More than one way to look at this?

July 29, 2005 9:05 PM

These people are apparently unaware that the swastika was not a Nazi symbol in 1880. Is there more than one way to look at this? One Jew's perspective.
posted by spock (181 comments total)

There's certainly more than one way to look at it, but you can't be surprised that us Jews might not want them adorning our floors. WW2 wasn't that long ago, and it's not like reclaiming a bad or derogatory word (as in the n-word or "queer")--it's shorthand for certain things, and still in use by neo-nazis and stuff for that clear meaning it has for us in the west--not a benign or "good luck" meaning.
posted by amberglow at 9:13 PM on July 29, 2005

You know how Kylie Minogue co-opted "The Locomotion" and ruined it forever?

Yeah. It's sort of like that.
posted by wakko at 9:15 PM on July 29, 2005

One more way to look at it.
posted by dhruva at 9:17 PM on July 29, 2005

As for it's place in music, you've got it all wrong man, the swastika is clearly all about punk
posted by bud_fles at 9:23 PM on July 29, 2005

Complimentary Manwoman link.
posted by Balisong at 9:26 PM on July 29, 2005

Swastikarchitecture
posted by growabrain at 9:30 PM on July 29, 2005

I wouldn't even hide it in that apartment, though I'd disclaim my guests. The swastika is a pretty symbol. (I'm half Jewish)
posted by abcde at 9:57 PM on July 29, 2005

apparently they are aware: "Listen, maybe if it was 1910 and we were all Hindu, I'd have been psyched! But we're not! Done!"
posted by jjoye at 10:12 PM on July 29, 2005

A self-Godwinized link! Cool!
posted by RichAromas at 10:19 PM on July 29, 2005

If the apartment was otherwise fine I'd cover the damn swastika with a rug or furniture to hide it from my guests. It's not like the symbol itself has any real metaphysical power for good or bad; it's just a geometrical shape people have overstuffed with meaning, all of which are optional. That's right, optional: you don't have to be all bummed out by a geometric shape if you really don't want to be.

Still, I'm not completely non-neurotic about symbols myself: I hate Christian-type crosses, whether they depict a dying/dead man nailed there or not, because as far as I'm concerned those things have never meant anything but degradation, torture and murder. Those I'd cover so I won't have to see them.
posted by davy at 10:40 PM on July 29, 2005

Well. Hmm, Davy...
posted by longsleeves at 10:49 PM on July 29, 2005

Hmm. Those are actually really nice-looking floors with the darker inlay. But what do I know, I still drink Carlsberg. They might have redesigned the labels but the elephants are still wearing their granite good fortune symbols.
posted by dabitch at 10:55 PM on July 29, 2005

the question you have to ask yourself is do you want to cue up Wikipedia every time your dinner guests recoil in horror at the sight of your hardwood?
eh... I'm sorry but I'm really picky about my friends, If I had to cue up the damn wikipedia for that they probably wouldn't be my pals. I don't know anyone who is unaware of the fact that the swastica is an ancient symbol. Well, maybe my niece but she is only four.
posted by dabitch at 11:00 PM on July 29, 2005

swastika.Gosh that looked dumb with a c
posted by dabitch at 11:09 PM on July 29, 2005

Yes, the swatika is an ancient symbol. What's funny is that the floor probably wasn't made with any symbol in mind, good or evil. It's like a Greek key design, a Hopi sun symbol, or a Rorschach test. It's not meant to convey National Socialism, and it's neither meant to convey anything else. Maybe if the floor were made by actual Nazis, or if this were the former apartment of Charles Manson, it might carry some historical meaning, but this is silly. Some people see the Virgen de Guadalupe on a tortilla, so what do I know?
posted by krinklyfig at 11:15 PM on July 29, 2005

some shapes are EVIL!
posted by Satapher at 11:24 PM on July 29, 2005

Maybe you're right krinklyfig, and it wasn't mean to be anything but a geometrical figure. I love nice parquet floors with details, I'd so adore to have a room with the greek key design depicted at the bottom here. How much was that apartment again? :)
posted by dabitch at 11:30 PM on July 29, 2005

I think the swastika has been stained forever, and I imagine that despite the "one Jew's" perspective; there are several million others that differ greatly in view. Very uncomfortable imagery.
posted by buzzman at 11:45 PM on July 29, 2005

My uncle Ad, the Wagner fan, the one with the Chaplin moustache, wears one around his neck. Or not.

What other harmless bits of culture (other than the name Adolf/Adolph, the little moustache, the composer Wagner, and the swastika) have acquired a bad smell by Nazi association?
posted by pracowity at 11:53 PM on July 29, 2005

The runes. Especially Sól (due to SS using that) and the odal rune is mighty iffy these days.
posted by dabitch at 12:04 AM on July 30, 2005

I think it would be worthwhile on the part of the management company to redo the floors. No normal person wants to look at a swastika. First of all, they're depressing because they remind you of inhuman atrocities. Secondly, they're irritating because New Age schizo-affectives like them and have to explain how swastikas are actually good.
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:46 AM on July 30, 2005

In quilting this is a problem too as swastika was a popular quilting pattern in the US, picked up from Native American designs for good luck. All across America there are examples of great-great-etc. grandmother's quilt that has to be kept in a box. Here is one in the Nevada State Museum.
posted by loafingcactus at 1:53 AM on July 30, 2005

Wow. That quilt is really amazingly creepy.
It sucks that such a graphically common and usually positive symbol is going to be associated with the horrors of the Holocaust for the century or so, but damn. Some things you can't shake off, and if your symbol gets appropriated by Hitler, you're better off just washing your hands of it.
In this particular case, I don't think it's odd that the couple commented on it; I'm amazed, however, that the landlord hadn't already dealt with them, or didn't immediately assure them that the offending symbols would be removed. I'm sure it's not helping the apartment go any faster.
posted by 235w103 at 2:19 AM on July 30, 2005

Do you honestly think that floor is 115 years old?
I am thinking... maybe.. MAYBE 50...

And what's the matter with the owner of that building that he thinks that is OK today? It would cost perhaps a few hundred to lift out the corner piece and replace it. Why haven't they done that in ..oh say- the past 60 years? Could it be that the floor is new than that? Could it be something the owner likes? I am betting that the owners are not Hindu.
posted by a3hourtour at 4:11 AM on July 30, 2005

The link "One Jew's perspective" mentioned Microsoft making availible a utility to remove the symbol from it's bookshelf font. That wasn't what happened with me - Windows auto-update lied that it was a Critical Update to my system, and tried to automatically degrade the font - without explaining what it was doing or why. That really pissed me off. The swastika is a symbol with immense recent historical significance, in addition to it's larger history. Bookshelf 7 is supposed to be a collection of symbols. Windows and Windows auto-update both know I don't live in Germany. Microsoft should not be trying to trick me into degrading fonts, teaching me to nolonger trust their BS explanations of what their updates are doing and how critical they are to the security and functioning of my system. "Trusted Computing" my ass.
posted by -harlequin- at 4:35 AM on July 30, 2005

I'd inset some decorative ceramic tile in those spaces. I'm not remotely jewish, but that symbol disturbs me. Good case study in pop semiotics.
posted by craniac at 5:11 AM on July 30, 2005

A self-Godwinized link!

Not. Even. Close. Is that the most abused term on the internets?
posted by psmealey at 5:23 AM on July 30, 2005

As someone who has happily had a swastika hanging on his wall as part of a Balinese Hindu calendar, I find the continued -- almost willful -- ignorance of the pre-Nazi history of the symbol a bit tedious.

Read the links:

The discovery of the Indo-European language group in the 1800s led to a great effort by archaeologists to link the pre-history of European peoples to the ancient Aryans. Following his discovery of objects bearing the swastika in the ruins of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann consulted two leading Sanskrit scholars of the day, Emile Burnouf and Max Miller. Schliemann concluded that the swastika was a specifically Aryan symbol. This idea was taken up by many other writers, and the swastika quickly became popular in the West, appearing in many designs from the 1880s to the 1920s.

An elegant solution for the landlord or tenant would be to reproduce the Wikipedia article, frame it and hang it near the 'offending' design.

As an alternative, the reponse to 'Oh my God! Why have you got a Nazi symbol on your floor man?!' is: 'Because you're an idiot.'

Learning from history is a good way to help us from repeating the mistakes of the past. Just make sure that it's the whole history, not just the juicy part...
posted by i_cola at 5:36 AM on July 30, 2005

thanks i_cola
posted by dabitch at 5:40 AM on July 30, 2005

God, this stuff pisses me off - over the last 25 years I've probably had idiots accusing me and the groups I hang out with of being nazis / racist / anti-semitic / ... about once a month or so. But, hey, people are morons - after the bombs in London, a Sikh Gurdwara was attacked, apparently because people can't separate the idea of an asian 'temple' from Islamic terrorism.

Quite frankly, if no-one cares about the wooden floor, paint over it or whatever, but leave those who are using it in its original sense alone.

Why don't you have the same attitude to the cross, which is inextriicably linked with the KKK in parts of the US south?
posted by daveg at 5:45 AM on July 30, 2005

dabitch: Hopefully it might make up a little for insulting your choice of work in the Adidas thread ;-)
posted by i_cola at 6:24 AM on July 30, 2005

Well, I don't think the landlord should redo the floors because of this. I see the beauty in the symbol, and why leave it to the Nazi's memory in perpetuity.
If anything, greater adoption would soften it's meaning. (maybe it'd be better to wait a few more decades for memory to fade further...)
posted by Busithoth at 6:37 AM on July 30, 2005

I remember being in an Asian Philosophy class as an undergrad. We were shown a film and in it, I noticed some swastikas about. After the film, I asked about it. And for reasons I still can't figure out, some guy in front of me, turned and gave me the nastiest look.

Anyway, it was explained to me that the symbol has a long history.

Later, as a vegetarian living in Taiwan, I'd sometimes grab a bowl of instant noodles from the 7-11. The vegetarian ones were identified by the swastika on the label - associated with buddhism, I think. My friend and I used to call them the "fascist noodles".
posted by rexruff at 7:24 AM on July 30, 2005

So if I understand this correctly, Nazis now have time-travel technology which they are using to remake hardwood floors with offensive patterns all across the time-scape? We need to do something about that. Someone call Jean-Claude Van Damme.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:30 AM on July 30, 2005

As I understand it, Godwin's law says that as the length of a discussion increases, the probablility of comparisons involving Hitler or Nazis approaches 1. That was the sense in which I was using it. I was not implying the codicil that once such a reference had occurred, the thread had degenerated and future discussion was worthless. /derail
posted by RichAromas at 8:02 AM on July 30, 2005

But it's still in use as a symbol of hate--if it was just because of those Nazis in WW2, it'd be one thing, but since everyday the evil associations are being perpetuated by its continued use, the meaning it has here is still a terrible and hateful one.

Many symbols have been cast off throughout history. I really don't get why this one needs to be reclaimed.
posted by amberglow at 8:08 AM on July 30, 2005

I find the continued -- almost willful -- ignorance of the pre-Nazi history of the symbol a bit tedious.

Yes, and we're all ignorant or retarded for finding it inexorably linked with its most recent usage. What's so great about the ancient Indo-Europeans that you'd want to work one of their glyphs into your decor? If you want to be pretentious, or pick up a badly-understood "old religion" to piss off your parents, find one whose imagery wasn't also co-opted by a group of mass-murdering thugs.

Know what the best use ever of the swastika was? That film where the Russians flew it right the fuck off the top of the Reichstag. Makes me seriously a little teary every time I see it.
If you're a hindu or a Navajo, knock yourself out with the swastikas. If you're a white person who wants to display swasitika you are one of these things: a nazi, a pretentious dick, a secret Aryan supremecist with a better sense of PR than a loud skinhead, or a mentally ill person who wants the attention afforded by following an ostensibly old religion that has, in reality, been largely lost and had the huge gaps filled in with made-up shit.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:10 AM on July 30, 2005

Whew, people flipping out over a geometric shape. Hitler should have used † instead.
posted by j.p. Hung at 8:26 AM on July 30, 2005

Hey Curley, a shape in a floor pattern is not a "display" of anything but someones artistic inclination. Calm the fuck down and put a carpet over it.
posted by j.p. Hung at 8:29 AM on July 30, 2005

i_cola: An elegant solution for the landlord or tenant would be to reproduce the Wikipedia article, frame it and hang it near the 'offending' design.

