Chapter XIV

FORMAL DESIGNS and FUNCTIONAL 'DEVICES'

Symbolic Elements and Emblems of Human Civilization

by Hugh M. Lewis

What is the fundamental nature of humanity--Political Animal? Tool Maker? Homo sapiens? Each designation contains a good deal of truth, yet none would be possible if Man the Symbol User did not exist. Symbols are perhaps the most important tool we have invented; they allow us to think by channeling the myriad sense impressions we constantly receive into manageable and orderly categories. Moreover since these symbols are developed by groups rather than individuals, they provide s with a medium of communication fundamental to every social transaction--political, economic, artistic, religious, etc. Symbols are the link which humans forge between their internal selves and external conditions and events. If symbols do not always reflect reality accurately at least they allow people to manipulate and reorder the world better to their liking. (Whitney Smith; Flags: Through the Ages and Across the World, 1975: 304)

The claim that human behavior is essentially symbolic has become a trite way of saying little about a lot. Humankind upon earth has long trafficked in symbols and the rise of human civilization can be understood as the synergistic developmental patterning of elaborate symbol systems. Symbolisms have always been the warp and weft of the rich, unfolding tapestry of culture history, and symbolization has been the basic 'evolutionary' process at the heart of human transformations of the world and in the world.

Individual symbolization has been the primary mechanism of the psycho-social integration of social reality and the principle means of mediating the boundaries and relationship between the human organism and the environment. Symbols come to 'incorporate' and express human experience, and we come to 'embody' symbols in our experience. Symbols have a 'mediational' or integrative function in ordering human experience in the world--we analytically separate out its dimensions of syntagmatic and paradigmatic after the fact of its integrative experience. We do not experience the world in 'non-symbolic' or 'proto-symbolic' way.

The culture historical background of symbolism provides the relational context against which we can configure an understanding of language. Symbolization works systematically in ways similar to how linguistic activity becomes structured and 'situated' and though language is particular and especially focal kind of symbol system, it is also part of a larger contextual set of relations which are primarily symbolic. Linguistic activity cannot be understood apart from its symbolic context and it is primarily through language that we can better understand this larger culture historical framework.

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Symbols are anything and everything. All symbols are by definition both 'formal' and 'nomic' in significance and 'functional' or 'intentional' in signification. Even the most basic of hand tools, the stone chopper or adz, or the most modern tools to make tools to make other tools, have some symbolic value which is both formal and functional, alongside of the history of the use of the tool. Similarly, all ideas, however abstract, remote or apparently 'a priori' have some measure of instrumental use-value as symbols.

Symbols have fuzzy, soft edges with more definite 'centers'. It is the fuzziness of the boundaries of symbols which renders them easily detachable and 'adhesive' to other symbols, which cohere together to form symbolic chains, complexes, aggregations and larger conglomerations and which coalesce into patterned 'crystallytic' formations which achieve some measure of historical stability as 'self organized' systems.

It is the fuzziness of symbols which allows them to be easily 'transacted'--to be broken off from symbolic conglomeration and associated with other similar groupings. It is also the fuzziness of the edges which renders symbols relatively difficult to 'isolate' as particular, discrete entities, and makes symbols also relatively difficult to delimit against larger relational contexts. This can be referred to as symbolic relativity, and in part underlies the general problem of human relativism.

Symbols are analogous to 'molecules' of human cultural reality--they can be rearranged into different configurations to confer alternative 'properties' to basic cultural 'materials'. They can be broken down into their elementary 'atoms'--the basic 'periodic table' of 'universal human elements' of basic archetypes incorporating dimensions of reversal, symmetry/asymmetry, and dialectical antinomies such as space/time, is/is not, right/left, etc. The basic archetypes of these symbolic elements are the basic underived signs, which in turn may be 'deconstructed' into subatomic particles that Rodney Needham refers to as 'primary factors of human experience' such as tactile physical contrasts like hard and soft or warm or cold, basic colors, symbolic use of numbers, certain sounds such as persuasion, basic phonetic articulations and perhaps certain basic emotions, gestures and psycho-physiological responses.

