This essay is about how we shouldn’t make serious issues out of things that are merely symbolic as opposed to things that have a substantive impact (or are, shall we say, reality-based).
I just want the Dopers to help criticize my arguments, or my writing stye, or anything else that can stand straightening out–in this or any of the other linkable essays in Squeaky Wheels, seeing as how it’s all still pretty ragged. So here goes:
"Symbols are the enemies of truth. Whereas the truth is complex and definite, symbols are simplistic and transient. A symbol is an idea—a design, a word, a principle, or even a person or historical event—that has come to be widely recognized and associated with another idea or set of ideas. Most symbols are simply the emblems of for particular entities or the words for particular things, but when one resonates through a deeper historical context is when it can become dangerous.
Given the predictable nature of symbolic associations, they are often invoked to manipulate the body politic. For example, the labels political groups use to refer to one another, or the politicians—with all their baggage of their reputations—who are seen to represent them. At other times, the innocuous presence of certain symbols can provoke fears. For example, the way some people think that the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill reveals the presence of a shadowy cabal controlling the government, or that Uncle Remus is racist.
A swastika is more than just the symbol of a certain political party from the 1940s and its remaining followers. The historical associations are such that some people get very upset when the see one, and pranksters often exploit this by spray-painting swastikas where Jews can see them. The legacy of the Hitler and the Nazis itself is a symbol, one that is frequently used to score political points by associating your political opponent with them. And yet the fact that Hitler and swastikas frequently show up in history documentaries without people freaking out shows that symbols are capable of being understood in their proper context. After all, it won't hurt you."
Interestingly, while a number of people have clicked on the link to the main page and some of the other essays, no one’s looked at the essay page I’m presenting here.
Oh well, maybe it’s not that momentous an issue. I think it’s a point that bears repeating, tho.
You present some interesting and important ideas, most of which I agree with. But you’ve asked for criticism, so I’ll do my best to provide
Your opening statement is a bit strong and should be qualified - “Symbols CAN be enemies of the truth”. The truth, or reality, is infinitely complex, and the only way we can transmit, or communicate truth is through symbols. Symbols of course are inherently inferior to the actual things they symbolize in terms of information content, but being able to communicate through symbols is infinitely superior to not having a means to communicate some representation of the truth. Until such point as we have direct brainwave transmission…
“(to be concluded)”: I’m not sure why you are asking for readers before you are finished…
While symbols are not physically threatening, they can be emotionally threatening, and most people feel emotional pain to a similar degree as physical pain. Also, many symbols are used as a way to foreshadow intent to cause actual physical harm.
You don’t properly separate the issue of ethics of symbolic use from legality of symbolic use, which I believe should have different benchmarks of expectation.
You should have a stronger statement of purpose. Is it your intent merely to show that symbols can be the enemy of truth? Or is it to suggest an alternate way of handling symbols? What is the actual goal of this essay?
That said, you definitely have some good ideas here and bring up a lot of good points. Good work so far
One problem with your thesis is that it ignores the idea that much of the “reality” we deal with on a day-to-day basis is symbolic.
Take money for example. The brute reality is that I have some green-colored pieces of paper in my pocket. People assume they represent actual economic value, but there’s no intrinsic worth in the paper. They are only symbols of value and only function as money as long as everyone maintains the fiction that they have real worth.
A dollar bill is just a symbol. However, burning a dollar bill has real-world implications. The same is true of symbols like swastikas. Yes, on one level they are “just symbols”. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be used and interpreted in ways with real-world ramifications.
But there are finite dollar bills, produced only at the US Mint, recognized by law as legal tender, and valued by every member of society to the exact same degree. This is more than enough to make paper money a thoroughly substantive thing.
This is just a draft. The responses I get here will inform me on making revisions and wrapping it up.
If the display of a symbol reliably foreshadows a specific physical threat, then it’s carrying information and its association is directly to something substantive. And any emotion “pain” caused by exposure to a symbol alone varies greatly by the individual. People are capable of learning not to be susceptible to these sorts of symbolic threats and can immunize themselves from them by adopting a certain outlook. You can’t do that with physical pain very easily.
Can’t grok to every angle, I suppose.
Idea for conclusion: Emphasize how people should learn to be less subject to manipulation by symbols and to look past them in order to address the real-world problems that we all share.
But there are finite dollar bills, produced only at the US Mint, recognized by law as legal tender, and valued by every member of society to the exact same degree. This is more than enough to make paper money a thoroughly substantive thing.
I disagree with the thesis. To say that symbols are “simplistic and transient” is in itself a simplistic viewpoint. (It may also turn out to be a transient one.) For sure, symbols are always simpler than the concepts they represent. That’s exactly what makes them useful. In any field where a humans being lacks the capacity to fully grasp all the dimensions of an issue, symbolic understanding can be a stepping stone to the real thing. Thus symbolic interpretations expand the range of human thought.