This is how some buildings in my community built in the 1900s deal with the issue. Not using wikipedia but a shorter text.

amberglow: But it's still in use as a symbol of hate--if it was just because of those Nazis in WW2, it'd be one thing, but since everyday the evil associations are being perpetuated by its continued use, the meaning it has here is still a terrible and hateful one.

I suspect there are quite a few more Hindus and Buddhists living in the United States and Western Europe than neo-nazis. The UK census suggests about 1 million combined Hindus and Buddhists, and the US census cites slightly less.

Mayor Curley But it's still in use as a symbol of hate--if it was just because of those Nazis in WW2, it'd be one thing, but since everyday the evil associations are being perpetuated by its continued use, the meaning it has here is still a terrible and hateful one.

Funny that, I didn't think that a religious group with more than a billion in India alone suddenly vanished in 1939.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:33 AM on July 30, 2005

Well, then, let them sell it to a Hindu or Buddhist couple. Very few large apartments in brownstones in Cobble Hill go unrented, and this one is actually relatively reasonably priced, considering the insane market here.

You can't knock us for not wanting to live with a symbol of our attempted extermination inlaid in our floors.

And would people have the same reaction if burning crosses were inlaid on the floors?
posted by amberglow at 8:44 AM on July 30, 2005

I am with the Mayor on this one. No matter what its prior uses the swastika is today primarily associated with the Nazi extermination of the Jews. You can say its not all you want, and you can point to wiki articles all you want, but when most people see the swastika they think Nazi, even when they know perfectly well its history and uses well prior to WWII.
posted by caddis at 8:52 AM on July 30, 2005

Amber, we aren't knocking you or Curley for not wanting to live with it...you simply don't have to. Don't have it in your home, don't look at old quilts, don't follow old religions. TURN YOUR HEAD AWAY. Would you really ban a geometric shape forever? If so, what other things are offending you that should be removed from society all together, and why stop with shapes?

and Caddis...yes, I think nazi too when I see the shape. But you know what? Take a black cross, surround it with a red circle and you'll think nazi too. The mind is going to make certain associations regardless of the intent behind a shape. It's a shape.
posted by j.p. Hung at 8:55 AM on July 30, 2005

Because that shape is still used--here in this country, today--to inspire terror and fear in people--that's why. When that stops and there are generations who grow up not even knowing what it means, then it can be reclaimed as a decorative element. Until then, not.

Again, why do people want to reclaim it? There is a wide array of shapes, and we can create new ones anytime we want.
posted by amberglow at 9:00 AM on July 30, 2005

Is not removing it from a beatiful old parquet floor reclaiming it?
posted by dabitch at 9:06 AM on July 30, 2005

why not? forbidding shapes is fucking lame -- a entire species of 8 yr olds
posted by Satapher at 9:06 AM on July 30, 2005

your flag decal wont get you into heaven anymore
posted by Satapher at 9:06 AM on July 30, 2005

amberglow,

last i checked, a burning cross had nearly zero historical meaning before some dipshit decided it was a good way to scare people in the american south. it is specific.


as much as some people would like to co-opt the swastika, it will remain but a graphical symbol and a symbol is a symbol and it nearly always means different things to different people so if you don't like an apartment, don't rent the fucking thing.

and when you talk of extermination, be very careful as you bring up the dreaded pot meet kettle argument.

the apartment has some challenges, just like my bedroom has a picture window to the living area. odd but manageable, i deal with it just fine.
posted by coyote's bark at 9:09 AM on July 30, 2005

amberglows been PERSONALLY moved by the horrors hes seen on the History Channel... LETS BE A BIT FUCKING POLITE OKAY?
posted by Satapher at 9:11 AM on July 30, 2005

And would people have the same reaction if burning crosses were inlaid on the floors?

Admittedly, I'd they they were religious nuts...
posted by dirigibleman at 9:12 AM on July 30, 2005

Amber, during the spanish inquisition, the cross was as widely feared and reviled as the swastika is today. It's still around, still relevant, and yes, in some cases, still invokes fear and terror in some people. Do we just create a new cross because a certain percentage of the population has a problem with it?

You can't have it both ways. Destroying the shape will destroy the memory, which will destroy the reality of what happened...and I think the holocaust is something that needs to be remembered lest it be repeated. Inventing new shapes because certain ones offend you is anathema to a free society.

Much like the reviled cross of the middle ages, the swastika will eventually find a home in the design world - free from it's nazi roots. Until then, let it remind us of what happens when a nation lets a madman run rampant.
posted by j.p. Hung at 9:16 AM on July 30, 2005

jp-

the swastika's ROOTS have nothing to do with national socialism, but actually something about as far from it as possible..

not that there is anything wrong with that....
posted by coyote's bark at 9:20 AM on July 30, 2005

I was under the impression that when the Nazis co-opted the symbol, they changed it's orientation. Didn't they mirror it and then rotate it 45 degrees or something?
I think it's that knowledge that keeps me from flipping out when I walk past the Lord and Taylor's in my neighborhood. They've got connected swastikas as a motif around the metope of the whole building.

But, to be honest, despite its original meanings, the swastika still makes me nervous. For whatever meanings it holds for its creators, due to its most recent and notorious incarnation, it remains in my consciousness and awareness as the symbol of the evil that nearly exterminated my people.

That being said, it's pretty easy to distinguish the Nazi's interpretation of the swastika from the decorative or religious usages of it. I mean, I see it in ornamentation and architecture all the time and know, without having a conniption, that it's innocuous. But that doesn't mean that I'm not reminded of the evil that appropriated it.

And for all of you "just-a-shape" folks, nothing is ever "just" itself. Through everything that is made, the designers send a message. Every object, however simple, is full of information. Sometimes the information is more about taste, other times its more about ability or technology. Every chair will tell you about the history of chairs.
Symbols are selected or created for their resonance and relevance by their users. If it's prominent, they can't help but be inexorably linked to the history and actions of those who employ them. Do you think that any company will ever use a diagonal E again after the Enron disaster? Likewise, can those golden arches ever be used for another purpose without reminding people of burgers?
Symbols are even designed to invoke the cumulative history of the symbol and the user. The American flag, you might say, is just an arraignment of red, white, and blue shapes, like any other flag. But in whatever context it is used, is carries the event with it. Wherever it flies, at the same time, it's being folded into a triangle, draped over a coffin, at the head of an army, on the sleeve of a uniform, at a baseball game, being burned in the streets, and a symbol of horror to those who have been given cause to fear by our country.
Take eagles and wreathes, for example. By using them in our national imagery, we're directly referencing the imagery of the Roman empire. We're drawing a direct line through history that associates us with them. The Nazis did the same thing. They illustrated a connection between themselves and the Roman empire. They took many of the same symbols that we did. In many respects, they were even more theatrical and blatant about it. They traced the lineage of the swastika as a symbol of fortune, power, luck, and blessing and self applied it. As it turned out, their actions were far more notorious than any people who had previously used the swastika as a nearly exclusive banner of their reign. Their history will permanently reside with the swastika for centuries to come. Maybe that was even their intention. The pervasiveness of the swastika as a design element and as a good-natured religious symbol ensures that ever time we see one, we'll be reminded of those years at the beginning of the 20th century when horror walked the face of the earth. And for centuries, people of malice will be able to brandish a swastika in a white circle as a sign of their hateful believes and negative intentions.
That's what the symbol carries with it. And every symbol has an un-erasable history.
posted by Jon-o at 9:21 AM on July 30, 2005

amberglow: You can't knock us for not wanting to live with a symbol of our attempted extermination inlaid in our floors.

If you don't like it, you don't have to live there. But as discussed in an earlier thread on this issue, it raises some interesting concerns about what happens when the interests of religious minorities come into conflict. And like it or not, it looks like economic trends will involve more and more contact with people and products from Asian countries that have a radically different history with that symbol than you do.

And would people have the same reaction if burning crosses were inlaid on the floors?

Do burning crosses have a 10,000 year old iconographic tradition independently claimed over three continents (perhaps even 5), as well as being claimed as a positive symbol by two major world religions?

But to take this question more seriously that it diserves. No one argues that because burning crosses have been used to inspire fear and terror in people, that the symbol of the United Methodist Church combining a cross with the flame of the pentacost should be banned, much less the thousands of other iconic representations of the Latin cross some of which may include flame iconography for reasons that have nothing to do with the KKK. Flames in Christian iconography are frequently used to represent the Holy Spirit.

Again, why do people want to reclaim it?

Why should religious groups and cultures that can document centuries of continuous use of a symbol abandon it because you can't tell the difference in context between a Buddhist shrine and a Nazi skinhead?
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:23 AM on July 30, 2005

W
posted by Satapher at 9:26 AM on July 30, 2005

i was just thinking that too Satapher..

the symbol of a madman running amuck


W
posted by coyote's bark at 9:34 AM on July 30, 2005

i gave my girlfriend a new razor..

because the idea of her having a Bush on her horrifies me...
posted by coyote's bark at 9:37 AM on July 30, 2005

"And for all of you "just-a-shape" folks, nothing is ever "just" itself."

...but it is.

A shape is just a shape until you process it through your mind and then that shape is subjected to your history, predjudices, memories, etc...
posted by j.p. Hung at 9:38 AM on July 30, 2005

Jon-o: Do you think that any company will ever use a diagonal E again after the Enron disaster? Likewise, can those golden arches ever be used for another purpose without reminding people of burgers?

Well, history will hopefully be long, and semotics fickle. So yeah, I think eventually both the diagonal E and a stylized yellow M will be adopted for different uses at some point in the future. (Probably not my lifetime, but in some other lifetime.)

The pervasiveness of the swastika as a design element and as a good-natured religious symbol ensures that ever time we see one, we'll be reminded of those years at the beginning of the 20th century when horror walked the face of the earth. And for centuries, people of malice will be able to brandish a swastika in a white circle as a sign of their hateful believes and negative intentions.
That's what the symbol carries with it. And every symbol has an un-erasable history.

Not really. Look at what Christians managed to do with the Latin cross. The original meaning of the Latin cross as an oppressive symbol of an extreme form of public execution in support of Roman law and order has been almost completely subverted. Constantine managed to pull off another radical shift by making the Latin cross a symbol of Roman military power.

But it seems that what is being argued for here is an attempt to erase the history of the symbol, by saying that the generations of continued use of the symbol in contexts that have nothing to do with Nazism are still Nazi emblems.

It just astounds me that people who should know better just don't see the profound ethnocentrism in this claim, and the issues of post-colonial politics involved when products intended for asian markets incorporating the symbol draw huge protest when accidentally exported to the United States.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:40 AM on July 30, 2005

Why should religious groups and cultures that can document centuries of continuous use of a symbol abandon it because you can't tell the difference in context between a Buddhist shrine and a Nazi skinhead?
They don't have to abandon it, and no one has said they should--But don't dare claim that that is its primary meaning here in NY--or the western world--at all--or that it should be. Or that people are wrong or silly or whatever for not wanting it inlaid on their floors where they'll see it every single day. This is not even a debate--the swastika equals Nazis, and hate and terror. It's still used to create terror and fear--even here in the US. Ignoring that because other cultures view it differently, or that we will too someday can't happen until it's not used in the hateful way anymore. It's simple.

Pineapples are a symbol of hospitality here--if some group should take that symbol and use it as their banner for their war and attempt at extermination of a whole group of people, then pineapples will be seen differently too. It's what happens. I still don't understand why people who have no connection to those religious groups and cultures are so keen to wipe this symbol of its meaning? Are we suffering from a lack of symbols in this world that we need to reclaim this specific one? Is there some shortage of symbols? I think Mayor Curley's point above is exactly right.

