Interested in opinions: increasing use of swastika in jewelry, claims that they are trying to "rehab

[DirkGently]

36. Context and intelligence seem like the keys here.

Who's using the symbol, in what configuration, in what environment? I can't imagine someone making a piece of Hindu or Buddhist art out there needs anyone to tell them to stop using the swastika because Westerners mainly associate it with Nazis and skinheads.

But by the same token, if someone stitches a big black swastika to their jacket in the United States, they shouldn't be surprised when people assume they're down with Hitler just because they have decided it's all "rehabilitated" now.

Symbols are a form of communication, and they take their meaning from the ways they are deployed and the surrounding facts and history. No shape or color or design has an intrinsic meaning that anyone can claim is the only "real" meaning.

Part of context is the presentation itself.

The Nazi symbol is this:




(Clockwise bends, canted at an angle, generally those colors).

Not this:



Or this:


Or this:



I don't know about the worthiness of "rehabilitating" the symbol -- for those who know the difference in history, format and usage, I don't know that it needs it. I would wonder if some smirking racist out there was just hoping to retcon their Nazi paraphernalia into acceptability, or take racists' money for a design without owning up to the real appeal of what they're selling.

So if someone is going to use it, it's easy enough to be clear as to whether or not they are invoking the racism and genocide the Nazi regime came to stand for. And leaving any room for doubt is not a good idea.

I'm sure the artists in India or elsewhere the symbol has much older roots than WWII are clear amongst themselves that they don't suddenly "mean" what the Nazis meant when they employ the swastika.

But especially here in the West, where it's never been well known outside of some native American communities other than as a Nazi symbol, just throwing swastikas around they though were just another "interesting shape" is potentially very insensitive.

If we're trying to create art, we have to have command of the images, including symbols we use. I think intelligent people can do that, but it's more complicated to communicate correctly than someone just deciding one day what a given symbol "really" means.

Just my $0.02.