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I had an argument (I'd guess this is what spurs many top level comments) about tattoos, and how much you're allowed to judge people for them.
My argument was that I think tattoos are a sign of distasteful character and went something like
These, I think, give me plenty of room to be wary of strangers with tattoos, especially where I am located in a pretty methed up rural area. The beautiful thing is that it's not a protected characteristic, so you can actually judge it as much as you like!
The other party's argument was
I actually don't think I could agree with that, ever! While it is more true the more "normal" people get tattoos, it is still a fact that pretty much any mugshot I see of any likely violent incarcerated individual is going to have a ton of them. They are also something you have to go out of your way to get, and thus, they make a decent indicator that you shouldn't trust someone if they're in the Venn diagram of "has tattoos".
But now I'm curious what is acceptable to judge people about. Let's say you're walking to your workplace or your university class or your school and you see, purposely avoiding anything like a bumper sticker or T-shirt that makes any more clearly identifiable statement or symbol:
Or perhaps we could change the context of how you're seeing this person. Let's say you work at a gas station or other commonly-visited public-facing third-place and you see people
The stance of the refuses-to-judge-on-tattoos individual is a little perplexing to me. I'm certain that I am similarly perplexing to him. But for me, pretty much all of these, plus other considerations like height, sex, and age add up to an impression of the character and of the threat level of said individual. Personally, I think everyone has this kind of unconscious thinking, even if they don't know it or if they have suppressed it significantly. My guess is that people left of center tend to be uncomfortable with associating behaviors like that with anything negative, even though they are not protected characteristics, and even though they almost certainly do it themselves for various things, like word choice (do you say gay people or do you say queer people?), vehicle choice (drives a truck...), or sex and likely choice of gender.
How much should you judge people? On what should you judge them by? Is there something you think it's wrong to judge people for?
You're allowed to judge people. The reasonable and equanimous thing to do is to determine whether your judgment is actually rational or merely a prejudice.
At one time, a prejudice against tattoos was rational because it really was only criminals and prostitutes and peripatetic sailors and vagabonds and the like who got them, let alone displayed them brazenly. So it was reasonable to assume a tattoo signified someone you likely did not want to associate with.
Nowadays, it's increasingly becoming a default fashion accessory of the young. So it really doesn't tell you much except "This person is of a generation that finds this acceptable." You can still be prejudiced against it because you don't like it and you grew up disliking tattoos, but you can't reasonably make much of a moral judgment about them (you can't even really predict anymore from tattoos alone whether or not someone is a conservative Christian, for example).
Arguably tattoos are permanent markings on your body that indicate short time preference and poor aesthetic taste, but I think this is pretty weak when you're talking about something that is widely accepted by society. You can dislike that society has changed, but then you're just judging someone for not resisting social change in exactly the way you want them to.
Most of your other examples are either aesthetic judgments (you can think chewing tobacco is gross, and it's certainly a gross and unhealthy and unfeminine habit) though some probably do signal a certain culture or mindset (blue hair, septum piercings, mohawks).
People are allowed to make superficial aesthetic judgments. I just think you shouldn't try to rationalize it with some reason why actually this is a very reliable predictor of whether or not someone is a good or smart person or even politically aligned with you.
Chewing tobacco where I am specifically indicates to me that someone works manual labor (industrial or agricultural) and they probably own a truck. At both universities I attended, I don't think I ever saw anyone who chewed while I was on campus.
Fair. I do think it indicates something in every case, but the signal is noisy enough that it's definitely not a very reliable indicator of bad things. I think even unreliable indicators can be useful, but it's not a smoking gun. Pretty much nothing is. That's partly why I wrote such a long list. Used in concert, you can tell a lot about someone just from how they look, even if it's "just" superficial.
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