Emulating and Idolizing Indigenous Cultures is Stupid and Dangerous aka Your only idol should be YOU

There ain’t no rules around here! We’re trying to accomplish something.

– Thomas Edison

Something I’ve often heard said about India is that if people have done it, they’ve probably done it in India at some point in history. Every form of body modification, every ritual, every religion, and every philosophical theory has been explored in the incredibly broad intellectual and spiritual landscape that is India, and all my experiences with India have lead me to believe that on the whole it’s a land that encourages one to be oneself rather than feeling a need to conform to some role set forth by others¹.

One of my favorite verses from the Bhagavad Gita reads,

It is better to do your own duty
badly than to perfectly do
another’s; when you do your duty
you are naturally free from sin.
        
– chapter 18, verse 47

In introduction I’d also like to point out what brilliant graphic designers the Nazi party were, and how good they were at ritualizing their politics and social goals — the film Architecture of Doom even goes so far as to suggest that Nazism was first and formost an aesthetic movement (“the cult of the beautiful”). But just because they were good at these tasks doesn’t mean that their underlying philosophies were valid on other subjects.

Likewise, there were many brilliant scientists working for the Nazi regime; much of our modern medicine and a vast majority of our space technology is derivative of their work. However, that doesn’t mean that Nazism is valid either — it means that the science was valid. I think we’re prone to make this mistake quite commonly — because someone is good at one thing, we assume that their views on other subjects must be good as well.

I’d like to now move to discussing one of the most persistent and misleading myths of modern body modification culture; that of the Modern Primitive — a cult of idolization and emulation of various amalgams of indigenous cultures around the world. Self-identified modern primitives tend to embrace the aesthetic and often modernized ritual based on those of these tribal peoples, while holding them up as something to be admired, ignoring the fact that the vast majority were on many levels absolutely brutal and repressive cultures that would have been truly miserable to live under given our modern desires for self-determination and freedom.

That is, they make the mistake of saying “this modification is beautiful” and “this ritual is profound”, and then assuming associated philosophies and lifestyles are also beautiful and profound. As true as the first two statements may be, this line of thinking is no more valid than becoming a neo-Nazi because you appreciate the talented work of Albert Speer or Werner Von Braun — or enjoy Wagner.

The “noble savage” is of course, with few exceptions, a myth. You’re more likely to find this romantic vision in Northern Scotland than you are in the jungles of southeast Asia or the African plains; the “savage” life tended to be just that: savage. Life was rarely idyllic. One’s place in life, from slave to ruler, was dictated from birth and body modification and ritual were tools used to hold that fragile system together, and fearful spiritual codes did their best to explain and justify this world. Is the “noble savage” of modern primitivism something to aspire to, with its beautiful self-expression, empowering rituals, and peaceful Gaia-loving spirituality? Sure, but so is being a Jedi Knight and neither exists in real life.

In modern times many of us use body modification as a tool to become one with God; that is, to exercise control over our physical and metaphysical destinies… Modifying your body as an act of individualism echoes eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge — it’s an act of taking control. It’s an act of liberation.

Unfortunately, as I just mentioned, as beautiful as they were the modifications of most indigenous cultures were very much the opposite — they used body modification as cultural prisons, to ensure conformity and to protect social structure. Their stretched piercings were done at specific times of their life to mark their transition from one social role to another, and their scars were markers of group identification rather than individual. The modifications served a specific and pre-determined purpose — they were (as we accuse corporate-government actions these days), “system sustaining”. That is, their culture of body modification existed not to empower the individual, but to empower and sustain the group.

Certainly there was a great deal of validity in this — for them. As our societies become larger though, more resilient, and more autonomous, it’s essential that we shift our efforts from simply sustaining the society to sustaining and evolving the individual. We’ve finally reached a point in our cultural evolution where we’ve built a solid enough foundation to do so².