Like language, symbols can be reduced down to the composite patterning of basic signs which are concrete, mechanical in function and metanymical in significance. Signs may themselves be symbols, but the particular arrangement of signs, like the particular combinations of phonemes, configure together to produce derivative, 'symbolic' significance which is 'lifted' from the particular significances carried by its particular component signs. Like language, symbolisms have 'duality of structure'. Symbols also have a 'signification' in that they stand for something else which is 'abstract' and displaced from the immediate context of its signification. All symbols are both signified and substantive in experience, and ideational and 'contextual' in referring to something other than its own signifiers.

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Symbol systems range from analogical to homological schemes of organization. Analogical schemes correspond to synchronic, paradigmatic and referential, definitional classes, while homological schemes refer to the particular arrangements in which signs are regularly, sequentially ordered, and the constraints governing such arrangements--homological classification is diachronic, 'syntagmatic' and inferential in function. Analogical schemes refer more to the referential and contextual form of symbols, while homological schemes refer to the inferential and intentional functions to which symbol systems are put. The former relates, contextualizes and unites elements within a single order or symbolic domain of experience, the former differentiates and interrelates by comparison of different domains of experience in terms of particular elements from each domain. The former structure is 'typological', the latter is 'taxonomical'.

The two kinds of systems are 'coordinate' in the experience of human reality--they are always convergent and intermeshed in the ongoing symbolic construction of the experiential fabric of human reality. It is to be speculated whether such symbolic coordination is inherent to the lateralization of brain function in the integration of spatial and temporal dimensions of human experience.

They are many orders and kinds of symbolism, distinguished according to their forms and functions. As such, we may refer to linguistic symbolisms, technological symbolisms, to somatic symbolisms, to relational symbolisms, to 'concrete' or environmental symbolisms, etc. we may even speculate that there are certain 'meta-rules' for the organization and interrelation of these different classes, orders and kinds of symbolism.

Some symbols systems may be more analogically unconstrained, or 'implicit' and more homologically anchored or explicit. Language is such a system. Likewise, systems may be more analogically constrained and explicit yet homologically unconstrained. Magic, and superstition in general is such a symbol system. Other systems may be both relatively constrained both analogically and homologically, (science, for example) and others may be relatively unconstrained in both ways (mythology). In Wayang Kulit, the normal Aristotelian strictures of a single train of events in a single temporal sequence is not relevant--multiple realities can co-occur within the same time frame, such that God time, spirit time, person time, and hero time all co-occur within the same event structure, such that 'John Wayne, Charlie Chaplain and Captain Cook' can feasibly occur within the same scene--what is constrained is the sequence of locations for the action to occur. Similarly, the Gamelan music which accompanies such performances lacks the kind of rhythmic tempo characteristic of western music.

All symbol systems must be somehow 'anchored' by constraints which produce recursion within the system and confer on it relational consistency of patterning. But the different systems remain flexible in the way and to the extent that they may be so 'anchored'. It may be speculated that some systems which are analogically unconstrained offer a wider latitude of alternative choices, whereas systems with greater homological freedom are characterized by reversal, alternative time scales, divergent or multiply co-occurring time frames, or by 'frozen time'. Systems are also characterized by their relative context dependency/independence and their openness and generativity. Ideographic systems are virtually unlimited in the signs they can employ, but are extremely context dependent and therefore weakly generative. Alphabets are finite number of signs with a limited number of relational rules, but which produce a relatively context independent and open system with virtually infinite generativity.

In general, it can be said that whereas most symbolic systems are of the former variety, language in particular is of the later kind. It can be said that oral language traditions might be less homological and more context bound than literate languages and that literacy promotes less context bound language use. All systems have some measure of flexibility and openness, and also some measure of constraint and context dependency.

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A particularly interesting order of symbolism is the 'emblem' defined as 'a visible symbol of a thing, idea, class of people, etc., object or representation that stands for or suggest something else.' Originally, an emblem was any kind of inlay or mosaic tile or embossed relief. Even today, in many Chinese temples, such emblems can be found on painted and glazed tiles bearing scenes of gods and deities which depict a Confucian moral or Buddhist teaching--these emblems epitomize the 'Conflation of the Three Teachings' which so characterize the syncretism of eastern religion.