And what Jon-o said.
posted by amberglow at 9:42 AM on July 30, 2005

But it seems that what is being argued for here is an attempt to erase the history of the symbol, by saying that the generations of continued use of the symbol in contexts that have nothing to do with Nazism are still Nazi emblems.
Bull. The continued use of the symbol here--not Asia--in exactly the way the Nazis used it is why it still means hate and fear. We don't live in Asia. Nor do we live a hundred or a thousand years ago. We live here now, and that symbol means something here and now.
posted by amberglow at 9:47 AM on July 30, 2005

damn her..

she made the bush into a W.


arrrrgh.. i'll be forever scarred and need therapy that will cost thousands of dollars..

all because of a symbol that was once sexy and now its so closely associated with a madman running amuck.

i'm afraid i may never again be able to ....
posted by coyote's bark at 9:50 AM on July 30, 2005

"I really don't get why this one needs to be reclaimed"
because it's not the property of the nazis; they stole it and reclaiming it would deminish their legacy!

but i guess that can wait for a couple of decades until those in-/directly harmed by the bearers of the symbol are not confronted by it anymore..
posted by borq at 9:53 AM on July 30, 2005

Look at what Christians managed to do with the Latin cross. The original meaning of the Latin cross as an oppressive symbol of an extreme form of public execution in support of Roman law and order has been almost completely subverted.

The cross is used both as a symbol of a religion AND to remind it's believers of a man who was put to death in the fashion you describe. A crucifix is inseparable and deliberately invokes the crucifixion story.
It's not as though they've appropriated the symbol and infused it with such meaning that now you think of "breakfast" or something when you see it. You think of a man nailed to a cross. And that's an intentional reminder to believers of the sacrifice of their prophet.

Also, I'm not at all arguing that the swastika should be eradicated. I'm just describing how symbols seem to behave and that it's not totally irrational or unreasonable to have certain negative feelings when you're confronted with a symbol that has acquired such a heavy meaning.
posted by Jon-o at 9:57 AM on July 30, 2005

amberglow: They don't have to abandon it, and no one has said they should--But don't dare claim that that is its primary meaning here in NY--or the western world--at all--or that it should be.

Who is arguing about primary meaning? Looking over census reports for the US and the UK, there are at least 2 million people in the "western world" who practice a religious tradition that includes the symbol. Don't they have a right to say, "the use of this symbol in our shrines and our homes has nothing to do with National Socialism or Nazism?"

Or that people are wrong or silly or whatever for not wanting it inlaid on their floors where they'll see it every single day.

I have not argued this.

This is not even a debate--the swastika equals Nazis, and hate and terror. It's still used to create terror and fear--even here in the US. Ignoring that because other cultures view it differently, or that we will too someday can't happen until it's not used in the hateful way anymore. It's simple.

Are you saying that our culture excludes Hindus and Buddhists?

I still don't understand why people who have no connection to those religious groups and cultures are so keen to wipe this symbol of its meaning?

Actually, I do have connections to American Buddhist groups. But I think your question here is misleading and false. I have no objection to the fact that as a symbol in some contexts, it can carry a rather nasty and hateful meaning. When I encounter the symbol in those contexts (for example grafitti on a wall), I know that hate is being expressed. But it seems that you want to wipe the symbol of the meaning it has in other contexts, that when I visit the Buddhist monistary in our community, that I should see the swastikas on the altar as saying, "we are nazis."

Bull. The continued use of the symbol here--not Asia--in exactly the way the Nazis used it is why it still means hate and fear. We don't live in Asia. Nor do we live a hundred or a thousand years ago. We live here now, and that symbol means something here and now.

You live in a country that right now has more than a million followers of Buddhism and Hinduism. They live here and now, that symbol means something different to them, here and now.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:58 AM on July 30, 2005

"Or that people are wrong or silly .... for not wanting it .... where they'll see it every single day."

Some idiots shared a similar opinion of blacks in our fairly recent past, some of them were elected officials. You know, Amber, I was trying to be sympathetic to your position but now you just sound ignorant. It's primary meaning is yours...not everyones. You've decided you can't come to terms with a shape, fine. But in the West, we pride this thing called 'freedom'. In case you forgot, we have this first amendment thing. If you are not comfortable with it, I suggest you move to a place where they share all of your positions - good luck with that.

"the swastika equals Nazis"

No, the swastika equals the swastika. To YOU it represents one thing only. Of course we all have 'nazi' run through our heads when we see it, but I fail to see how that is a bad thing given you're concerns about 'your' people and the fact history not be repeated. Your position really just doesn't hold water in the face of this.
posted by j.p. Hung at 9:59 AM on July 30, 2005

Jon-o: The cross is used both as a symbol of a religion AND to remind it's believers of a man who was put to death in the fashion you describe. A crucifix is inseparable and deliberately invokes the crucifixion story.

But you don't get the meaning of the symbol the way the Romans intended, as a demonstration of Roman civil order and supremacy. Romans intended crucifixion as a symbol of terror (like the electric chair), the Christians turned it into a symbol of redemption.

But again, I'm not arguing for re-writing the meaning of the swastika as a symbol. I'm arguing that it has many meanings, (just like the Latin cross) and properly interpreting the meaning relies quite a bit on context and intent.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:05 AM on July 30, 2005

the real shocking thing about this is that the rent for the place is $2500. The swastika, not so much.
posted by crunchland at 10:08 AM on July 30, 2005

But don't dare claim that that is its primary meaning here in NY--or the western world--at all--or that it should be.

Thing is, that is it's primary meaning to NY's & the western world's growing South Asian population. And I don't think it diminishes the horrors of the Holocaust or our historical memory of them to acknowledge that the Nazis stole a symbol of peace from the Indian subcontinent, and that, as in the case of the art they squirrelled away to Switzerland, it might be time to let the South Asians have their swastika back.

I still don't understand why people who have no connection to those religious groups and cultures are so keen to wipe this symbol of its meaning

I wonder if it might not be healthier, socially, to let the power drain from the symbol - the tricky part perhaps being whether that can be done without wiping it of its connection to the crimes of the Nazi regime. What I mean is that if the massive, never-ever-display-this-symbol taboo was lifted, then it might not hold as much allure nor instill as much fear when some pathetic asshat desperate for power and belonging starts wearing one or spraypainting it on a building. These are weak people, and the swastika is one of the only things they can find that gives them a sense of strength and control. Why not take that power away from them?

For the record, my wife and I spent a year in India and got to know the Tibetan refugees in the town we were staying quite well. At the end of our stay, we decided to buy a carpet at the local Tibetan handicraft shop. The one we both thought was the nicest had a couple of swastikas among the many auspicious symbols - conch shells, fishes, wheels of life - embroidered on it. After some deliberation, we decided we didn't want to have to explain to every single person who ever visited our house why we had swastikas on our rug, so we went with our second choice.
posted by gompa at 10:13 AM on July 30, 2005

and if your symbol gets appropriated by Hitler, you're better off just washing your hands of it.

And a woman who has been raped is unclean for all time as well.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 10:24 AM on July 30, 2005

I have a small collection of old edition Kipling books, Jungle Book, Just So, poetry, etc (know your enemy!), and the Swastika is very promimently and proudly displayed on the spines of every one. And in lots of illustrations inside. Indeed, it seems to have been a brand of his for a while. I note further that the Boy Scouts also used it in combination with their classic fleur-de-lis brand logo right up until the 1930s.

I went to school in Dublin, Ireland, in a rather posh area called Ballsbridge, home to many of Ireland's "cultural and political elite". Not to mention most of the diplomatic embassies. Imagine my surprise one day taking a new route from the school to the bus, aged all of twelve or so, when I looked up and saw a huge chimney towering a 50m or so into the sky, dark black, with a huge "SWASTIKA" word emblazoned down the column along with a magnificently prominent hooked cross right on the pinnacle of the tower. All I could think was "WHAT THE FUCK?" I walked under the shadow of that unsettling tower for the next five years or so.

It was the drying column for an commercial laundry service, operating in Dublin since the 1920s, and called Swastika Laundry.
posted by meehawl at 10:26 AM on July 30, 2005

Lucky laundry?
posted by dabitch at 10:37 AM on July 30, 2005

They don't have to abandon it, and no one has said they should--But don't dare claim that that is its primary meaning here in NY--or the western world--at all--or that it should be. Or that people are wrong or silly or whatever for not wanting it inlaid on their floors where they'll see it every single day. This is not even a debate--the swastika equals Nazis, and hate and terror. It's still used to create terror and fear--even here in the US. Ignoring that because other cultures view it differently, or that we will too someday can't happen until it's not used in the hateful way anymore. It's simple.

Don't dare claim that being gay should be accepted by Christians--or Muslims--at all--or that people are wrong or silly for not wanting them roaming their streets and cities where they'll see them every single day. This is not even a debate--gays equal sinners, abominations to our Lord God. Ignoring that because other cultures view it differently, or that we will too someday, can't happen until being gay is no longer practiced anymore. It's simple.
posted by Ron at 10:39 AM on July 30, 2005

If I could affort that kind of money for rent alone, swastikas on the floor are the last thing I'd notice. And even if I could afford it, the furniture itself is more of a sore sight.

On the other hand, if people are naturally more inclined to think nazi than original symbol meaning, I can't understand how hard it is for the owner to spend a little money on replacing those boards, not even the whole floor, just those corners. Move the lighter and darker boards around and make it into a square in the square.

This is not a Buddhist or Hindu monastery, the symbol in that floor has no religious meaning, there is no context, it's just a decorative pattern, so, why not simply replace it with another? There is no point in arguing how the symbol itself should be viewed inoffensively, if enough viewers and tenants are being turned off, then they are right to be so. Wish I had their problems, but still, it's their prerogative.
posted by funambulist at 10:40 AM on July 30, 2005

"Do you think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fuckin' cross?"
posted by Satapher at 11:01 AM on July 30, 2005

funambulist: This is not a Buddhist or Hindu monastery, the symbol in that floor has no religious meaning, there is no context, it's just a decorative pattern, so, why not simply replace it with another?

Well, just my view is the thought of defacing a perfectly good 100+ year old floor makes me cringe.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:05 AM on July 30, 2005

dhruva, wow, what a weird gallery you linked to. Did you see the Coca Cola Swastika?
posted by dabitch at 11:10 AM on July 30, 2005

KirkJobSluder - me too actually. Good parquet is hard too find, and something that has kept that long, is good.
posted by dabitch at 11:11 AM on July 30, 2005

But in the West, we pride this thing called 'freedom'. In case you forgot, we have this first amendment thing. If you are not comfortable with it...
And i am not comfortable with this symbol, and those people who viewed the apartment aren't either--nor is the realtor, etc. It's not us who are saying that it shouldn't be allowed. We're saying what it means. No one is saying that it can't be used, whether for good or evil. Why don't you understand that? It's about freedom. Symbols have meanings--different meanings for different people and cultures. Everytime a swastika is mentioned here the meaning it has in other religions and cultures is brought up--but that's irrelevant here, if people are hurt and scared by it. The common meaning of a swastika in the US is not the meaning it has for Buddhists and Hindus. That's a fact. Bringing up the meaning of the symbol elsewhere does not change what it overwhelmingly means here, nor does it make it ok for it to be in someone's house if they don't want it. You're ignoring the real discomfort this particular symbol causes and the uses it was recently put, in favor of some other meaning that is not relevant in the case of this apartment nor does it make it ok. The fact that it causes people shock and fear here is all we need to know, if you care about people more than symbols. Arguing about its goodness and luck or even neutrality demeans those of us who recognize it as something else--something abhorrent and recent, and ongoing. You are quick to paint me as disrespectful of those other cultures, even as you yourselves are disrespectful to the people here who are upset by it.
posted by amberglow at 11:15 AM on July 30, 2005

Not using the swastika as a symbol of hatred = good.

Getting rid of it when not used as a symbol of hate = bad.

At the risk of sounding like Sean Hannity, it's about the context. And it's about educating people about it's use, history and meanings.

I've got used to seeing it in a totally different context in Asia to the one in which I saw it growing up in the UK but it still jars slightly even when I see it in the good context. It will always carry the association with the extermination of millions (not just Jews either).

