging to any society. But instead creating ones ones own is the new norm. And it has happened to quickly to have been an evolution of the species'. Or so it seems to me.

 

[truth seeker]

People who get involved in drug culture or piercing culture can often do so because well, at least they can acknowledge a lot of the pain and suffering they've experienced and find solace and security in dealing with it in this fashion.

I've given some thought to this and I'm sorry but it reads a bit like a narrative. I understand that they're wounded, but if becoming involved with these subcultures helped them to heal and gain self acceptance, I think they would come to a point where they no longer feel a need to keep punishing themselves over the past. How does drug culture or piercing culture accomplish this? Isn't it little more than the blind leading the blind?

Uniqueness can be an antidote to not achieving high enough in their native hierarchies, which are often stratified due to social immobility or financial barriers and social connections/privilege. Subconsciously fighting emotional incest and other abuse is probably also a contributing factor. White supremacy groups appeal to desperately poor and disenfranchised whites because it allows them to possess some sort of innate self-esteem. Ditto for damaged people who fly into the arms of church authority to be "saved" and freed from uncertainty and anxiety in life.

I don't understand what's unique about people finding unhealthy ways to feel accepted/loved. People do it all the time and all that usually "accomplishes" is further pain on the part of the individual and others. When people join these various subcultures, they're not seeking acceptance of their Real self (they're often too fragmented to know who they are and for many, it's too painful to go there), but rather confirmation of a programmed victim mindset - an illusion. Consent to this on the part of others only fuels their descent into entropy.

 

[obyvatel]

Yeah. Why don't we just increase our openness to psychopaths!

[size=1em]

I think this is apples and oranges. Psychopaths harm others around them. People with mods (or sugar addictions) only harm themselves. I'm not going to go out of my way to criticize people to try and save them from their own decisions and lessons.
[/quote]

To my understanding, what is being discussed here is the practice of body modification, which does need to be criticized just like psychopathic traits need to be revealed and criticized if a healthier society is to come into existence out of what we have today. It needs to be done because imitation is a strong pre-rational instinctive drive and affects the younger generation. Neo-liberal "acceptance" of harmful practices while waiting for the problem to be solved once the society gets enlightened has it backward IMO.

 

[Arwenn]

In summary, the major motivations for the acquisition of tattoos and body piercings are very similar and
can be expressed by ten categories:
beauty, art and fashion; individuality; personal narrative; physical endurance; group affiliations and commitment; resistance; spirituality and cultural tradition; addiction; sexual motivation; and no specific reason. Most frequently mentioned in the literature are the expression of individuality and the embellishment of the body.

In our celebrity absorbed culture, I am surprised that following or initiating them is not mentioned in the study above as a factor in motivating people to get inked. Sports celebs like Beckham, singers, band members, actors & actresses like Angelina Jolie would certainly have an influence on the masses, especially when they glamourise it.

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=Arwenn]
In our celebrity absorbed culture, I am surprised that following or initiating them is not mentioned in the study above as a factor in motivating people to get inked. Sports celebs like Beckham, singers, band members, actors & actresses like Angelina Jolie would certainly have an influence on the masses, especially when they glamourise it.
[/quote]

I would think it comes under the category of "beauty, art and fashion". Fashion is largely what the so-called celebrities do.

 

[Arwenn]

[quote author=Arwenn]
In our celebrity absorbed culture, I am surprised that following or initiating them is not mentioned in the study above as a factor in motivating people to get inked. Sports celebs like Beckham, singers, band members, actors & actresses like Angelina Jolie would certainly have an influence on the masses, especially when they glamourise it.

I would think it comes under the category of "beauty, art and fashion". Fashion is largely what the so-called celebrities do.
[/quote]

Too true. When the masses are constantly being bombarded with images of the rich, the glamourous and the super talented, all sporting tattoos and or peitcings, it becomes culture & sets a new standard of what is considered attractive.

 

[Lilou]

I am not a fan of any tattoos or piercings. For me, it would be equated with self mutilation. I know many people who have this type of body art, and I jokingly told my girlfriend (who was proudly displaying a huge tiger she just had inked, extending from her upper shoulder all the way to her hip - ouch!) that she was just making herself easily identifiable to the PTB, helping them out in a way. She said she'd never considered that and if she had thought about it, she'd probably NOT have gotten any tattoos.

If someone wanted to ID you, or even set you up somehow, you'd be hard pressed to deny something if a witness clearly says "it's the guy with a leprechaun inked on his right shoulder". When a person goes to jail, every scar, every tattoo, every piercing, and its location, is recorded into the data base as a permanent record. Even if a tattoo has been "removed", that is recorded too.

It seems promoting this type of individualism, is just another way to split communities - the ol' divide and conquer tactic - but people think it is their own free will and expression. Or they just got drunk on Spring Break and ended up with one! For me, it kind of seems like a cattle brand, but my views are a bit extreme regarding tattoos. I saw the movie Tattoo in the 80's and it was a real horror flick - A man kidnapped a woman - drugged her - then tattooed her from head to toe - before she was finally able to kill him with a piece of broken mirror. She did get away, but with permanent marks!