On the other hand, we’ve also reached a point where we’ve given truly enormous levels of power to corporations who profit by mass-producing a cultural product (pop music being an obvious example thereof) which, while profitable, offers little toward the individual or spiritual growth of the people consuming it. Body modification has experienced explosive mainstream popularity over the past fifteen years and we face the risk that it will become commodified as well, which would deeply damage its ability to enlighten by wrapping it in the thick fog of fashion.

In indigenous cultures body modification was not apt to enlighten in and of itself — it was simply the uniform that one was expected to wear. It meant one belonged to a group. What we should be fighting to encourage is a cultural environment where a navel piercing or stretched ears or tattoo isn’t about being part of a group — it’s about being and defining yourself (regardless of who does or does not have that modification as well).

An email I received recently:   >At your websit i saw this   >beautifull Kanji tattoo!! I   >hope one of you know the   >menaing, because i really   >like it, and want to know it!

How can we do that?

I’d like to offer a few general tips to illustrate how we can move in this direction, beginning with never get flash and along the same lines, never get a tattoo you don’t understand. Certainly there’s space for a little empty decoration, but I hope you’ll consider the value in having genuine meaning on your body. After all, you are permanently etching this logo into yourself — Maori chiefs, who were one of the rare people in history who’s tattoos had deeply individualist meanings, would often use a drawing of their tattoo instead of their name when signing legal documents.

What is your name? Something handed to you by your parents? Some meaningless phonemes applied to you without your consent? Some shallow name shared by hundreds of thousands of people on the planet? A useful “tag” certainly, but not who you are… Your tattoos on the other hand have the potential to truly represent you — to mark you with identity in a way that you see fit, as you see yourself and as you’d like the world to see you.

By supporting small businesses, you make it harder for faceless corporations to seize the market and pervert the community to their needs.

I would hope it would be obvious what message is being sent when you decide that some anonymous done-a-thousand-times piece of flash off the wall, or a pretty symbol of dubious meaning from some language you’ve never spoken a word of can represent you better than something you actually worked on yourself. You can’t draw you say? Big deal! That’s why tattoo artists exist. They’re not just guys that are good at tracing — the majority are valid artists in every sense of the word… Artists that specialize in working with you to take your feelings and beliefs and making them a permanent part of you. Just make sure they’re yours³.

I’d also like to propose that you support local companies and support craftsmen over factories. I’ve spoken about this at greater length in previous columns, but we need to understand how to use the system to our benefit. Large companies are quickly dominating the jewelry market (ten years ago almost all jewelry was being made by small local craftsmen and a handful of small companies, whereas now we’re seeing international corporations using sweatshop labor to mass-produce low-quality “individualism”) — if we (the market) don’t aggressively resist this, small vendors will be all but extinct within the decade. As soon as that happens, you’ll see this community starting to be defined by corporations, not individuals.

“Killed a dude.”

Keep your sense of humor strong!

I think it’s also a good idea to take yourself seriously, but not too seriously. What I mean by that is never forget the idiom “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Should you take your modifications seriously and use them to further personal growth? Absolutely! But you should also be willing to play with your body, and sometimes just be stupid for stupid’s sake. As you progress as an individual you’ll certainly face terrifying challenges, and without a sense of humor it will be hard to appreciate your failures as much as your victories.

When you’re defining yourself, avoid posturing. That is, don’t “act tough” and don’t try and get modifications specifically to affect your relationships and interactions with others. If you do that, you’re inversely falling into a conformist trap. While it’s true that your borders are in part defined by your relations with others, it’s important that the process of defining those borders is truly under your control, rather than simply in reaction to them. Or to put it another way, don’t avoid getting a [meaningful] navel piercing because you think it’s too common, and don’t get a [meaningless] uvula piercing⁴ just because you think it’s rare.

Along those lines, my final tip is trust yourself and who gives a damn what anyone else thinks! This is about you, isn’t it? Let’s assume for a moment that you’ve actually put some thought into what you’re doing (and if you’re not willing to do that, just stop reading now and switch to FOX News or something) and believe that you need to do a given mod in order to keep moving forward on a personal or spiritual level. If this is the case, anyone — be they parents, friends, partners, employers, whatever — that tries to stand in your way might as well be trying to kill you. In a world that understands that expression is a basic right — a core truth that makes an individual free — the act of restricting this right is one of the most grievous sins one can commit.