However, like most situations, education is better than obliteration. (Unless you're dealing with a 'roach infestation maybe.) To be honest, having this design would be a selling point for me. It would be a conversation piece and I doubt that I'd ever get tired of hearing visitor's opinions. It's certainly inspired a good debate here. I'd have the frame with an explaination on the wall tho'.

Mayor Curley: I've enjoyed a fair few of your flip-outs round these parts so I take it as an honour to be on the receiving end of one.
posted by i_cola at 11:18 AM on July 30, 2005

KirkJobSluder ; Well, just my view is the thought of defacing a perfectly good 100+ year old floor makes me cringe.

Fair enough, but that's an entirely different argument...
I have my doubts that floor is 100+ years old, at the very least it's been retouched more than a few times, but, you know, it's not like replacing a few boards is going to spoil the original feature. Actually, you don't even need replacing, just moving around the very same boards, they're the same dimension. Voilà. Original feature fully retained, icky factor eliminated, everyone is happy.
posted by funambulist at 11:27 AM on July 30, 2005

"It's not us who are saying that it shouldn't be allowed. We're saying what it means. No one is saying that it can't be used, whether for good or evil."

Amber, I'm not trying to be snarky, but what the hell is your point? You're saying what it means....to you. Ok, we get it, you think it's "all nazi all the time".

So....I think most people here are saying this: If it bothers you, don't rent the place, cover it with a rug, turn your head, paint something over it, etc. What else would you have done?
posted by j.p. Hung at 11:32 AM on July 30, 2005

Nothing else. That's the point. What keeps me commenting here is the (continued) insistence by some people to ignore/demean the real meaning it has for some of us here and now, original or not. Pop semiotics indeed--as was mentioned above. If you scroll way way up this thread you see "what the hell" my point is. I think it's not adequately recognized at all by some that it's a potent symbol of terror and fear, still in use that way. And i continue to wonder at the automatic mention of its older/other meanings in every thread on them here at MeFi, and why that matters when people are upset by it here and now for the meaning it continues to have, and the uses it's still put to, here and now. So people think that by pointing out it's older and other meanings, that makes it ok? and that people can just wipe away the more recent meaning? It's a symbol, but it seems that many people are intent on stripping some meanings from it, and/or applying others to it. Why?
posted by amberglow at 11:44 AM on July 30, 2005

The realtor is under no moral obligation to change the floors. He is, however, likely going to have to change them in order to get rid of the place. I don't think this is a particularly good situation, for the reason KirkJobSluder and dabitch mentioned--getting rid of an historic and beautiful floor like that would be horrendous.

"However, like most situations, education is better than obliteration."

Yes.
posted by voltairemodern at 11:48 AM on July 30, 2005

I welcome people who use the symbol in their religion to display it proudly. The more it is so displayed and used the more its association with the Nazis diminishes and that would be a good thing. However, we aren't there yet. People still use it as a symbol of hate. It is not just an historical symbol used by the Nazis. Right now it is a symbol of hate and if it isn't the symbol of your religion and you go around displaying it don't be suprised that people consider you a racist or kick your ass over it.

That is nice inlay work. If it were my place I would get someone in to turn the swastikas into boxes, or boxes with a plus sign inside.
posted by caddis at 12:00 PM on July 30, 2005

amberglow: Symbols have meanings--different meanings for different people and cultures. Everytime a swastika is mentioned here the meaning it has in other religions and cultures is brought up--but that's irrelevant here, if people are hurt and scared by it... Bringing up the meaning of the symbol elsewhere does not change what it overwhelmingly means here,...

Isn't it funny, that I as a backwoods red-stater recognize that those other religions and cultures have just as much claim to being part of the culture here as you do. I'm not talking about anonymous people who exist elsewhere I'm talking about people in my neighborhood. Here, now, Americans.

... nor does it make it ok for it to be in someone's house if they don't want it.

Who here has made this claim?

The fact that it causes people shock and fear here is all we need to know, if you care about people more than symbols. Arguing about its goodness and luck or even neutrality demeans those of us who recognize it as something else--something abhorrent and recent, and ongoing.

How does it demean you to say, with a great deal of respect, that I understand and sympathize with your concerns, however other people that I know and respect apply other meanings to that symbol, and I don't agree that your meaning should trump their meaning?

What keeps me commenting here is the (continued) insistence by some people to ignore/demean the real meaning it has for some of us here and now, original or not.

I don't see this. What I see is an acknowledgement that the intended meaning in a century-old archetectural motif is radically different from the intended meaning of skin graffiti on the side of a business. It's quite possible for a symbol to have more than one "real meaning."

So people think that by pointing out it's older and other meanings, that makes it ok? and that people can just wipe away the more recent meaning?

I don't know where you are getting "wipe away the more recent meaning" from. But I do think that the unintentional harm from the swastika's existance in religious art, and in older archetectural motifs is stringly mitigated by the intent of the artist or craftsman.

It's a symbol, but it seems that many people are intent on stripping some meanings from it, and/or applying others to it. Why?

I don't see that and I'm certainly not saying it. What I'm saying is that there are multiple meanings, and when you use phrases like "real meaning" and "the meaning of the symbol elsewhere," it seems that you are insisting on stripping some meanings from it.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:04 PM on July 30, 2005

caddis: I welcome people who use the symbol in their religion to display it proudly. The more it is so displayed and used the more its association with the Nazis diminishes and that would be a good thing. However, we aren't there yet. People still use it as a symbol of hate. It is not just an historical symbol used by the Nazis. Right now it is a symbol of hate and if it isn't the symbol of your religion and you go around displaying it don't be suprised that people consider you a racist or kick your ass over it.

I don't know. Remember the pokemon flap of a few years ago in regards to an import that was never intended for an American or European market? All of a sudden, an shipping slip-up became evidence of a big anti-semetic conspiracy.

As international trade becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, I think these issues are going to become more interesting. If you want to tear up the floor or sandblast the stonework or do a coverup, job because you don't want that symbol. Well, I'd probably cover it up myself. Just don't get pissy because I don't agree with a single "real meaning" or consider it irredeemably offensive.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:18 PM on July 30, 2005

amberglow writes "Are we suffering from a lack of symbols in this world that we need to reclaim this specific one? Is there some shortage of symbols? "

How about 'faggot,' amberglow? Queer? Dyke? Nigger? Are we suffering from a lack of words in this world that we need to reclaim these specific ones?

Pink triangle?

Simple uncontrovertible fact: until ~80 years ago, the swastika (fylfot cross, hammer of thor, what have you) meant something very different.

I referenced the pink triangle above. Queer groups have taken that symbol and stripped it of its negative power, using it as a symbol to fight the very sorts of oppression it once stood for. Would the Jewish people not be helped by doing something similar? By saying "This symbol was once used to hurt us, but by G-d, it won't be anymore. We will show those people who find this symbol sacred that we understand that a madman took it and perverted it, and we won't allow it to stand for repression and suffering anymore."

As Eleanor Roosevelt said: "Nobody can hurt you without your consent." So stop consenting. Stand up, and reclaim the tool of the oppressor.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:28 PM on July 30, 2005

The swastika will lose its current meaning after a couple more world wars.

People always forget that everything they value will one day cease to exist. Our culture and its rules are not going to be around forever.
posted by Eamon at 12:38 PM on July 30, 2005

And i am not comfortable with this symbol

Even when it occurs accidentally, with no meaning behind it? You must realize that the meaning it carries in such an instance is entirely your own. IOW, you give it the power it has, and this symbol seems to have power over you. As George Carlin said, I leave symbols to the symbol minded.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:43 PM on July 30, 2005

As Eleanor Roosevelt said: "Nobody can hurt you without your consent." So stop consenting. Stand up, and reclaim the tool of the oppressor.

I understand your point, but I fail to see how an accidental symbolic design in an inlay pattern in a wood floor is a "tool of the oppressor." I do understand how symbols can carry meaning for people, and this one has some serious baggage, but the context is so far removed from anything to do with the negative connotation that it would seem absurd to assign it such a meaning. Not that you're doing that ...

I'm amazed how some people react to this, in a manner which suggests superstition more than anything. I'm not sure, but I don't think wood inlay flooring in apartments is a common medium in which to spread messages of white supremacy and racist hatred. But maybe I'm just naive ...
posted by krinklyfig at 12:57 PM on July 30, 2005

i mentioned "queer" up above--there's an enormous difference, dirtynumb--epithets were not pervasively a symbol of attempted extermination, and they're still not. Reclaiming epithets is also a far different tactic, and does not stop them from still being used as derogatory insults.

Reclaim a swastika? Us Jews should do that when it never ever was a symbol of ours? Why? The pink triangle is still not fully accepted as a symbol of us queers either, and never will be, precisely because of the associations of persecution and death associated with it. The rainbow flag, while insipid, is far more accepted and was created anew (and in Europe is used as an anti-war symbol). A created anew symbol always beats an old one in my book. Creativity, initiative, innovation--that's what humans do really well. We can and do create new symbols all the time.

I won't apologize for my reaction to a swastika--it keeps me on my toes, and does not stop me from living my life fully. Turning this around on those of us who are affected by one symbol or another is really insulting as well.
posted by amberglow at 12:58 PM on July 30, 2005

How the hell do can you ban a very simple geometric shape just because of some historical event that only has significance for a subset of the world's population? Not to suggest that the Holocaust wasn't significant, but you are confusing symbols with meaning. Symbols mean different things to different people. And you cannot take away other people's right to use symbols in manners that they see fit simply because it has offensive connotations for YOU, amberglow. You seem to assume that everyone around you lives and thinks like you. We live in a global society, and there are people of different ethnicities and cultures everywhere. To deny their symbols because of connotations that only exist in your culture is nothing more than intolerance and bigotry.

Also, it's an incredibly simple shape, the sort you can assemble with domino tiles or something you might see in Conway's Game of Life. It's like getting upset over circles or squares.
posted by aerify at 1:09 PM on July 30, 2005

amberglow: I won't apologize for my reaction to a swastika--it keeps me on my toes, and does not stop me from living my life fully. Turning this around on those of us who are affected by one symbol or another is really insulting as well.

Who is asking you to apologize for your reaction to a swastika?

Actually the analogous symbol to the pink triangle, is the Star of David. Just to be pedantic.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:10 PM on July 30, 2005

No one is denying anyone's symbols nor attempting to ban them, aerify.
posted by amberglow at 1:11 PM on July 30, 2005

aerify: How the hell do can you ban a very simple geometric shape just because of some historical event that only has significance for a subset of the world's population?

Amberglow is not asking for it to be banned.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:13 PM on July 30, 2005

"You have no right to do or say anything that might offend or insult me! To the ovens with you and your crimes against Freedom!"
posted by davy at 1:14 PM on July 30, 2005

What's so great about the ancient Indo-Europeans that you'd want to work one of their glyphs into your decor? If you want to be pretentious, or pick up a badly-understood "old religion" to piss off your parents, find one whose imagery wasn't also co-opted by a group of mass-murdering thugs.

If you're a hindu or a Navajo, knock yourself out with the swastikas. If you're a white person who wants to display swasitika you are one of these things: a nazi, a pretentious dick, a secret Aryan supremecist with a better sense of PR than a loud skinhead, or a mentally ill person who wants the attention afforded by following an ostensibly old religion that has, in reality, been largely lost and had the huge gaps filled in with made-up shit.

This is what I mean by cultural bigotry and racism. While I have no affinity for Hinduism or Buddhism, there are plenty of people, yes, even white people, who might practice non-traditional religions. Even if they don't, why does one have to be Hindu or Navajo to appropriate symbols as they see fit? Are we all enslaved to your particular cultural interpretation?

"What's so great about [it]"? Why does anyone have to justify that? Maybe they think it's pretty, or aesthetic, or they like the way it looks on their walls. Who knows. But to pass judgement on anyone - white or not, for wanting to use symbols in artistic or cultural ways that are alien to you... is just racist and bigoted.
posted by aerify at 1:20 PM on July 30, 2005

Replace "ban" with "condemn".
posted by aerify at 1:22 PM on July 30, 2005

When I saw this thread, the current total number of comments was '88'. This, too, is a coincidence.
posted by Down10 at 1:29 PM on July 30, 2005

Arguing about its goodness and luck or even neutrality demeans those of us who recognize it as something else--something abhorrent and recent, and ongoing.

