Slaves to the Symbol

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As an English teacher, I spend quite a bit of time discussing the importance of context, of connotation, of how diction impacts how what we write or say is perceived and, by close association, how we are perceived. Symbols are a big part of that discussion. I find that most of my students are not only unaware of the fact that we are swimming in symbols and that we take a huge chunk of meaning from them, but also completely dismissive of any need to be able to recognize symbols and how those symbols shape the way they interact with the world.

Kids often see symbolism as something arbitrarily assigned to books they have to pretend to read in order to pass, by people with no real-world skill sets. "Right, we get the rose in The Scarlet Letter and the role of nature in Macbeth. We get it because we skimmed SparkNotes before class. Whatever."

And it isn't just students who have this problem. Consider this article in the Atlantic, proffered by another friend who, as the wing historian, shared a hallway with me at Aviano Air Base. The piece discusses Brad Paisley's relationship with the widely recognized Confederate battle flag. My friend passed it along the day I published It's My Right! and it comments on the connection between Paisley, the Confederate flag, and that post's element of offense giving and taking.



Coates, the writer of the Atlantic piece, does a great job explicating the flag's symbolism to modern African-Americans, whose North American history as an enslaved group makes the flag particularly repugnant. This is the kind of strength many of my non-African-American students don't grasp. "It's just a flag. Why are people getting worked up?" And yet these same students wear other symbols, often eager to get them permanently inked on their skins. It's important to get them to understand that everyone is moved by symbols because they need to see how they themselves are moved and often manipulated in order to understand exactly why "just a flag" can stir deadly passions.

This general blindness, a meta-emotional deficit if you will, causes us to see symbols only through the lens of our own experience and accept our reaction to the symbol as normal and natural and others' reactions, if those reactions don't coincide with ours, as trivial or ridiculous.

This alternative opinion of the Brad Paisley question opposes Coates' view and illustrates how those who embrace the flag see it.

Both are correct, at least from the perspective of decoding symbols. Both sides view the flag in their cultural context and, while recognizing opposing points view, are generally dismissive. How you view the Confederate flag, a priori, will make you nod your head in agreement with one or the other. Confirmation bias ensures that.

However, it isn't enough to recognize that we recognize others' bias. It isn't even enough that we recognize our own bias. If we stop there we risk stalling at a shoulder shrug and sleeping forever between the sheets of moral relativism. We still have to take action in the world, the best path we can discern. We have to judge and act on those judgements, to realize our human failings and prejudices and to move beyond them the best we can.

There is no moral ambiguity in the case of the Confederate flag. It so strongly represents verifiable and widespread oppression and murder to such a large group of people that to argue that admittedly, the flag does represent a bad idea, but it represents honorable qualities as well, is disingenuous. It is like asking a judge to grant mercy to a prolific serial rapist and killer of many because he was also a good father to a few. As a nation we have long agreed that enslaving and oppressing people is clearly wrong, whether you lived in antebellum Alabama or Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, whether you are selling human beings or cutting off little girls' noses.

What then, can be gleaned from this exercise? If you didn't listen in my class, you will walk away shrugging that symbols are there to keep English teachers in chicken and rice and will cheer when your team wins and be baffled or angry when other people bitch about your team's mascot. And you won't be alone.