Two Theories Symbolic Use
Jul. 13th, 2010 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakSymbols are important and powerful. Symbols are meaningless illusions. Because of my judgmental nature I tend to notice these two opposed positions. Depending upon when you encountered me in my youth I might have been adhering to either one of them depending upon what mode of thought was foremost in my mind as both have had moments of supremacy in American thought.
It seems to me that the prevalent American liberal legal position is that symbols are mostly unimportant. Burning the flag is not in itself an act against the state. What a person wears does not matter and should not be regulated. On the the other hand liberals do seem to recognize that in certain contexts a symbol means more than just paint on a wall. A tee-shirt with a noose on it that a liberal would defend a person's right to wear in general becomes an act of intimidation in the context of, for example, a black student being admitted to a traditionally white school.
Conservatives and many Europeans, regardless of affiliation, see symbols as almost an end in of themselves. The swastika is banned nearly absolutely in many nations as a marker of those who are against what they stand for and always a symbol of intimidation or rebellion outside of approved entertainment and historical venues. Burning the national flag is not just the burning of a piece of cloth, but an attack upon everything that particular symbol has been invested with.
I started thinking about this because of the current news reports about the banning of the burqa ban in France. The American/British position would probably tend towards one of tolerance for people wanting to wear such a garment due to a notion of tolerance for clothing as a means of personal expression. I agree with that, but I also would agree to a degree with people who would say that it is a symbol of female oppression and used by men to dehumanize their wives and daughters. I think that it also may be true that in certain circumstances infinite tolerance of mode of dress might lend itself to a lack of societal cohesion. By having their women wear burqas the Muslims are separating themselves from the rest of a society. It makes it harder to integrate people into a society when they emphasize difference rather than minimizing it. But Mistique's line in X-Men comes to me, asked why she does not hide what she is all the time she replies, "Because we shouldn't have to."
I do not have any obvious answers. I think that it will work out in the end. There will be a long unpleasant societal conversation about the meaning of the burqa and how it should be treated alongside and part of trying to figure out what it means to be both French and also Muslim and/or from North Africa or the Middle East. It is unlikely to be an explicit conversation where at some conference people sit down and actually talk, but fought out through the press, public opinion, and the courts. There will probably be incidents of violence, though I doubt it will be widespread without some wider conflict to spur it on. Eventually one or both sides will have to capitulate some of their points and I have no idea which ones it will be.
It seems to me that the prevalent American liberal legal position is that symbols are mostly unimportant. Burning the flag is not in itself an act against the state. What a person wears does not matter and should not be regulated. On the the other hand liberals do seem to recognize that in certain contexts a symbol means more than just paint on a wall. A tee-shirt with a noose on it that a liberal would defend a person's right to wear in general becomes an act of intimidation in the context of, for example, a black student being admitted to a traditionally white school.
Conservatives and many Europeans, regardless of affiliation, see symbols as almost an end in of themselves. The swastika is banned nearly absolutely in many nations as a marker of those who are against what they stand for and always a symbol of intimidation or rebellion outside of approved entertainment and historical venues. Burning the national flag is not just the burning of a piece of cloth, but an attack upon everything that particular symbol has been invested with.
I started thinking about this because of the current news reports about the banning of the burqa ban in France. The American/British position would probably tend towards one of tolerance for people wanting to wear such a garment due to a notion of tolerance for clothing as a means of personal expression. I agree with that, but I also would agree to a degree with people who would say that it is a symbol of female oppression and used by men to dehumanize their wives and daughters. I think that it also may be true that in certain circumstances infinite tolerance of mode of dress might lend itself to a lack of societal cohesion. By having their women wear burqas the Muslims are separating themselves from the rest of a society. It makes it harder to integrate people into a society when they emphasize difference rather than minimizing it. But Mistique's line in X-Men comes to me, asked why she does not hide what she is all the time she replies, "Because we shouldn't have to."
I do not have any obvious answers. I think that it will work out in the end. There will be a long unpleasant societal conversation about the meaning of the burqa and how it should be treated alongside and part of trying to figure out what it means to be both French and also Muslim and/or from North Africa or the Middle East. It is unlikely to be an explicit conversation where at some conference people sit down and actually talk, but fought out through the press, public opinion, and the courts. There will probably be incidents of violence, though I doubt it will be widespread without some wider conflict to spur it on. Eventually one or both sides will have to capitulate some of their points and I have no idea which ones it will be.