Despite all of that - which is probably enough - it is also risky. Unsanitary needles transmitting diseases or ink that is carcinogenic. Do you really know what they are injecting into your skin? Nerve damage from a tongue piercing? Yikes! So for me, it's a "no go" and what I consider "risky behavior". I agree with Obyvatel, promotion of this type of thing is a step backwards.

 

[MusicMan]

I come from a long line of sailors, none of whom had any tattoos.
When I returned from Vietnam almost fifty years ago now, I decided that I had to be the one who broke the mould. So I got a tattoo, an eagle on my upper right arm.
Yes, it identifies me, yes, it makes me an individual. It was a personal decision. No peer group pressure.
I was sober when I had it done. (I was only 18 and not allowed to drink until I was 21 in those days).

Some of the things being discussed here may be due to cultural practice which is beneficial to the culture as a whole, in the original location of that culture.
Wearing a Burka is practical in a society where sandstorms are common, as they offer protection against blowing sands. If you're female this might become very uncomfortable. Even the males use a type of head covering to protect them from the dust.
Having a circumcision, while painful - especially to adult males, offers some protection against disease in this area of the body, and in the localities where this is practiced.

Wearing a Burka in the streets of a place like Sydney looks terribly out of place, but dress code is a personal choice. I mean look at the Nun's habit - they choose to wear it.
If people want to complain about what a person wears, and demand that they take it off, what if they are naked underneath? Would they still complain?

It all comes down to personal choice, or the choices made by a cultural ideal.

 

[Lilou]

In the end, it is a personal choice, but it is also a worthwhile endeavor to look at the recent trend and understand why more people are having this sort of thing done. Maybe more and more people are adopting the "rebel" archetype, indicating a portend of things to come? Or they could be addicts - maybe to the pain of the needle even.

I've seen a few really nice artistic tattoos, and some really bad jobs too. It's kind of a Russian Roulette on how this permanent thing is going to look when its all done. I mean, you really have to trust the person and their abilities. OSIT. And how is it going to look with age? A women I know used to be teased all the time by others, that her butterfly had now turned into a moth. Gawd, people can be vicious.

Bedouin women tattooed their hands and vertical lines from the lower lip to the chin with ash and henna. It was considered a sign of status and very much cultural. My husband's grandmother had the facial tattoos, and I can't say I'd like it, but she was the sheika and wore them well.

 

[mabar]

Jung believed that primitive cultures are closer to some Archetypes (divine names of God?) and live them more consciously that "modern" (particularly western) cultures do. So can it just be a manifestation of some "ugly" divine names in our density?

I think that might be a reasonable explanation. And maybe at the present time, we are in a period of a "thinning of the veil" so that such things manifest more strongly and widely even within so-called civilized cultures. I mean, geeze! That so many young people exhibit in their bodies the material representation of the psychopathic reality is just stunning. Think about it: psychopaths wear a mask of sanity, so on the outside, they are "more than perfect", as Cleckley would have put it; but on the inside, they would be pierced all over, defacing the natural body, wearing metal balls in every imaginable orifice, chains, disgusting tattoos, and so on. The spiky hair of barbarian warriors or the stringy, limp hair of the malnourished is another aspect.

I mean, REALLY! What the heck is going?!

Good point. The natural human inclination is to avoid having pain inflicted upon their bodies. I do think that these followers of extreme body modification could be channeling or manifesting some of the ugly names of god (i.e. some evil presence that represents torture and desecration of human flesh?) This brings to mind horror films and my thought that they are just representations of some evil that likes murder and torture and likes to see humanity in a state of abject fear. In a way, I would equate these extreme body modifiers as horror movie characters.

There are some things that are objectively ugly and unpleasant and cause regular people to recoil when first being presented with those things. It takes a lot of time and exposure to desensitize a person to such unpleasantness. But what is the point of desensitizing yourself to it? Some things are truly ugly no matter if they are a part of someone's culture or subculture.

There are also things that are "objectively" beautiful and pleasant and cause regular people to gather when first being presented with those things, like" beautiful baby earrings". Nowadays, to me, piercing a baby ear is as same as circumcision. But it is seen so normal, acceptable. God forbid if mothers do not pierce their infant baby girls, as many mothers did with us. I caught myself recently saying to a friend that she looked nice with the earrings she was wearing, and I question myself, why/where from I consider seeing her "more beauty" wearing earrings??, the automatic archetype thought, I say.

 

[David]

Maybe there’s a dissociated, or narcissistic archetype suffering from some disorder... whether one prostates oneself on the ground, it’s pretty much about the self, save me, tat me, pierce me, mod me, look at me or mine... attention seeking... ego satisfying expression.

Very difficult do something, and say that one had a real choice, people pick tats from a picture sometimes, similar to picking a pair of shoes, others like couture, something different, but nothing much different than anybody else... maybe I’m suffering from some cognitive dissonance, but who’s to say for sure.