Later emblems came to be elaborated as allegorical pictures with a motto and verse, suggesting some moral message, verity or 'conceit'. These emblems were said to be a kind of 'devise'--meaning a 'separation, a division, a distribution, difference, description, custom, fashion, intention, will or even identifying mark.' Such devices were said to come from the shields, crests, seals and coats of arms which ancient soldiers, their commanders and the nobility carried into war with them. Such emblems were often a rebus, or were talismans with magical properties or had 'propaganda' or persuasive power used to reinforce alliances, images of authority and relations of dependency.

Emblems can be a kind of symbolism which contained three essential elements--a 'Motto', an 'Icon' and some explanatory verse or the 'Epigram'. The symbolic value of the emblem emerges from the interaction of these three elements, such that they elucidate one another, and in so doing convey the meaning of the whole emblem. In the construction of the emblem, these three parts were integral to one another--they do not occur in isolation or separately from one another, but within the same symbolic 'frame' of the emblem. Emblems were the epitome of symbols.

Such emblems served two basic functions--representations and interpretation. "A res picta, an object from nature, art or mythology, becomes a res significans, expressing a general truth or insight. It is important to realize that all three parts of an emblem can share in the double function of representation and interpretation." (Karl Holtgen; Aspects of the Emblem, 1986: 24)

Today there are may derivative symbolic forms which are emblematic in structure and function. Official badges, seals, coats of arms, uniforms with associated paraphernalia, medals, medallions, pens, hats, etc. All forms of money, coins, bills, stamps are emblematic, as are advertisements, logos and posters. Tattoos are a kind of personal emblem. Cartoon strips combining words with pictures in a story line are an emblematic rendition, as is children's literature. Even illustration in literature are emblematic in that pictures and their associated captions are held to be representative of something important within the narrative of the text. Emblems in the past had an important function among populations which were mostly illiterate or semi-literate.

Emblematic symbolisms are examples of a symbolic system which is highly constrained analogically, synchronically and referentially and yet which remains relatively unconstrained homologically. Their function is paradigmatic in relation to other, similar symbolisms, rather than 'syntagmatic'. As such, emblematic symbolisms express several forms and functions--they can be 'authoritative' and confer a sense of identity or legitimacy. They can be 'enacted' and 'performative' such as the signing of a declaration of war, or a speech declaring an armistice or independence, or the breaking of a bottle over the stern of a ship or the cutting of the tie in the unveiling of a statue or the breaking of a ribbon at a finish line, but as such they tend to be particularly singular, 'one time' events.

Such emblems mark a critical moment, a change of state or 'alteration'. Emblems stand for the possession of the thing they represent, and must be substituted when such possession is changed.

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The flag is a particular kind of emblem. Originally flags were 'vexalloids'--long staffs with a geometric symbol or animal figure on top--and their function was totemic. The totemic function of the flag has been to embody and sacralize the collective identity of the social order for which it literally and figuratively stands--as such they are 'collective representations' par excellence. Early totems were derived directly from the natural cum supernatural order--the dog clan or bear clan, or the snake or crow people. Related to this totemic function is the notion of the taboo and sacrament--in this case the emblem becomes symbolically what it stands for--for instance, bread and wine as the blood and body of Christ. Burning the American flag can be seen simultaneously as an epitome of the expression of the basic freedom which the flag represents, while simultaneously also representing the ultimate desecration of the very social order within which such freedom of expression is safeguarded. This highlights a basic contradiction of American culture.

Flags are more than just decorative or representational devices--they are also symbolic and communicative, constituting factors affecting the world directly as they manipulate and are manipulated by groups of people. In general, the more widespread a particular emblem, the more abstract and simplified its basic form--local flags always tend to be more complex and explicit than those of larger nations. Flags feature certain recurrent symbolisms--a geometric sun, mandala or star, an eagle, 'garuda', phoenix, dragon or some similarly striking bird, a distinctive animal such as the lion, the bear, the dolphin, certain basic colors such as red, white, blue, green, yellow, certain geometric designs such as the cross, the circle or the crescent. Bars and stripes have come to represent topographical elements of flags; while trees, ships, floral arrangements and basic tools and certain 'logos' or inscriptions are also commonly found on flags.

