On Symbols and Politics
In liberal
democracies we vote to elect
legislators and executives (mayors, governors, presidents). In many cities and states, we also vote to
decide certain policy questions (tax measures, initiatives, referenda, and
recalls).
We don’t “just”
vote—as if voting were a random event punctuating an otherwise apolitical
life. We talk to each other in many ways: questioning, arguing, cajoling,
threatening, pleading, etc. so that we may persuade each other (and be
persuaded) about political decisions.
Political discourse is sometimes explicit, as when a candidate for
office makes a speech asking for my vote.
Other times political speech is subtler, as when an academic reads a
professional paper on a supposedly neutral topic—a philosophy paper, let’s
say—but illustrates his academic point with politically suggestive examples.
Political speech includes slick television ads, low-tech
yard signs, protest marches, hunger strikes, twitter tweets, bumper stickers, public
vigils, blog posts, letters to the editor, and conversations around the dinner
table. And more. Human beings often invest very simple cues
with complex meaning; we make symbols. (Not only in politics; think of religious
symbols or sports team logos.)
Symbols are
conventional; that is, people have to agree that a particular symbol “stands
for” some idea. There is nothing
intrinsic to the shapes of the letters in the Latin alphabet that requires that
this shape stands for this sound. Greek and Cyrillic letters express similar
sounds with different shapes. But once
symbols have been given meaning, they give us powerful tools for political
speech.
Compared to
the letters of an alphabet, a political symbol may have a very short shelf
life. In 2016, the Trump campaign
adopted “Make America Great Again” as its theme, and MAGA caps have
proliferated across the country. In ten
years, though, even if Trump wins reelection this year, MAGA caps will be
trivia of political history, akin to “I Like Ike” pins from the 1950s.
Other
political symbols assert longer lasting influence. Every year, millions of school children are
instructed in the symbolism of fifty stars and thirteen stripes on the flag of
the United States. Understanding the
symbol, they will not be surprised if a fifty-first star is added some day (if
Puerto Rico were to be admitted to the Union, for example).
Consider
the Statue of Liberty, a fascinating political symbol. Intended to represent American values, it was
actually a gift from France. The size,
beauty and symbolism of the statue have made it an American icon; you can find
it on personal checks, business cards, and advertisements for assorted
companies. And yet, the overt message of
the Statue of Liberty, expressed in the poetry of Emma Lazarus (“Give me your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free . . .”) has at times
been contradicted by U.S. policies that discouraged immigration by foreigners
thought to be undesirable, whether that be Chinese in the 19th century
or Mexicans in the 21st.
Recently,
in the uproar over the phone-recorded murder of George Floyd, an African
American, by a white police officer, there has been a renewed push to take down
statues of Confederate leaders and to change the name of military bases named
for Confederates. The energy behind such
changes—and the energy resisting such changes—shows the importance of
symbolism. Symbols matter because people
care about them.
Why do people care about
Confederate symbols? Why do some oppose them
while others support them? People
understand the symbols in different ways.
One side says Confederate statues represent slavery; the other says they
celebrate history. If we inquire into
the actual history of Confederate symbols (that is, the history of the symbols
themselves, not the history they purport to express) the question becomes
clearer.
Confederate statues were erected
some decades after the Civil War, roughly from 1890-1920. This is the era when white voters in southern
states reasserted their political power in those states, what is often called
the “Jim Crow” era.
In the years immediately after the
war, the U.S. government enforced “reconstruction” on the former slave
states. Black men—citizens now—elected
Senators and Representatives to Washington.
But when reconstruction ended and Federal troops were removed from the
South, white people voted uniformly for white Democrats; the “solid South” was
created. Black men might vote in the
South—but very quickly new voting restrictions disenfranchised many of them. Not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was
it possible for African Americans to win statewide office in the South.
When they had achieved power, the
Jim Crow governments adopted symbols of the South they believed in. They erected statues for the leaders of their
heroic, but lost, cause. Along with the
statues came a revisionist history, in which most slave owners were kind to
their slaves and in which the Civil War was the “War for Southern
Independence.”
I submit that the actual history of
the symbols shows their intended meaning.
They were erected by white legislatures to honor white leaders who
fought a war against the United States, even though every member of those
legislatures had sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Never did the men who erected these statues
erect any statue to honor slaves who had been freed.
Consider the meaning of Confederate
statues to the people who first saw them, sometime in the Jim Crow era. To white people, they might have symbolized a
bygone world. But to Blacks, they had to
be symbols of white power, not just the power of slave owners back then but the
power of the white government now.
Doesn’t it seem strange that an
Army base, such as Fort Hood in Texas, should be named for a general who broke
his oath of allegiance to fight against the United States? “Gallant Hood of Texas,” John Bell Hood, did
his very best to kill U.S. soldiers. Why
should U.S. soldiers honor his memory?
