Symbols and the Nature of Power
I’m currently reading The 48 Laws of Power, and taking my time as I go through it, grabbing quotes and logging them in my “Commonplace Book.” That’s a fancy term for a journal or other collection fo quotes, ideas, excerpts and more that you gather as you move along in the world. I learned about the concept from Ryan Holiday, and though I do mine a little different than he does his, the utility of the thing is still on point. It’s the perfect way to keep research organized so I can go back and use it later.
I’m tempted to gush on and on about my Commonplace Book, but I’ll save that for a future post. The point I was making was that in going through Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, I just read a section about the power of symbols.
Greene’s point was to demonstrate that “symbols are more powerful than words.”
“Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power—everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.”
— Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power
Now, I’m going to go on record saying that I’m not always a fan of Greene’s perspective. He’s chosen to focus on the darker side of human nature and psychology, and sees the pursuit of power as necessitating deception and manipulation. I can see his point, but I don’t buy it as the only path to power.
Greene has been a mentor to Ryan Holiday, who has also studied extensively the lives of the Stoics, and particularly Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome who was known for being empathetic, wise, and virtuous. Virtue, in fact, is a cornerstone of Stoicism.
I don’t believe that Marcus Aurelius would have condoned deception and manipulation in the name of power. He may have seen it in use, and may well have recognized its role in the power of many. But his own life showed that power does not need such fuel. You can become powerful without deception and manipulation. You can be virtuously powerful.
My much better and more at-hand example of such power is Christ.
Regardless of your spiritual alignment or beliefs, Christ as an historical figure was something of an anomaly in the world. If you take his story at simply Earthly face value, he began his life in the single most humble origin I’ve ever seen. Our first encounter with him, his family is essentially homeless and begging for help. Forced to return to a region that was not their home, arriving where there were no accommodations for them, Mary gives brith in a stable, swaddles her child, and lays him in a manger—a trough in which farm animals fed.
Shortly after his birth, the King decrees that all male children must be slaughtered, and so Jesus and his family take refuge in caves, hiding, avoiding the insane hunt ordered by a mad king.
Poverty and adversity—at a level very few others have ever known, and it started from the moment of Jesus’ conception.
And from those more than humble beginnings, Jesus grew into adulthood, and eventually began teaching in the synagogue. A role no one gave him, but that he assumed for himself. He became a Rabbi, a teacher, through no Earthly authority beyond the fact that he simply took action.
And from there his influence grew and spread, until he had a team of disciples, and followers by the multiple thousands.
Now, leaving history for a moment (and remember, we’re not even including the supernatural and spiritual aspects of Christ’s origins, though I very strongly and dearly believe in those attributes), let’s look at how the Christ story played out in scripture and then into the world.
The New Testament is absolutely riddled with symbolism. And most of those symbols came down to everyday, common things.
Think of the fish and the loaves. Christ prayed over these and divided them to feed thousands. Both actually played a recurring role in the Christ story. Jesus first recruited fishermen as disciples, with the phrase, “Come with me and be fishers of men.” Fish—symbol of humanity. Then later, as he fed the 5,000, fish were a symbol of abundance, of miracles, of God’s power.
Bread not only fed the multitudes, but was an example of the kingdom of God—yeast in bread, indicating that the kingdom was everywhere, permeating all things, and was part of the very nourishment of mankind.
Bread was the tool Christ used to indicate who would betray him, when he told the disciples that the one who would do the deed was the one to dip his bread at the same time as Jesus. Bread was also the center of one of the temptations in the desert, when the devil goaded Jesus into turning stones to bread, so he could eat, and Jesus replied, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God.”
Fish. Bread. Wine. Seeds. Vineyards. Trees. Donkeys. There are symbols everywhere in the New Testament. Jesus used symbols and metaphors to reach people with his message, and those symbols were nearly always humble in nature but hinted at a deeper, divine meaning within.
And that was ultimately the core message of Christ’s ministry: That we, humble and common as we might be, could have the kingdom of God within us. Our origins may be mundane, but we can rise to greater glory.
