THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

Philoscribe’s description of the trio waiting in queue at the hair salon is full of interest: “One was a hideously overweight woman, her arms encased in a sleeve of tattoos that extended across her exposed upper chest.  The second was a man in his early 20s with a ring under his nostril and washer-size rings in the lobes of his ears.  The third [was] a man in his 40s… wearing the male equivalent of a tank top T-shirt, baggy cargo shorts and sandals that amply exposed his corpulent physique and body hair.”

While (yes, yes, and yes) corpulence is sometimes an organic condition, difficult to control, usually it is a consequence of indiscipline and bad diet.  In my earlier comments on tattooing, I argued that the tattoo is a desperate attempt to be someone undertaken by a subject who believes that he lacks a noticeable identity.  Tattoos serve this function in archaic societies, where they signify social status, but so does corpulence.  In an economy of scarcity especially, corpulence indicates that a person has access to abundant food or that he can eat as much as he pleases whenever he likes.  In neither case is it a mark of achievement or individuation in a post-archaic sense; in both cases, on the contrary, the person imposes himself on others by means of external decoration.  The coincidence of corpulence and tattooing is thus perfectly consonant with the idea that ours is a society in a state of deculturation where the art of internal, spiritual accomplishment is rapidly disappearing and crass gestures of false differentiation take its place.

Nose-rings and “washer-size” ear-lobe inserts have only one function: To call attention to the wearer by being in deliberate and aggressive violation of anything normatively presentable.  It is not quite F— Y– tattooed on the forehead, but it is rapidly approaching that bar of ugliness.  That the image conjures visions of Barbary corsairs, the Pirates of Tortuga, and South-Sea cannibals is entirely relevant.  In a dim way, Philoscribe’s hair-salon customer has chosen (or MTV has chosen for him) a thematically uncivilized and, in context, anti-civilized image to imitate.  Again, no one with an inner life would need to do this.  It is the outward admission of total inward emptiness.

The middle-aged man in the costume of a third-grade boy offers another case of elective slovenliness, not contradicted by the public display of male hirsuteness.  This type of ugliness differs slightly from the nose-ring and ear-stud type.  Acquiring and regularly inserting the studs and rings takes some minimal effort.  Dressing carelessly like a schoolchild at play and at the same time advertising one’s male armpits is tantamount to saying: “I have no dignity and want none. I will dress as sloppily as I please and inflict my ugliness on the public square, and what is anyone going to do about?” The cell phone provides the telling clue.  Like an eighth-grade girl, this chronological adult cannot live without constant information from others about what do, or what to be interested in, or simply what to be.  Unfortunately, the people whom he canvasses have no more notion of these things than he does.

— Comments —

Mary writes:

Thomas Bertonneau wrote: “…ours is a society in a state of deculturation where the art of internal, spiritual accomplishment is rapidly disappearing…”

We’ve arrived at a radical level of informality and near-obsession with sensual bodily fulfillment which aid deculturation. The middle-aged guy in the tank top, shorts and sandals is a perfect specimen representative of both: his dress is so supremely comfortable as to be one step away from pajamas, offering no bothersome restrictions to his freedom of movement. And with smart phone occupying eyes and hands, only his hearing, taste buds, and sense of smell are denied their due, easily remedied by ear buds and a gigantic, fragrant Duncan Donuts something-or-other.

As an aside and interestingly (to my mind, anyway), the abasing of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass has used radical informality – Priest versus populum, communion in the hand, no genuflections, sign of peace etc. – in combination with the suppression of things pleasing to the senses – stark architecture and decoration, no incense, no chant, etc. – to advance the attachment of Catholics to the world and move them away from God. Suppression of the sensual in Mass ensures that the world, in contrast, is all the more irresistible.

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