If it feels good, do it.

The saddest part is that most of us allow it to happen because we’re afraid… Afraid to hurt our parents’ feelings, afraid to lose our jobs, and afraid to get bad service at a restaurant. Well, guess what — the only reason that injustice exists is because so many of us allow it and prop it up. Ultimately slavery ends when people emancipate themselves; it doesn’t just happen on its own and no one can do it for you.

Actually, there is one last “rule” — probably the most important one: everything you just read here is a half-truth. Breaking the rules is essential to exploring the full landscape of life — you just have to understand the rules first to appreciate the value in breaking them⁵.

Really, the key I think is just to be yourself and define who you are solely by who you are. It’s not relevant who your friends are. It’s not relevant who lives in your community. It’s not relevant who you’re descended from. It’s not relevant that people with your color of skin were once slave owners of people with another color of skin or vice versa. All that’s relevant is who you are. Anything else is just a distraction.

And when you figure out who you are, and protect and ennoble that person, and fight for them and allow them to express themselves, you will be free and you will be well on your way to becoming a God.

Getting back to my original slander, I certainly encourage people to draw inspiration from all sources. But don’t think that we should aspire to actually be those sources — they had the exact same problems we’re trying to overcome (often worse), and on the whole, they never overcame theirs either. Even the most idyllic of these cultures existed in a condition of stasis with no ability to grow or evolve or move forward. All the inspiration you need is already inside of you — everything on the outside is simply helping show you how broad the palette is.

Enjoy life as yourself,

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

¹ Not that India doesn’t have any number of problems as well – cough! caste system! cough!

² Please note that I’m not proposing a total rejection of cultural bonds; as much as we’re individuals we’re also players in a larger game. My belief is that we simply need to make sure we keep the focus always centered on the individual — and there are powerful forces fighting to keep that from happening.

³ That said, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out and get that Star Wars Rebel Alliance logo tattooed on your ass — all I’m saying is that if you do, I hope you’re doing it because it has meaning to you, not just because you think Star Wars is cool…

⁴ I’m not suggesting people get uvula piercings for shallow reasons. While Jon Cobb jokingly referred to his as a “stupid human trick”, he also speaks with profundity of how significant it was on a spiritual level to pierce that internal nexus.

⁵ As a general footnote, let me say that body modification and body play is a means, not an end. It’s a tool. You can use it to empower yourself, or you can watch as others — be they other individuals, or be they some faceless mob or soulless corporation — use it to empower themselves at your expense. Like all tools, it can be used for your benefit or your downfall… One of the general goals of BME is to encourage people to use body modification as a tool for themselves.

Ban it all!

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or to impede their efforts to obtain it.”

– John Stuart Mill

Over the past few months there’s been an upsurge in ludicrous “studies” — shallow covers for dubious statistics and ill-informed “medical” statements from doctors less concerned with truth and more concerned with using the letters after their name to put forward their personal prejudices — which decry various forms of body modification as dangerous and a threat to public welfare. As a result, legislators are being called upon to ban or restrict these activities in a misguided attempt to “protect” the public from itself.

First, let me just say this: FUCK OFF AND KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY.

Second, let me apologize for the profanity and follow up by saying this: You’re a bunch of hypocrites and bigots that are using shoddy science in an attempt to force your sociopolitical views on others and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

A recent study released by the European Union, and now being cited by media and lawmakers all over the world, makes perverse claims such as tattoo ink being made of car paint, states that up to fifty percent of piercings become seriously infected, and links a multitude of serious diseases and even several deaths to body modification.

