Corporate logo tattoos

            Although I heard this a few days ago, I reheard the news that one of the new points of the new bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the players union is a ban on players getting corporate logo tattoos.  Doing a little research, it appears that there is one player with tattoos who may have such a tattoo among all the body art on his upper torso. 

            I write on this in that, as a believer in Jesus, I realize that the admonition on tattoos in the Old Testament was connected to the religious significance that some of the peoples near Israel had in their use, therefore meaning some form of idol worship.  As a sports fan, I am familiar with an NFL Films piece on the Raiders, which shows a man in a leather vest opening it up to show a picture of the recently departed head man Al Davis on his chest.  I couldn’t help but think that, in a unthinking way, that was somewhat like idol worship again.

            I decided to do a little research on the net and stumbled across the following article:  http://csrn.camden.rutgers.edu/newsletters/5-1/Orend.htm .  In  Corporate Logo Tattoos: Literal Corporate Branding? by Angela Orend-Cunningham of University of Louisville, she writes about the trend towards persons getting corporate logos on their body as a connection between postmodern society and persons relating corporate branding, although not necessarily product, to their life.  She speaks particularly of the relationship between the Nike swoosh and their catch phrase “Just Do It”, which, of course, is full of postmodern philosophical meaning.  One aspect of our society is the muddying of the waters between serious thought and unthinking impulse masquerading as serious thoughts.

            One of the blogs I get a feed on is Felicity Dale’s www.simplychurch.com .  On her December 12, 2011 entry, she credits some persons whose writings have taught her, and she mentions a missionary named David L. Watson (www.davidlwatson.org).  I went there, where appeared his latest entry, dated November 1, 2011. Watson makes an interesting point of comparing aspects of secular western society to animism, and traditional parts of our society, particularly capitalism, to a creative worldview.  Conversely, though, I could argue the exact opposite point as he is attempting to make.  First, until less than two centuries ago, within “Christian cultures”, the word “creative” was reserved for God’s acts in Genesis 1, and never used for human acts of discovery, be it scientific or artistic. Second, because of the change in our culture, capitalism in its most powerful forms acts as the worship of money, and honest, moral persons are passed over for advancement over the persons who will do anything to advance sales.  One must remember that “sales specialists” only go back to the snake oil salesmen of the 1850’s.  Each generation of persons getting burned by sales lies, then half-truths, then carefully worded phrases, hasn’t improved the honesty of sales organizations, only their subtlety.  Conversely, the Occupy Wall Street movement is made up, in part, with intelligent, honest, and many times homeless persons who know the people with money and power have shafted them in favor of the unethical. 

            It appears Watson lives in San Jose, CA, so I would imagine that he is aware of what I just said.  I also recognize that, given what he does, my point may be that important to him, while I, as a person who has worked at bottom level jobs for my career since college, see this point as being of great importance.  Also, we are both correct.  We are just looking at different aspects of the same issue in a complex world.