My argument is not in favor of any flags and slavery is not my measure- I find flags to be complex symbols frequently used to focus national aggression- you will not find me defending any of them as benign symbols- not the US flag- in any of it's manifestations, not any foreign flag, not the flag of the confederacy. The whole idea of flags is rooted in Feudalism or clannishness. These are not inclusive symbols but instead are symbols of domination and in particular symbols of male aggressive conquest. (You don't find women hauling flags around- unless of course men are painting them waving flags over bloody battlefields- frequently scantily clad.)
I think a distinction can be made between archetypical symbols- the cross, the Ankh, the 5 and six pointed star, the swastika etc. and non-archetypical nationalistic emblems designed to focus, refine, delineate narrow nationalistic modalities.
In other words- the simple archetypical symbols have a Jungian resonance in the human consciousness across borders and nationalities while less important and much more forgettable symbols (like flags) have only an ephemeral historical significance.
That is all I was trying to say. I am not making a judgment about the rightness or wrongness of the Southern cause- I find it difficult, as a 20th century woman, to evaluate the conduct of those in other centuries, or to judge their conduct- I find it difficult even to evaluate and judge conduct in my own century. I am not judging per se, but merely giving my opinion of the various values I place on different types of symbolism- and I happen to find a transcendent beauty in simple archetypical symbols that I do not find in flags. It is probably just a personal preference. I do not DISLIKE flags- but I find them to be less universal, and thus less affecting (for ME, personally). |