Nobody really knows, why they do what they do, when they decided to do it, if one said that they did, it could simply be a confabulation. I’ve never seen anything original, even being outrageous in some way, has been done before, only people just being more outrageous than the ones who came before.

Like children, in little infant school, play with those transfer tats and compare, ‘this is the best tat’ and later in Adulthood, ‘this is the best band’ rock on... and some compare piercing, I have more piercing than you, I win haha, though it seems like that, sometimes.

Some would say... so long as they are all happy, that all that matters... sure it gives people something to do, like standing on street corners holding cards in large groups saying, ‘I am cartoon.’

The power of the mob, and the Archetype there too... but who knows for sure, I could be projecting.

 

[Laura]

Let me clarify something here, at least from MY perspective: having a tattoo, or even a couple of them, having pierced ears, navel, or even a nostril, isn't the issue I have here. Heck, having two or three piercings in your ears can be attractive especially with a bit of bling there. My issue is with the overboard thing, entire bodies defaced with repellant art, tongues pierced, lower lips, eyebrows, cheeks, other body parts, and hanging bits of metal, chains, symbols of mechanicalness, all over, etc.

Obviously, one could say: "well, if you allow that, where do you draw the line?" There are so many things in our world that are like that: "where do you draw the line if you allow a bit of this or that?" I don't know. You can have naked people in paintings that are artistic, and then there is abusive pornography: where do you draw the line?

Maybe the overdoing of things is a sign of the hystericization of our times? I just wrote on my FB wall:

This morning, things seem as dark - or darker - than yesterday. All these people going around saying "I am Charlie", identifying themselves with a vile, disgusting, propaganda rag is just horrifying. Meanwhile, the rhetoric against Muslims is ramping up to levels that make it sound more like Nazis against Jews than anything I've heard in my entire life. Millions demonstrating in Paris for a cheap, filthy rag that was taken out like the Reichstag fire (i.e. false flag), but they couldn't demonstrate in such numbers for the Palestinians, for the Iraqis, for the Syrians, for the peoples of Donbass, or any other legitimately oppressed and persecuted groups. In short, when you say "I am Charlie", you are saying, ipso facto, "I support the oppression, torture, and murder of others". Thus, you are claiming for yourself the Mark of the Beast.

Somehow, I think there is a relationship between this trend and the over-indulgence in body defacement. I'm not being clear because it isn't entirely clear to me yet, it just feels that way.

 

[Alana]

Somehow, I think there is a relationship between this trend and the over-indulgence in body defacement. I'm not being clear because it isn't entirely clear to me yet, it just feels that way.

I think it is because it produces all kinds of ambivalent feelings in humans, and an instinctive reaction of the "what the?!" type when we encounter this overly done body defacement. If it was something natural for people to look at we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place, there wouldn't be an issue at all.

And I think the people who choose to look like that do know that it will have this reaction, whatever other narrative they tell themselves. The shock factor and attention seeking is so obvious. It's like screaming: I am not like you, I am different! Whatever that might mean to each person.

How am I to react to that, silent perhaps but blatant nonetheless, statement? It's like the person excluded me from their "kind" before we even said hello. I am not doing anything, I am just going about my day, but the branded-slave-looking person is already a walking statement.

Is it a sort of defense for the wounded, one might ask? Perhaps, in the sense that whatever real or perceived criticism will be construe in terms such as: "I didn't get the job because they were prejudiced against how I looked", or "my partner's family do not like me because they judge me for my looks" etc. You get the picture. And most of us here can understand how this "defense" and identification can be a real impediment to personal progress.

My personal experience: I used to hung out with a bunch of people back home who were into tattoo art (the entire body, sometimes even face, covered), the holes in the earlobes and the pitiless piercing. I actually made excuses for them to my mother and others who had the instinctive reaction of "what the?!" upon meeting them, because they were nice people, spiritual, and they were expressing their opposition to the unhealthy status quo - or so I imagined/believed myself. It turned out that this bunch had no tolerance of other minorities that lived on our island. They were anti-arab, anti-pakistani, anti-turkish, anti-jew, anti-palestinian, and with vehemence. When I realized this, our acquaintance ended of course, but so did for a big part my standing up for, and pitying, people I don't know well but I imagine they suffer in some way. My sympathy might be more useful for people who are actually suffering.

And while we are on the subject, I'd like to bring up the zombie fascination that is SO popular among people of all ages but especially the youngsters, and has me

Every year in October there are zombie parades in most western cities, where people dress up in rugs and create blood and wounds on their bodies and just walk around. No purpose at all. They look as ugly and disgusting as anything you've ever seen in the goriest horror movies. I was going to put pictures up for examples, but I feel sorry for you all, they are so bad and inhuman looking.

Again, why would anyone put effort into looking like decomposed corpses?

If the sentiment is that humanity is dying, humanity as in the actual humane values and emotions, we should fight against it by putting forth all that is beautiful, and true and humane. Not join in and emulate the entropy! Definitely a display of the ugliest faces in creation if you ask me.

 

[Laura]

Very good points, Alana, especially the zombie stuff.