Many rules of custom and etiquette govern the ceremony and ritual which always surrounds the use and manipulation of the flag--such ritual reinforces its sense of sacredness. Flags are displayed in relation to each other in certain ways--higher order flags always fly above lower order ones, and at international events, national flags are flown side by side. It is not insignificant that at the Olympics the flag of the first place country is flown above that of the second and third place winners, respectively. The ultimate symbol of victory in battle is the hoisting of the flag above the enemy's position, while the greatest dishonor is the loss of a unit's colors in battle. The history of a country can be seen by the alternation of the flag over time--adding stars over time. The civil war brought a rebel flag with crossed stars and stripes, reminiscent of the British Union Jack. Eras of peace or of alliance are sometimes represented by composite flags which are placed or pieced together from the individual flags of the participating nations.

It is the potency of the use of such flags which is most remarkable--their ceremonial display stirs strong and reverent emotions in spectators. There is something basic and fundamental about their symbolism which makes them so potent an emblematic 'devise'. As such they become 'Master' or 'Dominant' Symbols. The most powerful symbolisms combine many symbolic elements simultaneously--active symbolism of a parade or protest march beneath the Arch of Triumph or in Washington DC., coupled with banners, placards, slogans, speeches, etc. Hitler was a master of such symbolic manipulation at his rallies, fostering the illusion of his charismatic power.

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A key feature of symbols is that they must occupy time and space--though they are always contextually bound and relative, they are nevertheless also finite and discrete, substantive and 'fixed' in place. Symbolisms can be merged and amalgamated but two separate, distinct symbolisms of the same kind cannot occupy the same place at the same time, without displacing, limiting or altering the other. As such, symbols can be said to have a certain real 'mass' which can be described as the minimal threshold of their integrative value, before they are altered or displaced. Symbol systems exhibit a kind of cumulative traditional momentum which confers upon their history a certain stability and directionality.

It has been the distinctive individual symbolic elements, their designs and functions, and their 'stimulus generalization' which has been the substance of human civilization as a trans-cultural process of historical development. As basic symbolic elements become transmitted between peoples, elaborated, modified and altered in being fit to new culture historical contexts, they also lead to a basic alteration of the environmental contexts in which they are introduced.

Elemental designs become simplified, abstracted and 'streamlined' as they become transmitted and modified to fit new contexts. New elements which better fit new contexts displace older elements. The design, selection and displacement of elements is determined by both their form and function within the prevailing context. In general, there is a pre-determining tendency for new elements to be selected for which allow greater directional patterning of development and 'intensification' of power and control underlying development. It is not simply enough for elements to be merely different in a random or haphazard fashion. Though there is an amount of drift in all culture change, such changed tends to be directed, integrative and increasingly intensive.

We can readily see the advantages which a cultural grouping has who incorporated the bow and arrow into their life-ways as opposed to those without such a device, who has a concept of zero or the use of the wheel, or of the steam or gun powder, who made paper or had a printing press, or a single, all powerful God, or a Republican Assembly or a court system, or a bureaucracy, over those without. Whatever their form or function, such elements were primarily symbolic in allowing the integration and intensification of power in culture historical patterning of civilization. Once 'discovered', invented or devised, such symbolisms were readily transmitted and introduced to other groupings. The silkworm and the secret of making fine porcelain were well kept by the xenophobic Chinese, but their leakage and transformative consequences in the larger world were only a matter of time.

The introduction of new elements into an established order can have major reverberations and consequences upon that order, creating a 'super critical mass' which eventuates in syncretization and revitalization movements. Effigies of radios, airplanes, western goods can be found on makeshift airstrips by people who recreate the emblematic form of such symbols but lack the know-how or understanding of their function.

New elements introducing new forms and new functions, create new horizons of developmental patterning and lead to major alterations in the 'systemic' structure of the whole culture historical context. In the endeavor to devise completely new and germinal elements and designs, humankind has been notoriously shortsighted, resistant and crippled. For time immemorial it was common knowledge that human flight was a physical impossibility until the foolish seeming Wright brothers finally demonstrated otherwise. Less than a hundred years later, humankind has taken the basic discover of flight and transformed the whole world--we have walked upon the moon and regularly fly around the world as an everyday, ordinary event. Humankind must have long been better innovators than inventors, much better elaborators then originators of the new. Proto typical humankind must have long run from forest fires before they discovered that it can be controlled. Starting fire must have been slow to start, but quick to catch on. How we have massive arsenals of atomic bombs.

