Idk, I think its meaning has been pretty abstracted by this point. Not unlike the floppy disk becoming the generic symbol for saving something.
For instance, I bought a two-pack of patches once, where one was a 3 arrows, and the other was a hammer and sickle.
Hell, even when it was in use by the Iron Front, the symbols meaning was varied and contested.
To some it stood for anti-fascism, anti-monarchism, and anti-Communism, to others that third arrow meant anti-capitalism.
To others still, it stood for the three areas of working class struggle: political, economic, and physical. Or sometimes even Liberty, Equally, and Fraternity, the slogan of the French Revolution
Who has exclusive, absolute-right, absolute-possession, with no other having any validity to have their-own meaning for it?
The swastika ( that is a Sanskrit word ) is “claimed” by nazis.
“blue” is claimed by depression ( I’m feeling blue ) AND by happiness ( happy as a clear blue sky ).
Hindus, Hopis, Buddhists, & Navahos, and many others, used the swastika for centuries before the nazis & the Jews claimed that the ONLY valid association for it is nazi.
Disinformational-hogwash: others are valid, too.
The same is true of words, the same is true of symbols.
NO “nation” has universally-exclusive possession/ownership of ANY symbol.
Don’t let the ideologues who claim otherwise stand on false-ground.
The best example of it that I ever came across was a Hindu/Buddhist symbol, but being interpreted by a European:
The symbol was a person standing on the corpse of another person, in this case a “man” standing on a “woman”, & the European was adamant that this was misogyny-intent.
What it WAS, was a Soul, who had conquered animal-desire, & earned its completeness, what Buddhists call Enlightenment.
What that symbol meant through eyes holding to DIFFERENT symbol-interpretation-systems, was different meanings.
But NObody has the “exclusive validity” to somehow magically-negate all other cultures, all other symbol-systems, etc.
Is the “star of david” a symbol of terrorism?
Ask the Palestinians, & see what they say.
But then ask the Buddhists who used the same symbol to represent the “6 realms”: of 3 unfortunate-realms { hell-sentience ; desolation/purgatory-sentience, & mere-plant/mere-animal sentience } & the 3 fortunate-realms { middle-realm/human-category ; demigods/“angels” ( note the old term “fallen angels” for “demons”: in the old way, both were called “angels”, it was a term of MAGNITUDE, not a term of alignment ) ; “gods”/archangels }
Same symbol, totally-different-meaning.
That is consistently true.
Please understand, I’m backing the person I’m replying-to, & contradicting others in this discussion.
There is no inherently-valid-exclusive-possession of any worldly-symbol, that universe bows to.
Not for any worldly-symbol, not for any worldly-word.
Oh, & the swastika, comically, is simply what the Big Dipper looks-like, when diagrammed during the 4 “points” of the year: the 2 solstices & the 2 equinoxes.
So anybody claiming that it has “inherent” meaning, is speaking idiocy.
Every 26-millenia, Earth’s polar-axis points at the current North Star, & during those centuries/millenia, the Big Dipper forms that pattern, those 4 times of the year…
& 13-millenia from now, it’ll be completely irrelevant: nobody’ll be seeing that happen, then another 13-millenia later, it’ll be back happening.
Anybody claiming that some symbol has only ONE valid-interpretation, is just demonstrating their cultural-narcissism.
I can’t even think of any symbol which can’t have opposite-interpretation, from some other culture’s perspective.
The garland-of-skulls worn by some Buddhas in Vajrayana, e.g. … in my religion it means that the Soul has taken all the worth of those lives, symbolized by no-flesh-left, ( previous human-category-life & 49x bardo-lives, & possibly 1-more human-category-life ), & has shed getting-caught-in-universes forever: enlightenment/nirvana: death itself cannot ever touch one’s awareness, then.
It could be interpreted as each-skull-representing-a-shedding-of-another-layer-of-“self”, of a Continuum/Soul, until that Continuum/Soul finally is free of that delusion/mental-defect.
Other cultures look at that & presume monstrous human-sacrifices/slaughter/evil.
Diversity-of-meaning’s both real & valid.
Ideologues who pretend that it isn’t valid… that ONLY their-meaning-to-symbol-map is “valid”… can go eat rocks.
It isn’t only meaning-drift that is valid, it is that what something means in one’s-own culture DOESN’T somehow define all other people’s experience in this world:
there is meaning-drift in time, AND there is meaning-drift in space, is what I’m probably blundering.
& the diversity can be incomprehensibly great, & it is itself.
Well the anti-communist ones at least. I see it as a symbol of anarchist leftism. I guess it varies by person and how they wear it.