As far as their claim of “tattoo ink being car paint”, it is true that many of the same dyes are used in tattoo ink as are used in car paint… but those same FDA approved dyes are used in food products, medical products, and so on — guess what — some cars have components made of stainless steel and titanium. Does that mean we should ban body piercing because “piercing jewelry is made of car parts?” The human body contains a significant amount of fecal matter at most times; because of that, I’d like to urge that Philippe Busquin, the EU commissioner responsible for this deceptive report, be flushed down the toilet for being a big walking turd.

The statement that “up to fifty percent of body piercings lead to acute infections which require medical treatment” is frankly preposterous and is, to put it politely, a lie. Millions of piercings are done every year. Millions. If Busquin’s claim was true, body piercing would be one of the largest medical emergencies humanity has ever faced. The truth of the matter is that body piercings rarely become acutely infected and medical treatment being required is extremely uncommon.

As far as linking diseases, primarily due to largely false stereotypical claims of unhygienic environments in tattoo and piercing studios, this is yet another fraudulent claim. The number of documented cases are rare, tend to be limited to unlicensed studios, and are becoming less and less common. I think it’s important to note that it was tattoo and piercing studios that, due to their strict adherence to contamination control, eventually forced dentists and estheticians to clean up their own acts. The Red Cross had major problems with their blood supplies due to irresponsible contamination control and as a result infected far more people with deadly diseases than the body modification industry ever has.

The claims of deaths are also deceitful — yes, there are a small number of deaths that are linked to body piercing, but what’s left out is that the piercing is rarely responsible for the death; it simply complicates existing medical sitations such as mitral valve relapse (and in all cases that I am aware of, these conditions were hidden from the piercer). I can think of only one or two cases where the piercings could be directly linked and in these cases the victim had behaved in a deeply irrational and irresponsible fashion (a la Lesley Hovvells) — after all, you can kill yourself with a hammer if you hit yourself over the head enough times… but that’s not how a hammer ought to be used.

I think maybe we need to do some comparison now. They tell us that of millions of people who get body modifications, vast numbers experience serious problems or even death — although given that the actual documented number of these “millions” is a handful at best, I’d love to know where they’re getting their information. In any case, let’s look at a few things that we know cause deaths:

Automobiles
Car crashes kill and maim an enormous number of people yearly, to say nothing of the environmental damage they are responsible for. At least 90% of all personal transportation (which accounts for almost all road fatalities) could be replaced by mass transit infrastructures which would be safer and cleaner than personal vehicles — tens of thousands of lives would be saved yearly, if not more. If the risks of body piercing are significant enough to justify new regulations and restrictions, then surely we should ban private ownership of automobiles.

Junk Food
Perhaps the leading cause of premature death in the West, the culture of obesity and sloth that our megacorporations have embraced is rarely questioned, even though it not only strains our healthcare systems, but the planet itself. In 2001 the Surgeon General announced that every year 300,000 people in the US die from obesity-related causes — and 60% or more of Americans are currently obese. The American Cancer Society cites similar statistics, saying that over half of cancer is obesity related…

If we can propose banning or restricting body modification for a few infections and some dubiously linked deaths, how can we stand by and allow (and encourage) young people to overindulge in a lethal drug that’s killing a million people every three years — to put this into perspective, obesity kills six times as many Americans every year as died in the entire Vietnam war. Ban junk food if you want to save lives.

Conversation
How many people have died because of the argument they got into with their neighbor? Or on a larger level, how many people have died because their country’s leader got in a meaningless argument with the leader of some other country? If we feel that the freedom of expression embodied in body modification is dangerous enough to restrict it, then it should be obvious that the far more dangerous freedom of speech should definitely be banned as well. Since the law is blind, we must ban free discourse of all kinds in order to protect the citizenry.

Marriage
How many people kill their spouses every year? How many cuckolds kill their spouse’s lover? How many kill themselves from the stress of a relationship? How many of their children do? Going by the cold numbers — especially now that we know that more than 50% of marriages end in divorce — it’s clear that marriage is a threat to society and human life that far outweighs the risks of body modification. If we are to act objectively, marriage and dating should be banned.

