Tasha asked:

College students are getting visible tattoos and body piercing all over the bodies like tongue rings and
tattoos on their necks. How will these changes affect their future in a professional workplace?

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If such practices become widespread enough, the question will be moot because there won't be any
"professional workplaces." A practice that goes against the grain has its place, but so does the grain.
The college students in question seem to be more in the message-sending business than in the
business of preparing for a world in which adults exchange goods and services to enhance their
chances of creating good lives. The world of voluntary exchange (the "business world") has
time-tested protocols, adherence to which minimizes transaction costs. Some protocols govern
appearance (clothing, hair, hygiene, etc.). Those protocols evolve. The corporate world has come to
understand that, for example, "casual" days contribute to morale and hence to productivity. The
expression of individuality past a certain point, however, may interfere with, or even defeat, the
purpose for which the business exists. In the armed forces such protocols regulate, to the point of
suppression, individuality in appearance and comportment. There are educational institutions in which
appropriate protocols are in place to ensure that at least as much education as adolescent
self-expression takes place.

In the end, however, parents will send their child either to such "old-fashioned" institutions or to their
"hipper" competitors. This consumer choice is as significant a transmission of values as anything the
child might be taught inside the institution. If parents think a tattoo or metal in the face is "cute" or,
what is more likely, do not think about it at all (there are more pressing matters, you see), then the
cultural consequences will follow, as they are already following. The tragedy will not be that the loss
of a more demanding, and ennobling, culture will be mourned, but that it will not. Like the denizens of
Mad Max's world, no one will even know what was lost.

Tony Flood