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If by character you mean moral character, then yes, aesthetics can be used to signal moral character. If I see somebody with MS-13 face tattoo or wearing Hells Angels bike jacket, I have no problem with that.
And sometimes I will also judge outside of moral character. If I want a partner for pickup basketball, then I may judge a 5 foot tall nice god-fearing guy as unsuitable for that role. In fact if he is of a good moral character, then I expect him to accept it with stoicism and plow through the situation with grace and respect as opposed to complaining about it. If he did whine, then I would also judge him as a little whiner unsuitable for other activities as well.
The issue with gang tats isn't that they have ink in their skin; it's that they are openly advertising that they are a member of a murderous gang. You're conflating the message with the medium. Do you not actually judge all people with tattoos in general? If you do, can you explain what you're judging them for/about? The same goes for piercings and swearing; what about these things leads you to make character judgments?
Yes, I judge people with visible tattoos for it. Specifically, they’re valuing self expression over not looking like ruffians.
“Like ruffians”? Piercings and non-facial tattoos aren’t that taboo anymore. Almost half of adults under 45 have at least one tattoo. It’s been over a decade since the “tatted-up barista with full sleeves” archetype became a thing. Workplace rules about covering up tattoos have also become far more relaxed in most industries. Sure, face tats are still pretty taboo outside of the traditional subcultures you'd find them (line cooks, construction, etc.), but the OP didn't specify face tats in particular.
Personally, I don’t have any tattoos, but that's because I’ve never felt the desire for any, not because I think I would be ostracised for violating a social norm. The worst I would have to endure is my parents giving me shit cause they think all tattoos look ugly.
You can say it about other things as well. More than 20% of people in USA are obese, 1 in 5 people un USA experience mental illness, 25% of women are expected to get abortion, 28% of black males and 16% of Hispanic males will be incarcerated during their lifetimes. We can go on. I do not think that just because something is common, that it automatically means it is also a good thing.
So yeah, maybe it is not such a good thing that we normalized former taboos. What is also interesting in this debate is that the word judging really has negative connotations for many people - except of course if you "judge" something positively. Fat Cosmopolitan model? No problem if somebody judges her overflowing fat as beautiful and herself as stunning and brave person. Somebody has neck tattoos and sleeves? No problem complimenting them for their bravery and confidence. Of course you can judge somebody if he has Make America Great Again sleeve, in that case it is disgusting and not a signal that this person is actually brave to wear his beliefs literally on his sleeve.
It is not about being judgemental or non-judgemental. It is about judging certain things positively and other things negatively, while claiming the moral high ground.
My point wasn’t that because tattoos and piercings are now common that they’re now good; my point was that they're now so common that they’re no longer a useful signal of if someone is a “ruffian,” I.e., a criminal, member of the underclass, or otherwise the type to get in bar fights (e.g., tattoos have long been associated with marines and sailors).
You now have to actually look at the tattoos to potentially get any useful information about the person with said tattoo. If they have prison tats that tells you different things than if they have a USMC globe and anchor which tells you different things than if they have generic normie tattoo art.
Being fat is different. No one wants to be fat for the most part (aside from maybe young women who put it on only in “all the right places” in subcultures into that look), and absolutely no one actually wants to be obese; anyone saying otherwise is coping. So when you see someone who is fat, you see someone who, for one reason or another, either can’t or doesn’t even try to manage their weight. That does give you some amount of information about them, but as more and more people get fat, the information is starting to go from “this is a person on the lowest end of the self-control spectrum” to “this person is not on the highest end of self-control”.
fucccccckiinnnnnnnn BOOT!
There is a 90% chance he got that within a week of stepping off of Parris Island
I was tempted to use this one as the example instead.
That's actually hilarious. I'm not a fan of "funny" tattoos due to their permanence, but that is a 11/10 boot tattoo.
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