Changing The Perception Of Tattoos Essay - 1171 Words

Why do people perceive tattoos as being dangerous, dirty, and generally belonging to a class of â€Å"undesirables?† It could be because people cannot live in a world without narration and stories. Since the dawn of mankind stories have been developed both through natural happenings and casual relations, as well as constructed through characters, themes, language and the meaning of words. The story of tattoos as well as countless others are narratives that have been developed and passed down through the generations without much revision. Walter Fisher once wrote that, â€Å"..narratives are fundamental to communication and provide structure for human experience and influence people to share common explanations and understandings.†(pg. 58), which†¦show more content†¦Every story should also fall into the category of â€Å"Good Reason† based on probability and fidelity; both of which describe the theory of how people rationalize a story. In the case of tat toos the character could be any tattooed individual. A believable plot would be the everyday occurrence of the character (the tattooed person) sharing an environment with a non-tattooed person. In this plot example the tattooed person makes contact with the non-tattooed person and attempts to carry on an ordinary, friendly conversation - something probably along the lines of, â€Å"It’s a nice day isn’t it?† while the non-tattooed person is trying their best to avoid the conversation because they believe the tattooed individual to be one of low-morale. The setting for this interaction could be anywhere. For this example, it’s the grocery check-out line. The narrator is the general public, and by general it is inferred that society is anti-tattoo. Now that Fisher’s Situation Model has been developed, good reason can be addressed. Tattoos have long been regarded as a symbol of rebellion and shady morale dating as far back as colonial times of wayward sailors who originally saw them on the bodies of native people and copied the practice. So if good reason is based on probability and fidelity then fidelity would ring true that anyone with a tattoo today should be someone to be cautious around, and probability would say that chances are that tattooed people cannot beShow MoreRelatedTattooed: The Sociogenesis of Body Art by Michael Atkinson965 Words   |  4 Pagesoutlines his response with the work of Norbert Elias , who is best known for the â€Å"civilizing process† and a hypothesis figurational social science. He gathered information from 27 tattoo artists and 65 tattoo enthusiasts from Toronto and Calgary in a method he called ethnosociology for participant perceptions on tattoos. 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