Idk, I think its meaning has been pretty abstracted by this point. Not unlike the floppy disk becoming the generic symbol for saving something.
For instance, I bought a two-pack of patches once, where one was a 3 arrows, and the other was a hammer and sickle.
Hell, even when it was in use by the Iron Front, the symbols meaning was varied and contested.
To some it stood for anti-fascism, anti-monarchism, and anti-Communism, to others that third arrow meant anti-capitalism.
To others still, it stood for the three areas of working class struggle: political, economic, and physical. Or sometimes even Liberty, Equally, and Fraternity, the slogan of the French Revolution
Who “owns” a symbol?
Who has exclusive, absolute-right, absolute-possession, with no other having any validity to have their-own meaning for it?
The swastika ( that is a Sanskrit word ) is “claimed” by nazis.
“blue” is claimed by depression ( I’m feeling blue ) AND by happiness ( happy as a clear blue sky ).
Hindus, Hopis, Buddhists, & Navahos, and many others, used the swastika for centuries before the nazis & the Jews claimed that the ONLY valid association for it is nazi.
Disinformational-hogwash: others are valid, too.
The same is true of words, the same is true of symbols.
NO “nation” has universally-exclusive possession/ownership of ANY symbol.
Don’t let the ideologues who claim otherwise stand on false-ground.
The best example of it that I ever came across was a Hindu/Buddhist symbol, but being interpreted by a European:
The symbol was a person standing on the corpse of another person, in this case a “man” standing on a “woman”, & the European was adamant that this was misogyny-intent.
What it WAS, was a Soul, who had conquered animal-desire, & earned its completeness, what Buddhists call Enlightenment.
What that symbol meant through eyes holding to DIFFERENT symbol-interpretation-systems, was different meanings.
But NObody has the “exclusive validity” to somehow magically-negate all other cultures, all other symbol-systems, etc.
Is the “star of david” a symbol of terrorism?
Ask the Palestinians, & see what they say.
But then ask the Buddhists who used the same symbol to represent the “6 realms”: of 3 unfortunate-realms { hell-sentience ; desolation/purgatory-sentience, & mere-plant/mere-animal sentience } & the 3 fortunate-realms { middle-realm/human-category ; demigods/“angels” ( note the old term “fallen angels” for “demons”: in the old way, both were called “angels”, it was a term of MAGNITUDE, not a term of alignment ) ; “gods”/archangels }
Same symbol, totally-different-meaning.
That is consistently true.
Please understand, I’m backing the person I’m replying-to, & contradicting others in this discussion.
There is no inherently-valid-exclusive-possession of any worldly-symbol, that universe bows to.
Not for any worldly-symbol, not for any worldly-word.
Oh, & the swastika, comically, is simply what the Big Dipper looks-like, when diagrammed during the 4 “points” of the year: the 2 solstices & the 2 equinoxes.
So anybody claiming that it has “inherent” meaning, is speaking idiocy.
Every 26-millenia, Earth’s polar-axis points at the current North Star, & during those centuries/millenia, the Big Dipper forms that pattern, those 4 times of the year…
& 13-millenia from now, it’ll be completely irrelevant: nobody’ll be seeing that happen, then another 13-millenia later, it’ll be back happening.
Anybody claiming that some symbol has only ONE valid-interpretation, is just demonstrating their cultural-narcissism.
I can’t even think of any symbol which can’t have opposite-interpretation, from some other culture’s perspective.
The garland-of-skulls worn by some Buddhas in Vajrayana, e.g. … in my religion it means that the Soul has taken all the worth of those lives, symbolized by no-flesh-left, ( previous human-category-life & 49x bardo-lives, & possibly 1-more human-category-life ), & has shed getting-caught-in-universes forever: enlightenment/nirvana: death itself cannot ever touch one’s awareness, then.
It could be interpreted as each-skull-representing-a-shedding-of-another-layer-of-“self”, of a Continuum/Soul, until that Continuum/Soul finally is free of that delusion/mental-defect.
Other cultures look at that & presume monstrous human-sacrifices/slaughter/evil.
Diversity-of-meaning’s both real & valid.
Ideologues who pretend that it isn’t valid… that ONLY their-meaning-to-symbol-map is “valid”… can go eat rocks.
It isn’t only meaning-drift that is valid, it is that what something means in one’s-own culture DOESN’T somehow define all other people’s experience in this world:
there is meaning-drift in time, AND there is meaning-drift in space, is what I’m probably blundering.
& the diversity can be incomprehensibly great, & it is itself.
_ /\ _