No, it does not. It is indeed good and lucky and neutral... to those people. Why must that demean you?

So people think that by pointing out it's older and other meanings, that makes it ok? and that people can just wipe away the more recent meaning? It's a symbol, but it seems that many people are intent on stripping some meanings from it, and/or applying others to it. Why?

Why it would not be okay? Why shouldn't we strip bad meanings from it, and consider it neutral? If every minority group could make symbols "bad" we wouldn't have any LEFT TO USE. Part of tolerance and diversity is realizing this.
posted by aerify at 1:32 PM on July 30, 2005

because of some historical event that only has significance for a subset of the world's population

I don't think you have to be Jewish for this to be significant. That you can say something like this casts your character in a new light.

People here who claim it is only a symbol sound like the people who say discrimination against blacks is over. They are just denying the obvious. If you display the symbol most people will still think you are racist or anti-semitic and they will probably be right.
posted by caddis at 1:32 PM on July 30, 2005

If you display the symbol most people will still think you are racist or anti-semitic and they will probably be right.

This is exactly the assumption that's incorrect. Why would that be the case? Like someone pointed out, there are a hell of a lot more Buddhists and Hindus around than neo-Nazis these days. To immediately assume, without any context, that someone showing that symbol is an anti-Semite or a Nazi - well, THAT'S cultural intolerance and ignorance.
posted by aerify at 1:36 PM on July 30, 2005

caddis: If you display the symbol most people will still think you are racist or anti-semitic and they will probably be right.

The fact that most Americans don't distinguish between context in this case is probably not something to crow about.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:41 PM on July 30, 2005

I don't think you have to be Jewish for this to be significant. That you can say something like this casts your character in a new light.

Of course it's significant, in the abstract sense, to everybody. I was referring to the immediate sense. And why must the Nazi Holocaust be special in that regard? Mao and Stalin killed far more people than Hitler ever did, but no one seems to get their panties in a bunch over that. That again, is a result of an artificial cultural construct that elevates THAT evil over other evils as something that requires our continued cognizance, just like the cultural construct that says certain symbols are always evil.

The swastika IS just a symbol. To more people than not, it represents something benign, maybe even good. And to assume malicilous intent of people who use it or condemn the usage of it anywhere - as amberglow, caddis, Mayor Curley, and others have done - is regrettable.
posted by aerify at 1:48 PM on July 30, 2005

If you display the symbol most people will still think you are racist or anti-semitic and they will probably be right.

So my great grandparents, grandparents, and parents, and all of their generational relatives, are anti-semites because they're Hindu and have the original symbol decorating their houses? All of my family was using this symbol far before Hitler stole the symbol and changed its depiction, and meaning. They will continue to do so, despite your claims that they're anti-semitic.

Take a look in the mirror buddy and you'll see where close-mindedness begins.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 1:57 PM on July 30, 2005

And the only way to combat that, caddis, is by educating people, and showing them that the symbol has meant that for less than 1% of its recorded history...


amberglow, I've not met one queer (with whom the subject has come up) who has any concern with the use of the pink triangle. Quite the opposite, in fact; people quite like that a symbol which stood for death has been changed in meaning. Much as the Christian cross has, as explained above.

I fail to see how anyone loses if the Jewish commuity simply refuses to let that symbol have power over them anymore. People of African descent have taken back 'nigger'--and yes, that word has stood for things almost as bad as the Nazi swastika--so why not simply rob those who would use the swastika for evil purposes of any power they have? I know as well as you do that the Jewish people have been persecuted in one way or another for large chunks of recorded history. Why not turn that around, and say "These horrible things have happened, and they must never be forgotten, but we will no longer allow them to have power over us."

Think of it as the abuse victim who empowers him/herself, who refuses to let that person have the power over them anymore. For sexual abuse victims in particular, reclaiming a healthy sexuality free of that fear is the major empowering step. I submit that for Jews worldwide, refusing to allow the swastika to have that power--while still remaining conscious of what it did stand for--would be a similarly empowering experience.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:59 PM on July 30, 2005

I submit that for Jews worldwide, refusing to allow the swastika to have that power--while still remaining conscious of what it did stand for--would be a similarly empowering experience.

This reminds me of my comment that I posted on Typographica, regarding Microsoft's decision in 2003 to allow people to remove a swastika symbol from a built-in font (also discussed here at MeFi):

Personally, as a Jew, I think we'll eventually need to understand that symbols are mostly innocuous until a certain nefarious group adopts them as their own. Their original meaning is tainted, but we shouldn’t let that forever destroy the redemption or potential of function that such symbols could hold—we'll have to move on, or else be forever haunted by the past.

posted by Down10 at 2:43 PM on July 30, 2005

I think that peoples' problem with non-nazi use of the swastika is driven primarily by one of two problems (that they have):

1. The swastika is a reminder of the holocaust and the individual has not come to terms with it - on a day to day basis they have hidden their demons but have not come to terms with them.


2. The swastika can be easily tied to its nazi history, allowing certain types to act self-rightously against anyone associated with the symbol, in any context.
   

I have no problem with those who are troubled by the first problem and try and make sure that any use of the symbol does not cause them distress (e.g. meeting places do not make use of such symbols outside).
Unfortunately, in my experience, those in the second category are far more numerous and they are a pain in the arse.
posted by daveg at 3:20 PM on July 30, 2005

I was in Austria and searched for swastika on ebay and got zero results. I did not find it comforting that over a thousand items were being hidden.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:06 PM on July 30, 2005

People of African descent have taken back 'nigger'--and yes, that word has stood for things almost as bad as the Nazi swastika--so why not simply rob those who would use the swastika for evil purposes of any power they have?

dirtynumb, people took those words back for use among themselves. It's not ok for a stranger to call me a queer, nor is it ok for a white stranger to call a black person the n-word. As long as there are still people outside these groups that use the words derogatorily, etc, then those words are not really reclaimed. They are words that have been, and continue to be flung at some "other". Taking a word used that way and making it your own in no way lessens what happens when it's flung at you on a dark street. The same thing goes for symbols. As long as there are neo-Nazis and white supremacists, etc, then the symbol will continue to have a certain meaning.
Would we be having the same conversation about a burning cross? Do you advocate that blacks take that symbol and make it their own? Or any symbol that was coopted the way the swastika was, and still is? The swastika is not a Jewish symbol that was appropriated by Nazis and now has a new meaning that we should "take back". It's not even like an ankh or the yin/yang.
posted by amberglow at 5:21 PM on July 30, 2005

amberglow: As long as there are neo-Nazis and white supremacists, etc, then the symbol will continue to have a certain meaning.

How do you recommend that Buddhists and Hindus in the U.S. and the U.K. approach the problem of the symbol having to very different meanings in different traditions and contexts?

Would we be having the same conversation about a burning cross? Do you advocate that blacks take that symbol and make it their own?

And yet, there is a long Chistian iconographic tradition that combines a cross with fire, including logo of United Methodist Churches.

It's not even like an ankh or the yin/yang.

I don't see how it is different.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:33 PM on July 30, 2005

W
posted by loquacious at 6:59 PM on July 30, 2005

So my great grandparents, grandparents, and parents, and all of their generational relatives, are anti-semites because they're Hindu and have the original symbol decorating their houses?

If you read my prior comment I think you will see that I find the display of the symbol by people practicing their religion a good thing. If it is not your religious symbol however . . .
posted by caddis at 9:35 PM on July 30, 2005

If it is not your religious symbol however . . .

So if a non-religious person uses the symbol for artistic purposes, that automatically makes him/her a Nazi? That's just fucked up. You're just going to assume that anyone who uses that symbol and isn't Hindu/Buddhist must be racist. Good luck with that.
posted by aerify at 10:01 PM on July 30, 2005

I suggest you head down to the local synagogue and poll the members to see how they feel about you using a swastika for "artistic purposes."
posted by caddis at 10:29 PM on July 30, 2005

You know, caddis, maybe I'd rather head down to the local Hindu Temple and ask them how they feel about the slaughter and mistreatment of cows on a daily basis, here in the US and abroad.

As you can see, your example is rather ::ahem:: small-minded. The Jew don't have a monopoly on the meaning of a symbol, nor do the Hindus. And while it might be polite to imform Jewish guests of the culture behind the rather ancient symbol, it shouldn't be necessary. Jews have every opportunity to learn of the rich culture that has prized that symbol for millenia.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 10:44 PM on July 30, 2005

And that relates to art as well; art that has a Hindu reference, without being religious, can be just as valid as art with a religious connotation.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 10:53 PM on July 30, 2005

Why couldn't hitler just have used the smiley face?
It would suck for web emoticons, but we would have been a lot better off in the long run.

Plus it would be interesting associating hatred, fear and murder with a smiling yellow ball.
posted by Balisong at 10:56 PM on July 30, 2005

So if a non-religious person uses the symbol for artistic purposes, that automatically makes him/her a Nazi?

Noo......
If someone uses a swastika for non-religious purposes, they're summoning and allowing it's total meaning to be considered. If someone uses a swastika in their art, that merely means that they have something to say about swastikas, depending on the context in which they portray it.

If you work in a building that has a swastika motif on its facade, that doesn't make the company or its employees Nazis. Nor does it make them Hindu.
But, due to all of the accumulated cultural meanings attached to the symbol, the motif will inevitably invoke thoughts of Hindus, Nazis, and Greek temples.

Symbols carry meaning with them. That's what they're for. They exist as simple mediums for immensely complicated ideas in forms of logos, brands, nations, and philosophies. In some cases, the history of the symbol can become very dense and the context is an important consideration. I think we can all agree on that. I also think that we can agree that it's not unreasonable to not want to rent an apartment that's festooned with swastikas if the symbol has a negative cultural resonance with you.

Tonight, I went to an Indian restaurant and saw, in their reservation book or the ledger or whatever it was, that on the top of a column on each page was a swastika with the four dots. I was not surprised or offended. I didn't think for one second that these guys were Nazis. My burps still taste like chicken tikka masala.
posted by Jon-o at 11:08 PM on July 30, 2005

caddis writes "I suggest you head down to the local synagogue and poll the members to see how they feel about you using a swastika for 'artistic purposes.'"


So, caddis, you're just ignoring thousands upon thousands of years of history? Good job.



Balisong writes ""Plus it would be interesting associating hatred, fear and murder with a smiling yellow ball."

Don't we already?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:22 AM on July 31, 2005

I fully understand that making parquet floors today with a swastika in them (if not explicity ordered by a buddist/hindu temple) would be really off the charts and most likely not a "good luck" decoration. But this floor was made long before world war II. So what is the problem here exactly? I don't understand, is anyone here saying that such fashionable (back then) decorations should be removed, much like the retouched photographs of the Stalin communist era, from all areas regardless of how long they've been there? It feels a bit like ripping away jugend stucco a hundred odd years later. It's not a Nazi symbol in that floor.
posted by dabitch at 12:33 AM on July 31, 2005

So, dirtynumbangelboy, you're just igoring the holocaust? Good job.

[see, isn't that simple? you can just ignore half of what someone said and reduce your response to an arrogant retort]
posted by caddis at 7:05 AM on July 31, 2005

I don't understand, is anyone here saying that such fashionable (back then) decorations should be removed

I sometimes feel that way when I step into a catholic temple and see all these angels with swords and lances putting heathens to death and generally triumphing over unbelievers.

To commemorate so many ancient pogroms and genocides seems perverse, or outdated, or even simultaneously both.

According to the logic of historical retconning, there are two options:

A) Update the angels with some modern weaponry: uzis, kalashniovs, SAMs, etc.

b) Erase all the warlike imagery from the temples.
posted by meehawl at 7:40 AM on July 31, 2005

Whew, people flipping out over a geometric shape. Hitler should have used † instead.

Yep. If they had, I wonder how the Cultural landscape regarding the † would be different....

