And the
first result of that is, as he rightly says, a chaos of individualism
and warring sects. The disintegration of a symbol, like Holy Russia,
or the Iron Diaz, is always the beginning of a long upheaval.
These great symbols possess by transference all the minute and
detailed loyalties of an ancient and stereotyped society. They evoke
the feeling that each individual has for the landscape, the furniture,
the faces, the memories that are his first, and in a static society,
his only reality. That core of images and devotions without which he
is unthinkable to himself, is nationality. The great symbols take up
these devotions, and can arouse them without calling forth the
primitive images. The lesser symbols of public debate, the more casual
chatter of politics, are always referred back to these proto-symbols,
and if possible associated with them. The question of a proper fare on
a municipal subway is symbolized as an issue between the People and
the Interests, and then the People is inserted in the symbol American,
so that finally in the heat of a campaign, an eight cent fare becomes
unAmerican. The Revolutionary fathers died to prevent it. Lincoln
suffered that it might not come to pass, resistance to it was implied
in the death of those who sleep in France.
Because of its power to siphon emotion out of distinct ideas, the
symbol is both a mechanism of solidarity, and a mechanism of
exploitation.
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