Despite the fact that a man is a creature that possesses certain independence, people have always felt the need to socialize. The author of the article “Symbols. The basic Element of Culture” Leslie A. White has made an important contribution to psychology as a science, interpreting the nature and the meaning of a symbol in people’s lives. However, the article raises certain questions that still need consideration.
Leslie’s method to investigate the problem could be described as both the experimental one and the one involving certain theoretical work. Leslie both gathered the existing facts about the role of signs in people’s culture and gave the examples based on her own experience as a scientist.
According to the article by Leslie A. White, symbols indicate that “it was the symbol which transformed our anthropoid ancestors into men and made them human.” These are only people that have some to using symbols to express their ideas.
However, the symbol is something more than a mere sign that can be interpreted only in one way. There is a certain distinction between them.
According to Macionis and Clark (69),
A symbol is anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by the members of the culture. A whistle, a wall of graffiti, a flashing red light and a fist raised in the air all serve as symbols.
Thus, he claims that symbol is something that can be well understood by a certain group of people, while the people not belonging to this very social group would either take these symbols for something else or consider them meaningless. That is what makes a difference between a symbol and a sign which is always the same for the representatives of any culture.
The evidence that Leslie drives concerns her own experience and the examples that the psychology already has driven explaining the nature of symbol. These are the cases of people deprived of the ability to use symbols during the process of socializing and what it has driven them to.
One of the characteristic features of a symbol given in Symbol. The Basic Element of Culture is that it is acquired as the “thing” the meaning of which is bestowed by those who use it. It is not something settled, and nor is it supposed to have one and the same impact on all people. L. White also emphasizes the fact that symbol is rather a notion than something that is to betaken as an object. It can be an object, a color, a sound or even an odor or a taste.
In spite of the fact that author takes the symbols rather as a notion than as an object, some researchers take it even further, expanding the meaning of a symbol to the whole culture.
Culture is symbolic. The significance of culture lies in the meaning people give to symbols or things or behaviour. The meaning is not inherent in the symbol but is bestowed by the cultural significance. (Andersen 56)
Andersen drives an example of the American flag, which is basically a piece of cloth with the pattern on it, but for the people this is the symbol of democracy and freedom.
So a symbol is something that people have to be taught. This is not the intuitional knowledge that can come with the experience, but a certain notion that has to be learned.
As Lesley emphasizes, it is only a human being who can understand and interpret a symbol. A man and only a man can be taught to understand symbols and their meanings. Lesley drives an example of a child who has been deprived of both the ability to hear and see and the ability to have symbolic contacts with people. As the girl was examined by doctors, they found no human traits in her behavior at all. That means, that these are the symbolic contacts wit the others that make the basis of a human.
This sad fact can be explained by the theory of a symbol. As Kendal has noticed,
Culture could not exist without symbols because there would be no shred meanings among people. Symbols can simultaneously produce loyalty and animosity, and love and hate. They help us to communicate ideas such as love or patriotism because they express abstract concepts with visible objects. (50)
The way symbols can change as they pass through the cultures is a subject for another research. For example, swastika that used to be the symbol of sun in the ancient times and bore the meaning of good luck, prosperity and wealth, was further on transformed into the symbol of fascism, which has changed people’s attitude to the sign once and for all.
Macionis and Benokraitis (31) expressed the same idea. The symbol is something that is firmly connected to the culture, and the diversities that are presented in the different cultures can lead to the different understanding of signs. These are only people who can be taught to understand and use symbols.
To sum up, the culture of a human presumes the use of symbols as the notions that may underlie a certain thing, or a person or a process, or an action. It is not the idea itself, but its roots, the way to express an idea.
What Lesley is trying to convey in her article is that the modern culture is a bunch of symbols that have been developed into an ordered system. They are used in the daily conversation, as well as in the sphere of arts. Symbols can be found in the professional spheres, and the use of them presumes that this layer of society has already developed it into a specific culture of theirs.
Symbols are constantly following us throughout our entire life. Our task is to decipher them and to receive the information they carry. They are used as containers for information, and the way they will develop will mark the development of the mankind itself.
Works Cited
Andersen, Margaret L., Howard F. Taylor. Sociology with Infotrack: Understanding a Diverse Society, Casebound. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. 2007. Print.
Kendal, Diana. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. 2008. Print.
Macionis, John J. Nijole V. Benokraitis. Seeing Ourselves: Classic, Contemporary and Cross-Cultural Readings in Sociology. 8th Ed. New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall. 2009. Print.
Macionis, John J., Juanne Clark, Linda M. Gerber. Sociology. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada. 1994. Print.