Or: Get Over It Already.
posted by erratic frog at 7:40 AM on July 31, 2005

Man, you swastika-haters shouldn't go to Japan. Look at any map there, you'll see it adorned with little left-facing swastikas (manji) representing Budhhist temples, the kind that Nintendo had to ban from ALL its Pokemon cards (even the ones in Japan!) because of protests by the Anti-Defamatian League.

Buddhism and Hinduism has a wide reach in this world, even if you're not religious. If you have lived in Japan, Korea, China, India, ... pretty much any part of Asia, you will have seen swastikas used as a matter of custom. It has been used that way for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. And because of one tyrannical regime in the 20th century, you are suggesting that anyone, Asian or not, who might like to use this symbol for any reason at all, must be either insensitive or racist.

Give me a fucking break.
posted by aerify at 8:13 AM on July 31, 2005

What's even worse are the people here saying, well, if a Hindu or Buddhist uses it, and it ONLY has a religious significance, I guess it's okay... but if anyone else uses it for any reason, you are an EVIL NAZI. WTF? You guys do not have a monopoly on the meaning of a symbol, nor can you force others to interpret symbols only the way YOU want them to. Anyone is free, and should be free, to use that symbol without being labelled a Nazi. For most people in this world, the swastika does not represent evil.
posted by aerify at 8:20 AM on July 31, 2005

I suggest you head down to the local synagogue and poll the members to see how they feel about you using a swastika for "artistic purposes."

Maybe they wouldn't like it. So what? Should every minority group have veto power over art because they don't like what it might stand for in THEIR minds? What matters it what it represents to YOU. If you are a neo-Nazi, then probably you have a certain meaning attached to that symbol. But for anyone else (and that is a LARGE number, as there aren't that many Nazis left today), they should be free to use the symbol as they see fit, without having evil interpretations assumed of them and their art. That's what freedom is. That's what tolerance is. If you don't like it, don't go visit this person's home/art gallery/whatever.
posted by aerify at 8:25 AM on July 31, 2005

everyday the evil associations are being perpetuated by its continued use, the meaning it has here is still a terrible and hateful one. - amberglow

People still use the words "faggot" and "nigger" in a hateful and derogatory sense. Both of those words have been (and to a lesser extent, still are) used by people who would kill everyone they are meant to apply to. There are segments that try to prepetuate their opressive origins. Does that mean that the people whom the terms are used against can't use them a different way, and defy those that would hold them down?

some people ... ignore/demean the real meaning it has for some of us here and now, original or not.
And some people are still offended and upset at the word 'faggot'. And yet many people use the word that intend no negativity. And the word is - slowly - losing some of the power it used to have.

I recognize that many people have very negative reactions when they see that particular symbol. Myself, I find that seeing a swastika makes me think of the negative connotations first and foremost, and I find it somewhat disconcerting when I see it displayed - even when I know that the intended use is not hate related. I empathize that although I only find it uncomfortable (depending on the usage), there are other people that have very emotional and volatile reactions to it. And for good reason. I accept that their reaction is valid.

However, while I recognize the very real emotions that many people attach to that symbol, I think that it's a desirable goal to try and reduce the stranglehold that the Nazi legacy has on the swastika - and on everything else that they touched. I hope that we'll not forget the atrocities committed under it, but that it will lose the power it has. Hitler and his attempted empire have been dead a long time now, and they still have such power and influence in our everyday life. This should be struggled against. He is not deserving of so much of our energy and attention.

PinkStainlessTail brought up an interesting comparison. A number of years ago I survived a rape. It was a terrible thing to experience and it has had lasting repercussions in my life. Part of my healing from that has been to refuse to look upon myself as a victim. I'm a survivor. I will not allow that atrocity that I suffered to continue to rule my life and my behaviour and my thoughts. Even though it is sometimes difficult and scary, I will learn to be free and comfortable sexually again. I will learn again to go to the places that remind me of it. I will keep going until I no longer shake from fear. I will learn not to turn away in fear from anyone with a tongue ring. I will face my fears and face what feels dangerous and it will be terrifying and it will be difficult, but I will refuse to give him power in my life any more. And day by day the power that he and that life-changing event have on my life lessens. And I get stonger.

My hope is that all those touched by the horrific crimes committed under the swastika can have a similar healing experience. It is very powerful to overcome your fears, and to refuse to be controlled by those that wish to control you.
posted by raedyn at 8:33 AM on July 31, 2005

There is an old Christian church just across the street from my apartment which has several styles of crosses in the topmost cornices near the roof. One of the several styles is that of a swastika. Swastikas alone aren't that big of a deal: context is everything.
posted by Nomen Nescio at 8:55 AM on July 31, 2005

I think that it's a desirable goal to try and reduce the stranglehold that the Nazi legacy has on the swastika - and on everything else that they touched.
Why? Why do those things that have been tainted by the Nazis need to be washed clean? Why can't they stand, as they now do, as potent references immediately understood for what they mean? When a movie reviewer brings up Leni Riefenstahl, it's understood what they mean. Or all the recent talk of similarities bet. Goebbels' statements on the media and using them to further your ends, and our current administration's manipulation and propaganda.

Like it or not, the Nazis and everything they did and everyone associated with, and the symbols and imagery they used, are all touchstones frequently used for all sorts of things, whether as an example and/or warning, or as a comparison-point, or even by some as a role model. Swastikas are part of that, along with the raised salute, and the idolizing imagery and the tactics used. The Reichstag fire, Krystallnicht, yellow stars (and pink triangles), "Arbeit macht frei", Zyklon B, etc--all are potent symbols that have entered the common culture as shorthand for specific things. I don't get the wish to wash any of it clean, when they serve a useful and immediately recognized purpose here. Our culture is riddled with references like these, and there's a reason for it. They will eventually be replaced by others--and we might even be the originators of the next batch--the hooded guy on the box at Abu Ghraib, etc.
posted by amberglow at 8:59 AM on July 31, 2005

Why can't they stand, as they now do, as potent references immediately understood for what they mean?

Because the Nazis gratuitously stole a peaceful symbol that was otherwise being used for thousands of years for one specific negative act. Hitler doesn't deserve to co-op an a couple billion people's symbols.

And the fact that the rest of your comment suggests that "it serves as a reminder" actually suggests that you'd prefer to remain a victim. That somehow, your people deserve to be recognized for the atrocities that were committed against them for all mankind, which is ridiculous. It was a horrific event that deserves recognition, but the swastika was a stolen symbol which should be allowed to return to its original meaning. Clinging to it like a sacred cross only gives your "oppressors" more ammunition.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 9:26 AM on July 31, 2005

And BTW, we're all "oppressed" in one way or another. Westerners get treated like godless idiots in India (I would know; even though I'm brown, I still take some heat for being born in the US). Indians, Middle Easterners, Pakistanis, etc. get heat here for being supposed terrorists (or at least they're passively discriminated against). Gays here and abroad are often discriminated against. Blacks and Latinos, etc, etc, etc,...we're all "oppressed".

But this culture of victimhood and "we deserve redemption forever" is insane. Recognition of atrocities is one thing; using a stolen symbol to represent those atrocities is something altogether different.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 9:34 AM on July 31, 2005

And the fact that the rest of your comment suggests that "it serves as a reminder" actually suggests that you'd prefer to remain a victim.

Bullshit, Seize. It's to prevent more and future victims of other horrible regimes, not to prefer to remain victimized. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We remember history thru symbols and imagery. The Killing Fields, The Desaparecidos, the hooded guy at Abu Ghraib, etc.
posted by amberglow at 10:01 AM on July 31, 2005

And if it was stolen, it should be reclaimed by those who originally valued it and still do, not those who see it as a symbol of terror and fear and attempted extermination.
posted by amberglow at 10:02 AM on July 31, 2005

amberglow: Why do those things that have been tainted by the Nazis need to be washed clean?

So what should followers of Buddhism or Hinduism who live in the United States or the United Kingdom do about this state of affairs?
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:10 AM on July 31, 2005

Honestly, I'd imagine that most Hindus don't give much credence to the Nazi movement's theft. It's not something we even think about, let alone discuss. Therefore, to "reclaim" something we never lost is all but impossible.

We remember history thru symbols and imagery.

There are a million ways to "remember" the tragedy. But enough. Clearly you'd rather give the symbol as much negative attention as possible, to somehow "inform" the world of the Holocaust. Go ahead and remain a victim. I'll have to tell my black friends that every time they get on a bus, they should sit in the front to remind them of the civil rights movement.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 10:15 AM on July 31, 2005

Seize, there are many millions of people who feel as i do--they're not all Jewish either. I'm sorry you make this personal. (I guess when my parents and grandparents refused to buy German cars they were preferring to remain victims too, huh? And here's a newsflash--for many years, Black people did just that--they purposely rode in front--some still do.)
posted by amberglow at 10:20 AM on July 31, 2005

Seize, there are many millions of people who feel as i do--they're not all Jewish either.

So what? There are billions that feel the same way I do. That doesn't make it right or wrong.

I'm sorry you make this personal.

Me making it personal? You, amberglow, are using a perverted image of a peaceful icon and manifesting into something utterly evil and reprehensible, as opposed to the meaning it has held for thousands of years. You are preaching to others that it represents an evil that must be avoided. If I'm making it personal, it's because I'm ashamed that people are using that symbol to represent hate instead of something serene and holy. I'm ashamed that both good and bad people are perverting that peaceful symbol. And why I'm even discussing this with you is because you obviously understand that that symbol could represent something very different.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 10:40 AM on July 31, 2005

amberglow writes "And the fact that the rest of your comment suggests that 'it serves as a reminder' actually suggests that you'd prefer to remain a victim.

"Bullshit, Seize. It's to prevent more and future victims of other horrible regimes, not to prefer to remain victimized. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We remember history thru symbols and imagery. The Killing Fields, The Desaparecidos, the hooded guy at Abu Ghraib, etc."


I'm still failing to see, amberglow, how remembering what happened, and denying a symbol its negative power, are mutually exclusive. Again: pink triangle. Stood for death just as much as the swastika did (in fact, as pointed out above, one could easily argue that the Star of David should be just as tainted as the swastika is), and is now used as a symbol of liberation by the people it was originally used to oppress.

I'm waiting for you to explain how the swastika is different, how Jews helping to return the symbol to its original meaning is a bad thing, and why you simply refuse to accept that the minority should not have veto power over symbols used in a non-hate context. Reference: Pokemon cards.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:43 AM on July 31, 2005

dirtynumbangelboy: I don't think the swastika can be compared to the pink triangle. The pink triangle was a symbol for gay men under Nazism. The swastika was the symbol for Nazism.

So I can fully understand why people who don't have an extended history with it, wouuld not want to reclaim it.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:40 AM on July 31, 2005

Me making it personal? You, amberglow, are using a perverted image of a peaceful icon and manifesting into something utterly evil and reprehensible, as opposed to the meaning it has held for thousands of years. You are preaching to others that it represents an evil that must be avoided. If I'm making it personal, it's because I'm ashamed that people are using that symbol to represent hate instead of something serene and holy. I'm ashamed that both good and bad people are perverting that peaceful symbol. And why I'm even discussing this with you is because you obviously understand that that symbol could represent something very different.

That was already done long before i was born. I am not doing anything with the symbol except reading it the way many millions of others here do.
posted by amberglow at 11:46 AM on July 31, 2005

It's curious. The swastika was the adopted symbol of the nazis, who committed genocide against the Jews a little while before I was born. The US flag is the adopted symbol of the Americans, who commited genocide against the Native American Indians in even greater numbers a little while before my grandfather was born.

We yelp 'what the fuck is THIS?!?' when we see one, and salute the other.

Just another way of looking at it, I guess.
posted by RichLyon at 11:51 AM on July 31, 2005

I am not doing anything with the symbol except reading it the way many millions of others here do.

