Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: henning@acsu.buffalo.edu (Karl Weiss Henning) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Swastika Message-ID: Date: 13 Mar 91 08:33:43 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: SUNY Buffalo Lines: 48 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu >>I believe that the swastica is an American Indian sign. Does anyone >>know if this is true? A hooked cross figure (I can't answer to whether the orientation of the hooks is the same as the received "swastika", or reversed, at this time) is listed in a dictionary of Chinese-derived ideographs used in the Japanese language, edited by A. Nelson. There is no information in this source as to the antiquity of its use among the Chinese (the Chinese writing-system was introduced to Japan -- with Buddhism -- via Korea, somewhere between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries of the Common Era [I forget exactly when]). This does not refute the use of the symbol by American Indians, of course; it should be pointed out that very few (none?) of the North American tribes used anything like written language before the advent of the True White Brother :-) Also, I hesitate to ascribe great ethnographical accuracy to the caucasified Indian-lore of the Boy Scouts of America. At any rate, it is palpably ridiculous to ascribe implicit, nascent evil to a mere writing-symbol. There is nothing intrinsically "evil" in or about the swastika, but people (who seem to prefer to eschew the rigors of thought) associate (understandably) the evil deeds associated with Nazism, with the Nazi's chosen symbol. "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking" -- but /feeling/ well, that's as easy as reciting the Pledge of Allegiance ... :-) "evil" is something people /do/. When one says "so-and-so is evil", it's an excuse to hate that person, and to dismiss everything that person says as "lies". Thus, the rhetoric about Hitler or Saddam Hussein being "embodiments of evil" is verbal hyperbole, and not "spiritual truth". Hitler was certainly a bad man, and a sick one ... and one could feel sorry for such a man, if the understandable horror against the evil he committed during his reckless and destructive career permitted; Saddam Hussein is (seemingly) merely quite a bad one, but he is only a man. As (notwithstanding his current popularity) is George Bush, e.g. kph -- "The shrewder mobs of America, who dislike having two minds upon a subject, both determine and act upon it drunk; by which means a world of cold and tedious speculation is dispensed with." -- Washington Irving [I think this discussion has gone about as far as is useful.. --clh]