Religion

How many millions of people have been murdered in the name of one god or another? How many billions more have been repressed or abused for the same reason? Objectively, if body modification needs to be banned for being a danger, we’d best eliminate religion altogether. God may not be as dead as Nietzsche claimed, but in our objective legal society we surely must legislate his death.

Yeah, that’s right. The above is stupid and flawed thinking that any intelligent person should be appalled to stand behind… so we have to ask ourselves why intelligent people are doing this exact thing to a dramatically more ridiculous level when it comes to body modification?

They are doing it for one simple reason: bigotry.

They are launching preemptive strikes in a culture war.

The arguments that they present to defend their cases are deceptive and flimsy and never hold up under the light of any logical examinations. It’s very sad that we can proudly trumpet what free societies we all live in, yet when anyone steps outside the narrow definition of normal (as defined by “the man”), we twist words to try and justify denying them those freedoms. Freedom is a universal and borderless concept — we can’t stop someone from expressing themselves just because we think it’s “gross” (that’s really what this boils down to).

Papers are reprinting these claims constantly — please, if you see such an article in your local paper, don’t be afraid to write in and punch holes in their lies… It’s only because too few people are afraid to stand up for themselves that this is allowed to continue.

Good luck,

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

The Benefits of Being Different

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are

In his latest colum Erik, The Lizardman, suggested that it was laughable to seek out body modifications solely because they are rare or unusual, and even more foolhardy to get rid of a body modification when it becomes popular for fear of being perceived as part of the crowd. While I believe his core premise is accurate on a business level*, I’m not entirely sure that I agree with his decrying of difference for the sake of difference.

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* It is the “trend followers” who ultimately pay the bills of the body modification industry and thus keep it alive. Therefore it is wrong to downplay their value, since without them, we’d face significant hardships.

On an animal level, body modification serves to further two goals: first, strengthening the herd through a shared “belonger” visual language (African tribal scars, the Jewish bris, stretched lobes in the piercing scene, and so on), and second, as self-differentiating mating behavior (usually within certain boundaries, although we’re seeing those grow all the time). Until quite recently, all atypical modifications have been an individual expression — that’s where my interest lies, it’s what this article will focus on, and it’s what I believe we should protect and encourage.

To attract a mate of a specific type, animals differentiate themselves. Since females “choose” their mate in most species, males have evolved garish ways of drawing attention to themselves — look at birds and one of the first things you’ll notice is that the males are brightly colored and perform bizarre and dangerous rituals to attract attention, while the females have muted colors and tend not to put themselves at such risk. The basic idea though, universal across almost all animals, is that the unique and exceptional individual gets the best mates.

Humans of course are more complex animals, so our appearance and behavior is more than just mating behavior; it’s a broader form of communication. But it still boils down to the notion that the unique individuals define and rule the herd and the plain ones simply are going with the flow and get second pick. I should note that the definition of “plain” changes from year to year — at times it was normal to be corsetted, and nowadays it’s not abnormal to have a small number of tasteful body piercings.

Even a cursory overview of “successful people” (ie. business leaders, self-made millionaires, authors, celebrities, etc.) makes it clear that they’re not normal people. They tend to be tall. They tend to be beautiful. They tend to be eccentric. Of course there are exceptions, and it is true that the majority are excelling in socially acceptable ways, but the fact remains that the world and its destiny belongs to unique and exceptional individuals. That said, the brightly colored bird is more likely to be killed by a predator, and the same goes for humans. If your goal is survival rather than success, maybe you’d be better off flying under the radar and stick with the crowd.

The future is defined by change. When things stay the same they stagnate — and the sad truth is that most people prefer to avoid change out of fear. The person who embraces mods that are already “normal” is not taking humanity forward. They’re certainly helping by not holding it back, and, as Erik stated, they are helping build a foundation for further change, but they are not involved in defining the future. Maybe not everyone wants to do that (and some would argue that not everyone is qualified to do that), but anyone with decent self-esteem should want to be involved in this process. After all, if you believe you are a good person with valid ideas, should you not be taking part in deciding humanity’s future? We’ve seen that when the future becomes defined by the herd that it tends to fail until a small group of individuals stands up, tears it down, and rebuilds it with forward vision.