At any time Jesus could have said that plainly, and in some ways he did. But the symbols and metaphors he used made that message more poignant, made it stick more in our brains. It made his message something that endured for two-thousand years.
Another quote from Laws of Power that resonated with me:
“Symbolism appears as a sort of short cut of thought. Instead of looking for the relation between two things by following the hidden detours of their causal connexions, thought makes a leap and discovers their relation not in the connexion of cause and effects, but in a connexion of signification.... Symbolist thought permits an infinity of relations between things.”
— Johan Huizinga
Looping back to the example of Christ, each of the symbols he used had multiple, deeper meanings. That’s what made them so effective.
By nature, a symbol has multiple meanings anyway. First, it is what it is—a fish, a loaf of bread, a bird, a tree, an arrow. But when used as a metaphor for an idea or abstract, it takes on a deeper level of meaning. A rose represents not only beauty, but the fleeting nature of beauty and youth. Fragrant, lovely, fragile, a rose is the perfect symbol of feminine youth, but also of mortality, and we see it as a recurring theme in literature and art throughout history.
In terms of power, symbols such as eagles, fists, hammers, even wheat have all been used to represent strength and leadership. Flags fill this role as well—how many soldiers have given their lives “in defense of the flag,” when what they really mean is “in defense of everything the flag stands for.”
The American flag, as one great example, symbolizes abstract concepts such as freedom, liberty, strength in unity. It’s lately come to symbolize other, darker things for some among us, but that demonstrates how human nature, psychology, and culture plays a role in the meaning of symbols. Our relationship with a symbol changes its meaning.
The Christian church used the symbol of the cross to instantly convey all the teachings of Christ without saying a word. Some institutions, in our history, corrupted that message and meaning, and used it for gaining power over their subjects. Power that was abused in the name of the symbol. As a consequence, there are those in our culture who see the cross as a symbol of hate, instead of love. They see it as symbol of oppression, instead of peace.
That isn’t what it means for me or millions of others worldwide, but to some that’s the only meaning that makes sense, and so the sight of the cross causes a different feeling and emotion for them than it does for me.
The same is true, more recently, for the American flag, and for other symbols of the United States. Some have declared these to be symbols of hate, racism, bigotry, oppression. My take is and will always be that they symbolize peace, unity, equality, and freedom—even if the nation represented by the flag or these other symbols has not lived up to those ideals, the symbols represent what we could be, if not what we are.
Our relationship with a symbol can turn, in other words, and take on new and nuanced meanings, depending on who is using it and what their goals and intentions are. Which further demonstrates the power of symbols. What was once a symbol that unified can become a symbol that divides, and those who know how to leverage and use those symbols can reap great power and control from that transition.
This is why “symbols are more powerful than words.” They are shortcuts to telling a story, and if you understand how the reader, listener, or viewer is going to respond to a symbol, you can leverage the metaphor and underlying meaning to influence them in whatever direction you need or want.
It’s kind of fascinating. And kind of inspiring.
And kind of frightening.
We should, as a rule, start paying very close attention to the symbols we encounter in our daily lives, and what emotions those symbols evoke. We should learn to question our first reaction to those symbols, to ensure we are not being manipulated in ways we would rather avoid. We should know the story behind the symbol, and we should know whether we agree to that story.
But we should also learn to leverage and use symbols in our own lives.
The powerful have used symbols to deceive, control, and manipulate, at times. And some have used them to inspire, motivate, and compel. But we are, ultimately, empowered individuals. We should learn to use symbols to shape our own lives, beyond outside influence. We can use symbols to lead ourselves.
An example of this is as simple as carrying an object in your pocket, such as a coin or token, to remind you of your personal values. Wearing a cross or other pendant to remind you of your spirituality. Bearing a tattoo on your arm to remind you of your principles.
Our personal symbols are meant to remind us of our personal power: The power to choose our response to the world, and to what happens to us.
Go find the symbols that empower you. Question the symbols that are used to influence you. And learn how to use the language of symbols to shape how you think and how you live.
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Side Notes is an extension of my Notes at the End, which are author’s notes that appear at the end of every one of my novels. If you like these posts, you’ll love the books.
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