1 November 2004APOLOGIESI am sorry to say that I'll I be away on digs in Maryland and Pennsylvania and will be neglecting his blog until about Christmas. I'll try to get back to it as soon and time and IT permit. Incidentally, I may have failed to mention to you that I have a more or less permanent home here in Baltimore now: 1308 W. 40th Street In case I fail to contact you individually, I wish you happy holidays here. Take care! M 16 October 2004FISHTwo peculiarly American fashions of stating one's social and political sympathies seem to have merged on the surface of that most American of luxuries, the automobile. Americans are especially fond of slapping stickers, decals or magnets bearing some message onto the fenders or rear windows of their cars. The traditional bumper sticker, for example, can advertise anything from a political candidate to a tourist attraction, it may simply read "Mean people suck" or, with contrary implications, "Mean people kick ass!" For the last couple of decades at least, Christians of various breeds have been attaching the stylized image of a fish to the back of their cars. Of course, this symbol, used secretly by ancient Christians, gets its evangelical and mnemonic potency from, respectively, Jesus' saying to his future disciples Simon Peter and Andrew, "Follow me and I shall make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4.19) and the fact that the word for fish in the Greek that everyone spoke in the eastern part of the Roman Empire at that time (pace Mel Gibson) was IChThYS, a handy acronym for Isous Christos Theou (h)Yios kai Str "Jesus Christ Son of God and Savior." Some of the fish fender embellishments have the acronym incorporated into the design, but most lack it. In response to the Christian fish decal, evolutionists, Christian or otherwise, have produced a fender attachment in the shape of a fish, but with legs, the name "Darwin" written inside of it. While most Americans have enough exposure to holy writ to recognize the relevant passage from Matthew's gospel, the subtlety of the Greek symbolism is lost on the better part of them. In the vagrancy of conversation on a Saturday night in a local bar (yes, the same one), I explained this to a physics PhD acquaintance of mine, who thought it so amazing that he had to tell everyone sitting around him, to my slight embarrassment. It's only an acronym, I thought. But then I remembered that America is a country where little appreciation for the nuances of word meanings and derivations exists, let alone it being highly esteemed where it does. Hence American attempts at wordplay -- especially in the realm in which Americans most value language for its brute efficacy, selling things to people -- are often graceless, consisting of semi-puns ("stew-it-yourself-meal") or based on a vague understanding, falling short of etymology, that two words may share the same stem ("If it's not ef-fective, it must be de-fective!"). I take it as yet another sign of a society with diminished historical comprehension, let alone tolerance for historical accountability. So back to bumper stickers: since the First World War, the yellow ribbon, traditionally tied around a tree in one's yard, has symbolized friends' and relations' anxious anticipation that a soldier overseas will return home unharmed. The practice is famously commemorated in the lyrics of the song "Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree," which are meant to be the words of an American doughboy, destined for Europe, to his betrothed. In recent decades, this emblem has been adapted to various worthy and unworthy causes for commemoration, including a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness and a red ribbon for AIDS activism and, since 9/11, such challenges of brain-hazy hope and defiance as "God bless America," "United we stand" (on red, white, and blue) and "Support our troops" (on yellow). There's even a black ribbon that reads "Bring them back alive," referring to real or imagined American MIA-POWs in Vietnam. The latter sort are seen on probably half the cars on the tangle of "90-something" roads that make up the Washington and Baltimore Beltways where I live. The curious thing about the stylized ribbon stickers bearing messages is that they form a loop, like their miniature equivalent token lapel badges. The slogan on them is usually written along one of the two crossed ends, such that it is most easily read if the loop is turned lengthwise, perpendicular to the way it is usually worn on a garment. The result is a shape that looks rather like the Jesus fish (or Darwin amphibian). Label-bearing Christians have not failed to notice this, as is evident in the vehicles one sees festooned with yellow and stars-and-stripes ribbon decals and Christian fish symbols, a few emblazoned with "IchThYS," but most not. Thus American identity and the American project -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, or white suburbs -- is Christianized. Here is an outstanding case of the wonderful and dangerous nature of symbols. Without any regard to their genealogies, they can become elegant forms of question begging: America is united because it is Christian and therefore blessed by God and deserving of your support; and America is Christian and blessed by God because it is united and deserving of your support. The statements on the stickers are declarative, imperative, and optative. Jesus Christ Son of God and Savior, or more simply, Jesus Christ Son of Gun Slinger. Spread the good news -- the lessons of the last century's imperialist horrors be damned! May we go forth and conquer hearts, minds, and your arse. Nevertheless, symbols can also be subverted because they are ambiguous and ironic -- hence the common trope "by the same token." The irony in the present case may be that fish usually swim in schools, not as the solitary predators that ruggedly individualistic Americans imagine themselves to be. Schools of fish seem to swim with a life of their own, the whole moving with a collective, communicative intelligence. An old sot of a punk rocker from Wiltshire used to sing "We fish must swim together," appealing to the image of the school of small fish defending itself against the depredations of the big fish. Such a picture could hardly be less like that of swaggering, strident George Bush, of Bush's "base" of "haves and have-mores," and the armaments of America raining down on diverse corners of the world. Can the fish symbol be subverted so as to represent a fluid intelligence, collective action, and the common good -- not by sticking legs on it, as the self-styled Darwinists do -- but rather making sure that it is multiplied in our every gesture? Or, rather, is the fish of fear, ignorance, shamelessness, and hate going to swallow us whole? Feedback should be sent to me, Michael Lane, at mflane@acephale.org. | ARCHIVESMarch 2006November 2005July 2005May 2005February 2005October 2004September 2004August 2004July 2004June 2004May 2004 |