Symbols for the taciturn
The symbol is an expression for the taciturn. The inexpressive statement. The loading with meaning that becomes meaningless in the face of overloading. The statement that knocks you down. Opponents of the symbol react with disgust on gazing at this symbol. And yet they wear theirs. The ideology that is cast in form manifests itself in the materials through which it is displayed. The golden chain, the wooden carving, the leather binding. It is a strange form of materialism, used to go beyond itself, to transcend it. And yet, despite the artificial exaltation of meaning, it is trivialized, almost distorted, by being put on exhibition. The waving flag in the wind that burns or for which a life is given triggers our narcissism with an outstretched arm. It is the helpless attempt to make the unspeakable tangible. The desperation out of the impotence to hold on to something. And so, the form is squeezed out of the not found words and the untenable is manifested. The substance, however, remains unrecognized. It hides behind the symbol just as the word on the tongue that one cannot grasp. What remains is the frightened individual who helplessly hangs a chain around his neck. A helpless projection of one's own failure to do justice to one’s freedom. What remains graspable are merely accidentals. Just as changeable as the forms of the symbols. The failed attempt to externalize grip, which ends in accidences, is based on the erroneous assumption of seeking this very grip outside one's own horizon. The worn symbol thus becomes itself a symbol of the suppression of personal freedom. In the explication the symbol loses itself and becomes an iron chain and a firebrand of the unfree. The infantile escape into the world of symbols draws a comfortable curtain between the observer and the exposed. Symbols conceal one's own failures from the swiftly condemning eyes of the world.