By that argument, we'd still be treating minorities separate but equal, since millions previous to the civil rights movement did just that. Or we'd still be treating blacks as 3/5 a person, since millions did that before the Civil War. The only way the swastika will revert to its original meaning is if we choose to associate it as such. And you still haven't addressed KirkJobSluder's questions, which was:

KirkJobSluder writes "So what should followers of Buddhism or Hinduism who live in the United States or the United Kingdom do about this state of affairs?"

which was in reference to this comment:

amberglow writes "Why do those things that have been tainted by the Nazis need to be washed clean?"
posted by SeizeTheDay at 12:21 PM on July 31, 2005

We yelp 'what the fuck is THIS?!?' when we see one, and salute the other.

Of course we do. Because the users of the symbol are still in power. We wince at the Nazi swastika because they lost. If they were still running Europe, we'd probably have a different relationship with it.
There are many people around the world who have a negative reaction to the US flag, too.
As I'm sure there are likely many Russians who'd prefer to never see the Hammer and Sickle flag ever again.
Another example is of Chinese reaction to the Japanese Rising Sun flag. They're still really bent out of shape about the massacres during WWII and earlier.
Also, if Christianity wasn't such a dominant religion (and hadn't shaped up in the past few hundred years), when we see a cross, we might think about the Inquisition or all of the Reformation wars more than anything.

Also, when you see a skull painted on something, despite having knowledge of the long standing Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead celebration, it's not at all unreasonable, given the context, to assume that the skull probably signifies some sort of danger. Does that mean that we need to reclaim skulls because of their cultural meaning in Mexican heritage?
Would you look at skull on a label or a fence and think, "Alas, poor Yorick..?" Would you think of that Holbein painting, "The Ambassadors" and ponder the Renaissance use of memento mori?

It's all about context. Like we've been saying. The swastika is decorative, religious, and, more recently, a symbol of aggression. Context is not merely the location or use of a symbol, it's also the relationship that you have with it.
As a Jew, I'd be uncomfortable living in a place that inlaid swastikas as decoration. Despite the fact that I can justify and reason it to myself, the context that I bring to the situation causes me to reflect on the Holocaust. And that's my prerogative.
And under no circumstances do I think that anyone should abandon the use of that symbol for any purpose. If someone wants to use it a decoration, that's A-OK. If someone adopts it as a symbol of aggression and alliance with Nazism, that's just fine as it lets me know who to avoid. And if it has a religious/cultural significance for someone, that's great. But it is for them to reclaim, disinfect, and preserve for the good it originally symbolized. It is for them to display with pride and reverence and to be fearless of how it may be interpreted.

But don't ask me to embrace the swastika as my own symbol. To me, and many other Jews, it remains a symbol of the destruction that was visited upon our people. If anything, we preserve it as a reminder and memorial among ourselves of the innumerable dead and tortured. It is a reminder that our people were decimated. It is a reminder that there were Jew-skin lampshades and that jewelry was made from our bones and teeth. It is a reminder that, even once we were liberated, the bodies of our dead were so numerous, the best burial they could get was to be bulldozed into mass graves. The aversion is not an insistence on continuing to exist as victims. It is an insistence on never being victims again.
To us, the swastika is a symbol of the sadness and grieving triumph of having survived.
posted by Jon-o at 12:41 PM on July 31, 2005

Jon-o: I fully agree with you. But given amberglow's statements trying to isolate religious uses of the swastika to anonymous people who live somewhere else, I'm not certain he agrees that context matters.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:10 PM on July 31, 2005

Jon-o:

Apparently the lampshades bit is an urban legend.

I've never understood why the victims of the Holocaust get to have a monopoly on suffering and forcing others to remember that suffering. Millions more people have died of genocide in Asia, Africa, other parts of Europe, etc. over the past 100 years. Like someone said, it's a glorification of victimhood, and the insistence on keeping the swastika "evil" is a part of that.
posted by aerify at 10:46 PM on July 31, 2005

what Jon-o said.

But given amberglow's statements trying to isolate religious uses of the swastika to anonymous people who live somewhere else, I'm not certain he agrees that context matters.
I'm not trying to isolate religious uses of the swastika--there are very few if any at all visible religious swastikas here in NYC, and we have tons of Hindus and Buddhists. Either they're more considerative of cultural context than you are, or they don't have the need to display it everywhere. I don't think you're a better judge of their use of the symbol than they are. And i would add that if it's a commonly used advertising symbol or brand, then perhaps it's not that sacred at all.

And what i've been saying throughout this thread, while not as clear and eloquent as Jon-o, is exactly what he said. Perhaps you could put yourself in our shoes and see that we see it differently from you. And that how we see it is reinforced and refreshed by every scrawled swastika on a Jewish home, or cemetery, etc. It's still in use as a symbol of hate, and it's not for us to reclaim it, or do anything with it.
posted by amberglow at 11:00 PM on July 31, 2005

Like someone said, it's a glorification of victimhood, and the insistence on keeping the swastika "evil" is a part of that.
You persist in getting it backward. We're not the ones keeping it evil--at all. And as Jon-o--and i--said, The aversion is not an insistence on continuing to exist as victims. It is an insistence on never being victims again. To us, the swastika is a symbol of the sadness and grieving triumph of having survived.
posted by amberglow at 11:06 PM on July 31, 2005

amberglow: So, you don't have an objection to it as a decorative motif inside the monistary I visit now and then?

I also see it as threatening in most contexts. However, I see a building of monks as being a very different context than spraypaint on a wall.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:24 PM on July 31, 2005

It's not about its use in a religious context, even though it's probably more "acceptable" to amberglow and others if it were, although they'd like to keep it hidden, as far as they're concerned. It's about the usage of it ANYWHERE, by ANYONE, religious or ethnic or not, and how the vast majority of swastikas in this world have nothing to do with Nazis or hatred. Whether you're in the US or Japan or Europe shouldn't change this. The swastika-naysayers here persist in claiming that the most important meaning of that symbol should be about hatred, and that is just wrong. For most of its recorded history, and for most people in this world, the swastika has been a perfectly benign symbol of love or peace or whatever. And the Nazis who perverted that symbol or the Jews who insist on remembering that perversion for all time should not have a monopoly on that meaning. When you see a swastika around these days, more likely than not it is not about hate. And that is what people should realize.
posted by aerify at 1:30 AM on August 1, 2005

What I'm saying is, people should be free to display the swastika for religious or artistic purposes, or ANY purpose really, without having to have people like amberglow or caddis assume they are Nazis, simply because for thousands of years the symbol has stood for something else entirely, and it is just wrong to let one group enforce its own cultural interpretation of a geometric shape on everybody else.
posted by aerify at 1:42 AM on August 1, 2005

I hate to break it to you, amberglow, but it's 2005, and no one's throwing you into gas chambers anymore. And there are plenty of other horrific genocides to remember as well, just in the past century, given our world's violent history. But no one is forcing the same meaning on, say, the hammer and sickle.

The point is, if you see someone prominently displaying a cross somewhere, you might assume they are Christian. If you see someone prominently displaying a swastika, what, you're going to assume that they're a Nazi? Again, this victim complex isn't helping. The number of people using the swastika for religious/cultural purposes that have NOTHING to do with Nazis FAR OUTNUMBERS the number of people using the swastika to represent hate. And yet you are helping to perpetuate the inaccurate perception that the swastika represents hate and nothing else. You are participating in a perversion of what to many is a traditional, harmless symbol.

There are plenty of ways to recognize the horrors of the past without forcing others to conform to your interpretation of a simple geometric shape. The swastika does not need to represent hate. Get over it.
posted by aerify at 2:09 AM on August 1, 2005

When you see a swastika around these days, more likely than not it is not about hate. And that is what people should realize.

I'm glad you live in a completely neonazi-free area. This is what we have to put up with regularly in Europe. It's "only" a bunch of freaks but they're the ones who make sure the nazi use of the swastika is kept well alive. Blaming Jews as dont-they-love-to-be-victims for the persistance of that meaning is not just offensive, it's absolutely ridiculous. (Not to mention Jews were not and are not exclusively those targeted by either historical nazis or neonazis).

I'm sure those kinds of incidents do not happen in the US. Or not.
So maybe it is not so totally absurd and irrational for the viewers of that NY flat to have an instinctive icky reaction to the symbol, even when used as an innocent geometric pattern innocently inlaid in an innocent floor where it had nothing to do with either nazis or neonazis.
Sure, it is true that, once we know that the swastika there has no negative connotations at all, and it was only intended as decoration pre-dating any nazi use, we should feel fine with it and get over that first reaction. But that first reaction is still completely understandable. And to end up claiming that there are no longer any negative associations to it or that they shouldn't matter or that it's rarely used as a symbol of hate these days is a bit of a stretch.
posted by funambulist at 2:25 AM on August 1, 2005

It's sentiments like this:

No normal person wants to look at a swastika.
What's so great about the ancient Indo-Europeans that you'd want to work one of their glyphs into your decor?

that piss me off. It's nothing more than racism and cultural bigotry, to assume that your own culture's interpretations should apply everywhere to everybody.

I live in the US today, but I grew up in a non-Western country. Should I be forced to accept the American interpretation of what a swastika is just because I live here? No, and I shouldn't have to face the derision/contempt of closed-minded folks like amberglow, caddis, and Mayor Curley, even though I am not Hindu or Buddhist. Get over it, people, it's a fucking SHAPE.
posted by aerify at 2:31 AM on August 1, 2005

manji!

卍 (visible to those with Japanese fonts installed)
posted by aerify at 3:21 AM on August 1, 2005

There were a lot of similarly misguided discussions about the shape of Miho's Shuriken in the Sin City movie, they also being in the shape of Manji... People didn't get it there, either.
posted by benzo8 at 3:47 AM on August 1, 2005

!

I have Japanese fonts installed? When did I do that?
posted by meehawl at 3:50 AM on August 1, 2005

Assuming you use Windows, it probably it came by default with your OEM install (if you use XP); they tend to install support for East Asian and complex script languages (right to left) out of the box. Check your regional and language settings in the control panel.

Sometimes they install just the fonts so you can read them, but no input support. It's easy to check for fonts - here's a Unicode test page. If you can see the characters (no question marks or square blocks), then you have that character set installed.

卍　卍　卍
posted by aerify at 4:04 AM on August 1, 2005

aerify, ok that sentence may have been a over the top but it seemed to me less of a dig at eastern religions per se than at at their fashionable adoption, in convenient fat-free formulas, that is often more superficial cultural appropriation than genuine interest. But that's another story that has nothing to do with the symbol or the discussion over this.

Now, I didn't see anyone arguing that the Hindus and Buddhist should give up the bloody symbol or anything that crazy. I didn't see anyone arguing those floorboards must be removed by state intervention. If this floor happens to be have been decorated like this due to an Iroquois or Asian tradition, then obviously it has nothing to do with the nazis. Nothing wrong with the symbol in its original meaning. It's entirely up to the people who own that place and to those who want to live in it, if they still feel revulsion due to the inevitable nazi association, even when knowing it's only a decoration here, it's their prerogative and it's not so irrational or unfounded, and if the owner has trouble renting it, it doesn't sound so crazy to suggest he may think about altering the pattern. Reactions will vary and those who don't feel any revulsion are not necessarily more intelligent or cultured than others.

It's good to educate people that the symbol had a long tradition that predated the nazis, but why get so upset that people haven't forgotten and removed the nazi association altogether, like that would be so easy to do? Why claim it's only a shape and rarely used as a symbol of hatred these days when it's blatantly not true?

We could all sit here and go on about how lovely it would be that no neonazis existed and no swastikas were painted over Jewish cemeteries and Mexican shops and hooligan banners in football stadiums, I agree it would be fantastic, but it's not happening. So why pretend otherwise? I just don't see why you got so annoyed at amberglow and caddis and others who were merely stating the obvious.

Should I be forced to accept the American interpretation of what a swastika is just because I live here?

The nazi swastika is not an "American interpretation", duh. You're not forced to do anything, but you can't expect to demand everybody else entirely forget or ignore its past and current use by hateful racists all over two continents, at least.
posted by funambulist at 4:47 AM on August 1, 2005

Thanks Aerify, apparently I have a crapload of language glyphs available, many with very swastika-ish geometries. I am shocked. Shocked!

