City Desk: Kind of Famous

investment banker with enigmatic Chinese calligraphy on his shoulder. According to one estimate, 20 million Americans have been tattooed. But for another, smaller, more self-important crowd, the tattoo means something else. It is part of an imagined “tribal renaissance,” an attempt to tap into the (allegedly) superior authenticity of those primitive folk who never left the squalor of the rain forest, mud hut, or atoll.

The problem is that these original noble savages were really just people with too much time on their hands and too few toys. They played with what they had, and what they had was their bodies. Consequently they didn’t just tattoo. They pierced, they stretched, they cut, and they scarred.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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investment banker with enigmatic Chinese calligraphy on his shoulder. According to one estimate, 20 million Americans have been tattooed. But for another, smaller, more self-important crowd, the tattoo means something else. It is part of an imagined “tribal renaissance,” an attempt to tap into the (allegedly) superior authenticity of those primitive folk who never left the squalor of the rain forest, mud hut, or atoll.

The problem is that these original noble savages were really just people with too much time on their hands and too few toys. They played with what they had, and what they had was their bodies. Consequently they didn’t just tattoo. They pierced, they stretched, they cut, and they scarred.