The fact that the meaning of symbols can change is also a positive aspect. The most famous example would be the cross. The Romans used the cross as an instrument of torture, but also as an instrument of humiliation. When a criminal was hung up on the cross they couldn’t move, and those who watched could see every stage the victim’s body went through on the way to death. It was also a means a social division. (Roman citizens could not be crucified.) Jesus turned the cross around and made it a symbol of love, pride, and equality. That achievement ought to look amazing, even to those who refuse to believe in His divinity.
Also, with regards to sanctitiy, we already have a procedure for determining what places and things are treated with sanctity. It’s tradition; we see what’s been regarded as sacred for a long time. (Admittedly there’s some ambiguity in this procedure, but one the whole, it works.) Your proposal for a “panel of tribal shamen” is, if I may speak bluntly, ridiculous, and not just because there are few tribal shamen around and they have better things to do than participate in such a farce. Why would demand answers to a question from people who know nothing about it, while excluding the person who knows most about it? One might as well say that a particle accelerator should be run by a panel of all scientisits other than physicists, or that a symphony should be a composed by a panel of all artists except musicians.
Ah, but what happens when someone sets a cross on fire in the front yard of a black family?
Or when an official orders the removal of a cross from public display?
Symbols are useful when they convey information is a set manner, but different people assign different meanings or draw different associations to a particular symbol, it can become volatile and a source of conflict.
Of course my proposal is ridiculous. It’s a snarky joke.
But any physicist with enough formal training should be able to review the work of a particular physicist, not just his local collegues. Peer review and all. And any trained orchestra should be able to perform a particular symphony once it’s been committed to paper.
As for tradition, well I haven’t settled on how to work this point into my book, but tradition is another enemy of truth. It’s a pack of falsehoods and injustices, or at least there’s nothing stopping it from including these things. Racism is a tradition.
I’m not aware of any symbol every causing a serious conflict. There are cases, such as the ones in your article, where a symbol became the focal point of a conflict that was already simmering.
But that’s beside the point. If symbols are “volatile” and “a source of conflict”, that’s no reason to not give them a central role in our thinking. If anything, it suggests we should give them such a role. If we threw out any type of thinking that was potential volatile or controversial, there wouldn’t be anything left. Furthermore, if we abandoned a symbol merely because a few people misused it, we’d be letting the worst specimens of humanity have their way. Should we abandon windows just because bricks are sometimes thrown through them?
At risk of going off on a tangent, I have to point out that it just isn’t so. Modern physics is so broad that no one person could follow all of it. No one physicist could be selected to peer review any paper. Each can peer review only in his or her subfield (or sub-subfield, or sub-sub-subfield.)
First, I’d recommend that you decide whether tradition is a “pack of falsehoods and injustices” or merely “includes these things”; obviously there’s a vast difference between the two claims. You say racism is a tradition, which is true in a few small areas. I say that egalitarianism is a tradition with a much surer pedigree. Art can include falsehood and injustice. So can education, science, law, medicine, and any other part of human experience. Do you classify those things as “enemies of truth”? If not, why single out tradition?
But that, again, is beside the point. Tradition is a friend of truth because it guards againsts fads and short-term trends. A person with no respect for the past is almost certain to get sucked up by whatever types of thinking are popular in the present. And present modes of thinking are more likely to be wrong, because people haven’t had time to inspect them carefully and filter out the good parts from the bad.
People get very upset is what happens. When a symbol some people associate with evil is displayed, or a symbol they revere is misused, it provokes fear and loathing deepens political divisiveness. Needlessly.
I’m not worrying about the meanings of symbols changing. Although when they do, it’s often new associatons being piled on top of old ones, which contributes to generation gaps and other divisions.
Well good grief, my point abuot the sactity squad is that when a dubious claim is being made, you don’t just take the word of the group making the claim; they’re biased. Trained experts who can provide independant verification are needed before the public should accept the claim as the truth.
Now you’re splitting hairs. The fact is, traditions often incorporate falsehoods and injustices and thus cannot be relied upon to determine for us what is true and just.
So is sexism, so is monarchy and its modern-day equivalents. The list goes on.
I don’t see how that’s usually the case. Then again, art is symbolic, never substanitve, and so your point here fits in with mine.
These are substantive endevors and are designed to change as our understanding improves. Traditions stubbornly resists change, mainly because there’s no mechaism for separating the substantive wheat from the symbolic chaff. To call any aspect of a tradition into question is the threaten the entire tradition, and people sometimes react as though it’s a mortal threat to their way of life.
Is women’s sufferage a fad? Or the idea that the Earth goes around the Sun?
This does not address my arguments, though. Let me rehash what I’ve said.
First, symbols by themselves don’t cause conflict. (You surely don’t claim that things would have been hunky-dory between black people and the Klan if only it weren’t for the cross-burning issue.)
Second, if we adopted the approach that you seem to advocate, we’d be letting the bad guys win and trashing some great achievements. (The example of Jesus and the cross being only the most obvious.)
Repeating the fact that symbols can become flashpoints of controversy doesn’t answer either of these points.