One of the points that Erik made — and a very valid one — was that no matter what, we are all individuals, and are all different. No matter what. Sure, that’s true, but on an objective level it’s not really so true after all. It’s kind of like the person who watches contests on TV and swears up and down that they’re smarter and could win the million dollars… that’s all good, and maybe it’s even true, but what does it matter if you’re not going out there and winning? We’re social animals — few of us, short of sociopathic serial killers, operate solely as individuals. As such, while it’s definitely good to perceive of yourself as an individual, you’d better be able to prove it if you want anyone to take the claim seriously.

Being different with the same form of expression is not really being different objectively; only subjectively. For example, if a person who’s lead a vanilla life gets a navel piercing, it can be a profound and positive statement on a personal level — one that I’d encourage (and I hope this isn’t coming across as negating that value) — but it is only a private statement. However, when you pursue modifications that are unique or relatively unique, you make a larger statement, and if you have some basic comprehension of esthetics, you can get “heavy mods” that are still attractive (read: successful) on a mainstream level and can even help you succeed in that mainstream — not because the mod “makes you better”, but because it’s an effective way to advertise and promote yourself. As I’ve mentioned before, it makes you memorable (unusual modifications do — a navel piercing did ten years ago, but that is no longer the case).

The term is thrown around a lot, but I believe that we’re sitting at the cusp of a major paradigm shift that will define human culture over the next millenia. We’re currently deciding whether we want to move toward a society that embraces the unique individual, or a conformist culture that insists on uniformity. Powerful forces and trends are fighting for each option, and as society stratifies the coming culture war becomes more apparent.

We have to ask ourselves which kind of culture we’d rather live in: are you defined as a member of a group (black, American, Russian, white, Christian, whatever) or are you defined as an individual, with your group allegiances being secondary? That is, are you defined by your similarities with your compatriots, or your differences? Logically, I fail to see how an individual can be defined by anything but the differences.

One of my favorite movies, Harold and Maude, contains a scene where they are walking through a flower greenhouse near a giant field of white daisies. Maude, an eccentric and full of life old woman says to her much younger boyfriend Harold, “I like to watch things grow. They grow, and bloom, and fade, and die, and change into something else! Ah, life!” She then tells Harold how she would like to be a sunflower, on account of them being “so tall and simple”, and then asks him what sort of flower he’d like to be.

Harold (an oddball who longs to be “normal”) gestures at the wide field of daisies, which from a distance look uniform in nature, and says to her, “I don’t know… one of these maybe. They’re all alike.”

Maude replies, “Oh, but they’re not! Look, see, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some grow to the right, some have even lost some petals… all kinds of observable differences! You see Harold; I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people that are this, yet allow themselves to be treated as that,” pointing from the single flower to the giant field of daisies which then transitions into a field of thousands of white gravestones.

In conclusion, be yourself and don’t be afraid to tell people that as loudly as you want. Be proud of your differences; fight not just to protect them, but to amplify them! I named BME not just as an acronym for Body Modification Ezine, but as a symbolic statement of “BE ME“. IAM is of course the same. I aggressively encourage you to be yourself and back up that action with evidence of your uniqueness.

See the future. Be the future!

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

PS. Let me be very clear though: if you want your navel pierced, that’s awesome and I think that on a personal level you can get a lot out of it and it’s absolutely worth doing and I encourage it as well. This column is not meant to spit on the mainstream; I’m simply trying to illustrate that the other side of the coin (“difference for difference’s sake”) has value as well. I also am not so blind as to believe that atypical body modification is the only way to achieve the goals I’ve discussed here — it’s simply the path I’ve chosen for myself (and I think it’s a good one; or at least the right one for me).