callei
Extreme Fanatic   Posts: 759 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 7/2/2004 at 06:43 AM |
For those that want a brief history of the symbols:
http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~preety/history/swastika.html
and on the semiotics thing, there are intelectual responses, emotional
responses, and associative responses to symbols.
Red lights might be an example of the first, pinks hearts and cupids on a
card might be another, and reaction to anhk pendants could be the last one.
[Edited on 2/7/2004 by callei] ____________________
Real goths wear silver and crosses to keep the werewolves and vampires
away.
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Monolycus
Fanatic   Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 7/2/2004 at 07:55 AM |
Oh, for fuck's sake! It's exactly this kind of escalating bullshit that
keeps me from posting and submitting more often than I do. Hint taken and
later days.
~M.
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Rogue
Member   Posts: 199 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 7/2/2004 at 11:13 AM |
...so I'm guessing that would be an emotional response then (usually the
phrase "Fuck's sake" *signifies* an emotional response)? Since I have had
significantly less caffeine than our esteemed lupine seems to have, allow
me to elabourate.
I stand a bit corrected, Mistress Callei, although that is largely because
I neglected to explain my point adequately (it was, after all, a picture,
and long replies are tabu).
I wanted to point out, as you have here, that semiotics is not just the
emotional response to a symbol. The responses themselves make up the
collective semiotic reference, that is to say, "what the sign *means*, what
it signifies". The red light example would be a sign that signifies
(intellectually) "stop" and the larger idea of the law enforcement system.
On an emotional level it would signify frustration, interruption, and the
fear of injury (as when red lights are not obeyed) or arrest (when
frustration overcomes obedience and the light is run). An associative
response could be the idea of cooperation that keeps the road systems
moving. I also associate them with a song I heard once called "I like
traffic lights", but that is another story. There is still more to it than
this, since some signs have many levels of things they signify. (To
further complicate this, things that are signified can also be signs
themselves...)
Swastikas are adequately explained in the link Callei posted, and I would
further point out that Madame Blavatsky was uninvolved with the selection
of the swastika as Germany's symbol. Personally, I do not know that she
used it for anything aside from the extensive studying and travelling she
did throughout India and Asia researching spirituality. While it is true
that she was a founder of the Theosophical Society and that the
Theosophical Society influenced the occult side of the Third Reich, that is
where the connection ends. There were other individuals in the Society
that had far more influence on the Reich than she, although I still believe
that none of them were on the flag committee. I don't view the Reich as
ruining it as a symbol (although significance is subjective, and the masses
may equate the symbol with deeds attributed to the Reich (another topic on
which I am long-winded)), any more than this country has made the eagle
into a symbol of war and not just power.
On the subject of fascism, the Nazi Party was not fascist, nor was Germany
or Hitler or pretty much anyone but Benito Mussolini and the people with
which he was hanged. Hitler didn't actually approve of Mussolini's system,
but the alliance was deemed beneficial for the time as the alliance with
Russia was for a somewhat briefer time.
Amusingly, this discussion arose from assumptions made which were emotional
responses to signs, people equating Nazis with swastikas and Blavatsky and
fascism, and by doing so demonstrating the unfortunate side-effect of
semiotic relations between sign and signified...that this often leads to
over-simplification as many symbols share a common set of meanings and
associations and thus they become equivalent in the mind since identity is
largely based upon meaning.
Thanks to Callei for starting this forum and trying to bring some fact and
order to an otherwise unproductive discussion.
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callei
Extreme Fanatic Posts: 759 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 7/2/2004 at 11:50 AM |
I wish it was that thoughtful on my part. I jsut wanted to keep the forums
from breaking again. LONG posts there can and do break the galleries.
People like to play in the galleries so we try to keep them open.
as to the symbols in question, well the happy "starting something new"
version is all over the place in other parts of the world. I know hippies
with it tatooed on them. Its always fun to see someone spazz when they see
someone with dark skin and a swastika tattoo. No really it is.
As for the interaction of symbols and language and people, that is way
toooo big for someone with whiplash to talk about with any clarity. All i
really want to say about it is that there are no universal symbols, at
least none that denote and connote the same things to any judgeable size of
random people. Inside of small groups or groups of people that choose that
association of ideas with a symbol, then yes.
and the swastika is one of the better examples of that. and why its always
thugs, or thuggees that try to kill hitlers foot soldiers in obscure
European movies. ____________________
Real goths wear silver and crosses to keep the werewolves and vampires
away.
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feralucce
Extreme Fanatic  Posts: 1810 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 7/2/2004 at 12:02 PM |
| *completely bewildered by Mono's reaction...* someone care to fill in
backstory so's I can get the 911? ____________________
The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
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feralucce
Extreme Fanatic Posts: 1810 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 7/2/2004 at 12:46 PM |
ok... found the offending moments... this is a good conversation...
for the record batavsky was kinna cool... kinna scary, but cool ____________________
The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 8/2/2004 at 06:21 AM |
callei: Thank you for the link... hopefully it will impact somebody along
the way.
Feral: You wouldn't have picked up the "offending moments" from any of the
text itself. It involves pathological disingenuousness, neurotic
jealousies, crippling overcompensations, and my own reluctant acceptance
that these factors exclude certain people who I have wasted far too much
time with from ever forming close and honest reciprocal relationships. I
should have vented my frustration more privately, but I find I can no
longer give a shit about mending fences and detest the dawning realisation
that I am simply being tweaked. I do apologise for the confusion to the
innocent passersby.
~M.
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