Friday, September 17, 2010
Symbols and culture
In class we talked about symbols and someone said it is hard to tell what is not a symbol and anything could be a symbol. In my opinion it is hard to talk about symbols without two things. One is culture and another one is context. For example, when you see a picture of turtle on somebody's birthday in China it is a symbol of longevity while in the US the story of the tortoise and the hair it is a symbol of perseverance. When we see a turtle we have as pet at home, it is just a turtle. So it is hard to explain a symbol without talking about culture and context.
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That's a very good point, Nanxi!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Nanxi. I spoke about this in class but I would like to share more details with you in order to show the path that I followed to arrive to such a conclusion. Symbol could be defined as sensitive representation of a reality. Such Representation of Reality is subjective if we take into account that from the point of view of the personal experience there is no access to absolute knowledge or absolute comprehension of the phenomena. Therefore, symbol is subjective because its meaning is based in the personal experience, or as you says “it is hard to explain a symbol without talking about culture and context”. Another way of saying is the expression “ the map is not the territory”. Agustin Fornell
ReplyDeleteSymbol refers to something unknown, while sign refers to something known. Renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung distinguishes symbols from signs. Living symbols become signs when read as referring to something known; as, for instance, the cross, to the Church or to a historical crucifixion. A sign becomes, on the other hand, a symbol when it is read as pointing to an unknown--the inconceivable God!
ReplyDeleteSo it depends in which context the word "symbol" is used. Without context, it is just a sign. And the context is determined by culture.