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Any given 'symbolic' element of human civilization can be identified by its 'paradigmatic proto typicality'--its basic, formal 'design'--in subsuming a range of possible alternative 'profiles' or instantiations--a paradigmatic, phenomenological and hermeneutical 'event horizon' within which change is allowed and constrained. No single element is purely technological or purely social or purely ideological in form or function. Each element incorporated ideological, social and technological or teleological aspects and consequences in its concrete manifestation. A tool or a weapon is never just a device for mechanical manipulation but also always carries certain ideational content and social value. The conception of a single God is never purely disembodied or abstract, that it does not somehow become 'trans-substantiated' through symbolic material forms and social ritual process.

Symbolic elements become arranged into regular 'syntagmatic' patterning within a given culture historical context which allows the function of 'making sense' of the world. These syntagmatic relationships are based upon the objectifications of their 'intentionality structures' constraining human experience and behavior within culture historical contexts and permitting the ongoing mediation of change in environments and the maintenance of psycho social identity in relation to such change.

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations are temporal and spatial dimensions of the ongoing instantiation of the historical patterning of human reality--they dialectically precondition and constrain one another such that syntagmatic order or recursive homological structure limits the selection of paradigmatic, analogical alternatives and syntagmatic ordering of elements is preconditioned by the availability and selection of elements from paradigmatic domains.

The only rule governing these possible arrangements are that they 'make sense' within given relational contexts in which they occur. This relational context as the experiential environment, is itself changing and developing in certain directions and there occasionally arise an appropriate arrangement of circumstances preconditioning or rendering possible the invention, reception or elaboration of new elements to fill in 'gaps' left open and unfilled by altering contexts. In this way, independent simultaneous inventions or synchronicistic changes can be understood as 'likely' when contextual preconditions 'ripen' or become 'prepared' for their 'fruition'.

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There is an important 'dialectic' in the developmental unfolding of civilization. In its terms, formal designs constrain functional devises and form in turn is constrained by function. Change in one entail concomitant contrapuntal change in the other. Symbolic elements, the stuff of human civilization are arranged by such a dialectic between synchronic, paradigmatic, analogical, formal, referential, definitional and 'representational' dimensions of experience and diachronic, syntagmatic, homological, functional, inferential, interpretive, 'intentional' dimensions. We may say that whereas the former 'collectives' in certain ways the latter 'relativizes' in other ways--one generalizes whereas the other 'particularizes'. The movement in any conversation between reference and inference, descriptive and interpretive, can be quickly discerned by its 'syllogistic' direction in generalizing or particularizing, contextualizing or isolating.

There is an important sense that symbol systems must be both flexible and constrained, changing and conservative, open and closed, context bound and content independent. Duality of structure in the dialectical symbolization of human reality allows for such paradox and incorporation of contradiction.

There is an evolutionary ecology about human dialectical symbolism--symbolic elements and social systems are governed by self organizing principles of selection. The chaos of natural, extensive, randomly occurring change determines that the patterning of such systems be recursive and somehow stable. Such systems must also be composed of finite numbers of elements and relations between elements--too many elements results in interference and super critical 'noise' which predictably destabilizes such systems. This determines that elements will be displaced and replaced by other elements in a manner which ensures the overall stability of the 'system'. New elements will be incorporated into the system which increase the 'intensity' of such systems, and such elements will lead to major reverberations and structural alterations within the system, becoming transformed in basic ways.

It is of utmost importance that we recognize and understand how inherently symbolic are our basic cybernetic systems in relation and transformation of our world. Our systems are inherently 'pattern creating', 'sense making', 'order imposing' and 'meaningful' but in certain limited ways. There has been an historical and evolutionary directionality in this patterning--we create more meaning in the world through the creating and elaboration of new symbolisms. Our symbol systems must always be some how 'anchored' experientially to reality, and must simultaneously be 'open' to changes in the environment. This was the fundamental 'problem' posed by natural selection which the evolution of our 'symbolizing capacity' solved for us. This capacity did not spring into being fully developed, but became gradually inaugurated in relation to the transformations in the world with which it has always dialectically related.

All language activity, including literature, involves, then, variation between spontaneity (present) and repetition (past) and communicates on at least two levels, the lexically expressed message (L) and the relational message (LM) of course, the relational communication is conveyed, leading, if repeated, to the sorts of linguistic involutions exposed by R.D. Laing. (1970) (Earnest Becker; Javanese Shadow Theater, 1979: 215)