Over at The Critic, the skeptical doctor admonishes the absurd academic who recently wrote a book attempting to philosophically justify the disturbing rise of tattooing in the Western world.

The author goes some way to recognition of the essential contradiction of the modern vogue for tattoos. On the one hand tattoos still retain some association with the rebellious, the marginal and the antinomian; on the other, they have become so commonplace that they can no longer be considered unconventional, but another manifestation of herd-like behaviour.