I DEMAND IMMEDIATE ACTION BY MICROSOFT!!
posted by meehawl at 5:06 AM on August 1, 2005

The horror!






posted by aerify at 5:18 AM on August 1, 2005

funambulist: Sure, it is true that, once we know that the swastika there has no negative connotations at all, and it was only intended as decoration pre-dating any nazi use, we should feel fine with it and get over that first reaction.

The message I got early in this thread was that there was no reason to "get over" the first swastika=nazi association to see other interpretations.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:19 AM on August 1, 2005

aerify, it has become clear to me that you really do not like Jews. That is sad.
posted by caddis at 5:44 AM on August 1, 2005

LOL. Great way to argue, by claiming that your opponent is racist.

No, what I find racist is you and your attempt to force your own cultural interpretation of a symbol onto others. I do not dislike any minority group. I DO dislike ANY minority's group attempt to monopolize the meaning of a symbol that has stood for something benign for centuries.

Do those pictures offend you? It is a Japanese map and a Buddhist monument. I think many Japanese would be offended that you take offense at those symbols that have nothing to do with Nazism.
posted by aerify at 5:54 AM on August 1, 2005

Caddis's rationale:

Supporting free use of swastika = jew-hating Nazi terrorist!
posted by aerify at 5:55 AM on August 1, 2005

it seemed to me less of a dig at eastern religions per se than at at their fashionable adoption, in convenient fat-free formulas, that is often more superficial cultural appropriation than genuine interest.

Well, I don't like the whole New Age thing that much, but I don't think that's a reason to disdain someone who might want to incorporate Hindu/Buddhist traditions in his/her life.

I find it rather gross that I have to defend myself on false charges of racism/anti-Semitism when I probably suffer a lot more racism in the US than he ever does.

In any event, no one is saying the Holocaust wasn't horrible and doesn't deserve to be recognized/remembered. But perverting symbols for eternity, especially ones that are used a HELL of a lot elsewhere in the world, is just screwed up.

The closed-mindedness of amberglow, caddis, and others is a bit much. I guess all Asians, or Hindus/Buddhists/white people in the US who are either, are, in their mind, Jew-hating swastika-loving Nazis because they use the symbol everywhere.
posted by aerify at 6:11 AM on August 1, 2005

KirkJobSluder: The message I got early in this thread was that there was no reason to "get over" the first swastika=nazi association to see other interpretations.

I don't know, my own idea is simple: there is no reason to get on a bloody high horse if people do find the sight of a swastika icky even when used simply as a mere decorative pattern on a wood floor with no cultural associations whatsoever. It is not an inconceivable reaction, especially in NY (or London or Berlin or Jerusalem or Cracow or Rome) rather than Tibet.

aerify: But perverting symbols for eternity, especially ones that are used a HELL of a lot elsewhere in the world, is just screwed up.

You are twisting the whole thing with a lot of straw men here. Again: it's not the people who react at the sight of a swastika that are perverting its use, it's the nazis and those who still worship the nazis today that have already perverted it. But even they aren't perverting its use in its original context! No one's claiming the symbol carries negative associations and should not be used in its original context and areas, or that it's fair for someone visting a Buddhist monastery to be repelled and think the Buddhists are nazis, for gosh's sake. It may still be inevitable to think also of the nazi appropriation of it, especially to someone who's been more used at seeing it in that context, but it won't be an issue because they'll know the context is different.



I guess all Asians, or Hindus/Buddhists/white people in the US who are either, are, in their mind, Jew-hating swastika-loving Nazis because they use the symbol everywhere.

That's your own crazy conclusion and it was not suggested at any time by anyone in this discussion, but, make up what you will.
posted by funambulist at 6:30 AM on August 1, 2005

And what you don't seem to grasp is that being more used at seeing a swastika in a nazi/neonazi context is not a sign of close-mindedness, it's just a consequence of that appropriation by the nazis/neonazis/racists in Europe and the US. Instead, you're assuming that being more used at seeing a swastika in a Buddhist/Hindu/Asian context is inherently a sign of superior knowledge. It's not. It's two different backgrounds. They're both perfectly ok, because they're not chosen. Is that so hard to understand?
posted by funambulist at 6:34 AM on August 1, 2005

There's a significant difference between the two: one connotes hate and suffering, that all "normal people" must oppose with a passion. The other is just a traditional cultural symbol, like a cross, that carries no such hateful connotations. Yet people who try to use the symbol in the second manner are branded as racists and anti-Semites. Witness the Nintendo or Microsoft furor. This, I feel, is wrong. And by insisting on preserving the hateful meaning you are doing nothing to rectify that.

There is another issue here, one of proportion. How many neo-Nazis are left in this world? Very few. Of course, there are hate crimes against Jews, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, gays... but for the most part, it's a very small number (except maybe for gays, as anti-gay sentiment is still mainstream in many countries). How many Asians/Hindus/Buddhists are there? A lot. Millions, billions. To let the actions of a fringe group today overwhelm the meaning of an imagery used by billions around the globe is, I think, a perversion. Of the millions of swastikas that you might see anywhere in the world, the VAST majority of them have nothing to do with Nazis. It's a numbers game. Doing nothing to educate people, or try to change perceptions, is not right.
posted by aerify at 6:51 AM on August 1, 2005

We could be having the same discussion about this:



Again, it's just a shape. Perhaps your revulsion toward the swastika seems a little out of proportion when you realize a lot more people were killed under this symbol.
posted by aerify at 6:56 AM on August 1, 2005

And probably a LOT more, under this:




My eyes!!!!! The evil!!!!!
posted by aerify at 6:59 AM on August 1, 2005

I also have some old Kipling books that use the swastika and I also wish it could be used as it was before it was appropriated, but you have to be realistic. If you show it to almost anyone (in the West, anyway), they will not think "Oh, there's that lovely symbol of good luck and auspiciousness!" The symbol has been wrecked (again, at least in the West) for anyone who knows anything about Nazis, and it would take a huge propaganda campaign to change that even a little. If it's still cool to display it in India, then fine, use it in India. But if I displayed it in Brooklyn, I'd expect to have my nose broken long before I could explain its noble origins and my actual intent and affiliations.
posted by pracowity at 7:05 AM on August 1, 2005

What I just want is for someone to be able to display the swastika publicly, maybe on a T-shirt or something, without everybody automatically assuming this person is a Nazi or anti-Semite. It shouldn't be too much of a stretch, considering the sheer number of Asians/Hindus/Buddhists/Native Americans around, in totality, compared with actual neo-Nazis. The real problem is a lack of education, severe media bias, and the unwillingness of many people (seen on this thread) to change their perceptions. No one's suggesting THEY have to use the swastika, just be tolerant of others who might want to, without assuming malicious intent. It's not free, or just, when a large number of people have to hide an important symbol of their culture just because of a few fucked-up people.
posted by aerify at 7:10 AM on August 1, 2005

Then you'll have to risk your own nose and spend your own time explaining to everyone who wants to break it. If you're really into it, try to come up with a T-shirt that explains it convincingly enough to win people over before they jump you. But don't be surprised if people question your motives. And if the neos start wearing your shirt, your project's screwed.
posted by pracowity at 7:37 AM on August 1, 2005

Apparently the lampshades bit is an urban legend

It's really not. I saw it in a doccumentary (the name of which escapes me but I think I've got it written down somewhere). There are other artifacts made out of Jews, too.
posted by Jon-o at 8:45 AM on August 1, 2005

And by insisting on preserving the hateful meaning you are doing nothing to rectify that.

Once again: it's not my or amberglow's or caddis's fault that there were nazis and that there are still neonazis and racists using the swastika and it's not up to me or you or anyone to "rectify" or "reclaim" a thing here. Those who had been using the symbol for centuries before in its original meaning are still using it and will continue to do, so and no one's arguing with that.

What's being debated is the expectation that people just arbitrarily remove all swastika-nazi associations, when in reality they are still very much alive.

There is another issue here, one of proportion. How many neo-Nazis are left in this world? Very few.

Well for that matter even terrorists are relatively very few, in proportion to the world's population... You know, I'm noticing a very irritating dismissive approach here. What with characterising nazis as "some historical event that only has significance for a subset of the world's population" and talking of "culture of victimhood" and depicting neonazi racist hate crimes as rare, well, it makes one wonder...

How many Asians/Hindus/Buddhists are there? A lot. Millions, billions.

And, for the nth time, no one is arguing that they should stop using the symbol or claim it as their own in its original meaning. Enough with the straw man.

Of the millions of swastikas that you might see anywhere in the world, the VAST majority of them have nothing to do with Nazis.

Depends where you live and what culture you were brought up in, doesn't it?

In the United States and in Europe, the vast majority of encounters with the swastika has been and still is of the ugly racist association kind. It is not an insult to other cultures, for god's sake; no one has a problem with the Hindu/Buddhist use of it in a clear Hindu/Buddhist context. No one chose that swastika-nazi association except the nazis themselves, and for you to ask people to ignore that even while the symbol is still being used in that meaning, doesn't make any sense.


What I just want is for someone to be able to display the swastika publicly, maybe on a T-shirt or something, without everybody automatically assuming this person is a Nazi or anti-Semite.

But why would you want to do it in America? People don't go around wearing swastikas on their t-shirt even in India.
You're talking of a kind of completely de-contextualised use that wouldn't even have a religious context, yet you expect people not to assume you're a nazi for wearing a swastika - or at the very least a twat who thinks he's doing something provocative and daring. Why? You want to erase history with a t-shirt? You don't have that power.
posted by funambulist at 8:47 AM on August 1, 2005

I guess all Asians, or Hindus/Buddhists/white people in the US who are either, are, in their mind, Jew-hating swastika-loving Nazis because they use the symbol everywhere.

Did you bother to read this thread or did you just jump right in?
That's the statement that we've all been arguing against.



I've never understood why the victims of the Holocaust get to have a monopoly on suffering and forcing others to remember that suffering.
Um, that's entirely in your perception and, if you don't mind me saying so, go fuck yourself for even thinking that.

No one's suggesting THEY have to use the swastika, just be tolerant of others who might want to, without assuming malicious intent
And we are tolerant. Like I said, if you had bothered to absorb what I wrote, we're all perfectly capable and willing to distinguish the difference between peaceful and hateful displays of the swastika. Really, we're exposed to it pretty consistently in art and architecture and we don't fly off the handle about Nazis or break down in tears every time we see it.
The whole point here is that it's not unreasonable for me not to want to live in a place that's got a bunch of swastikas in it.
I'm not going to repeat the paragraphs and paragraphs of discussion that I previously wrote in this thread. If you scroll up and actually read what I wrote, you'll find that there's very little disagreement and that you're arguing your position a little disproportionately.
posted by Jon-o at 9:08 AM on August 1, 2005

Also...

How many neo-Nazis are left in this world? Very few.

Well, the entire world Jewish population is only about 13 million. To put it in perspective, the population of NYC is a little more than 9 million. So excuse me for being a little nervous that there might be at least that many people throughout the world who are wary of, if not hate, the Jews (who's strength as a nation amounts to little more than a single large city).
posted by Jon-o at 9:18 AM on August 1, 2005

Jon-o, your comment sounds more than a little anti-semitic. I infer from your comment, well if the world already hate this group of people, who cares if this symbol---representative of hate---is exhibited. THis has nothing to do with numbers. It has to do with hate vs. tolerance.
posted by jdfelicia at 9:25 AM on August 27, 2005

I remember as a child being really disappointed to learn that the swastika represented nazis, because on a simple aesthetic level, I had found it very appealing. And I have to say, I guess because I have seen more examples in recent years of its use in non-hateful contexts, it does not viscerally upset me anymore. I believe when I was younger I would have been upset by, for instance, that quilt. But now I actually think it's quite beautiful.

Another aspect may be that I have read far more books about the holocaust than seen movies and documentaries, and in books, the swastika is not a prominent part of nazism. When people talk about nationalism or heroism or superior individuals or races, I think of nazis - sometimes unreasonably (sometimes reading nietzsche makes me uneasy). But the visual stuff is less tied into my (fairly extensive) familiarity with that horrific part of history.
posted by mdn at 2:39 PM on August 27, 2005