The Symbolism of the Symbol

It is fairly safe to say that no cultured person, today, is unacquainted with the part played by the symbol in life. In fact, the current idea of the symbol is firmly planted. It has been growing apace for the past fifty years. It always existed, but the teachings of psychoanalysis made us more aware of it. It has come to be one of the verbal deities that we use quite freely in everyday speech. It is difficult, for example, to go to an art gallery or hear a discussion of art without hearing someone say that something is symbolic. Current psychological concepts and criticisms hardly find it possible to examine things without thinking, as well, in terms of sexual symbolism. The taboos about such views have diminished somewhat, under the drive of human needs and scientific discovery over many decades.

However, the cliché use of these ideas has worn the ideas themselves into relatively useless rags. Underneath all of this, vital functions carry on and a lusty chat at the end of an art show may be more gratifying than discussions of symbolism at the exhibit. After all, even art is symbolic. One gets the habit of looking. Modern masters no longer are startling and old masters seem to be overrated, technically and otherwise. It is odd how humans will venerate something because it is three or four hundred years old and then shift this veneration on to the artist and his work. Each age turns out a certain amount of shoddy work and a certain amount of the talented. Veneration of age itself, is not a bad thing. Age shows a certain amount of durability, either in custodial care, material strength, or the quality of adaptability in the human being. An old art museum, a diamond, and a very old man are indeed worthy structures.

It is difficult to see that we have just passed through an age of phallus worship. Phallic psychology has had a triumphant day. Even Freud, later in life, was surprised that he had overlooked some very vital factors in man. It would have been almost super-hum