Ancient Wisdom on Symbols and Their Power
Today’s executive order regarding flag desecration brings into sharp focus an ancient tension that has stirred human hearts for millennia: the clash between reverence for sacred symbols and the freedom to challenge them. As we grapple with these contemporary questions, we would do well to turn to the wisdom of our ancestors, who understood both the profound power of symbols and the dangers of absolute devotion to them.
The Birth of Sacred Symbols
Long before the first flag was sewn or the first anthem sung, ancient peoples recognized that certain objects, images, and rituals could carry meaning far beyond their material form. The Egyptians carved ankhs into stone, believing these symbols held the power of eternal life. The Greeks raised their standards bearing the owl of Athena, invoking wisdom in battle. To the Romans, the eagle wasn’t merely a bird—it was the embodiment of Jupiter’s divine authority and Rome’s imperial destiny.
These weren’t mere decorations or conveniences of identification. They were what the anthropologist Mircea Eliade would later call “hierophanies”—manifestations of the sacred in the ordinary world. A piece of cloth becomes a flag; a flag becomes the soul of a nation. This transformation speaks to something profound in human nature: our need to find meaning that transcends the material, to create bonds that unite us across time and space.
The Double-Edged Sword of Reverence
Yet the ancients also understood the perilous nature of symbol worship. Plato, in his allegory of the cave, warned against mistaking shadows on the wall for reality itself. The philosopher recognized that while symbols can point us toward truth, they can also become prisons that prevent us from seeing clearly. When we mistake the symbol for what it represents, we risk what the Greeks called “hubris”—the dangerous pride that blinds us to larger truths.
The Hebrew tradition expressed this concern even more directly through the commandment against graven images. The ancient Israelites recognized that when symbols become too sacred, they can eclipse the very ideals they were meant to represent. A flag created to symbolize freedom can paradoxically become a tool of oppression if challenging it becomes forbidden.
The Athenian Paradox
Perhaps no ancient culture grappled with this tension more thoughtfully than Athens at its democratic peak. The Athenians revered their city’s symbols—the olive branch of Athena, the owl of wisdom, the sacred fire that burned in the Prytaneion. Yet they also created the world’s first forums for free speech, where citizens could challenge any idea, any tradition, any symbol.
Socrates himself embodied this paradox. He was simultaneously the most patriotic of Athenians—refusing to flee his death sentence because he honored the city’s laws—and its most persistent gadfly, questioning everything his fellow citizens held sacred. When offered the chance to escape execution, he chose death rather than betray Athens, yet he had spent his life challenging Athenian assumptions about virtue, knowledge, and the good life.
The genius of Athenian democracy lay in recognizing that true reverence for one’s city required the freedom to criticize it. As Pericles noted in his famous funeral oration, Athens was strong not despite its openness to dissent, but because of it. The city that could withstand questioning was stronger than the city that demanded only praise.
The Roman Lesson
Rome offers us a different perspective—and a cautionary tale. The Romans were perhaps history’s most successful empire builders, and their symbols carried tremendous power across three continents. The Roman eagle struck fear into Germanic tribes and British chieftains alike. Yet Rome’s ultimate downfall came partly from the very rigidity of its symbolic thinking.
As the empire grew, its symbols became increasingly disconnected from the virtues they supposedly represented. The eagle that once symbolized Roman courage and justice became associated with oppression and tyranny. Citizens who might have died for the Republic came to despise the Empire, not because the symbols changed, but because the reality behind them did.
Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, understood this danger. In his “Meditations,” he wrote: “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” True strength, he suggested, comes not from the reverence others show our symbols, but from the virtues those symbols represent.
The Eternal Tension
Today’s debate about flag desecration echoes these ancient struggles. Like the Athenians, we must ask: Does our reverence for symbols strengthen or weaken what they represent? Like the Romans, we must wonder: When does protection of symbols become more important than the ideals they embody?
The wisdom of ages suggests that the most enduring symbols are those robust enough to withstand challenge. The flag that represents true freedom must be strong enough to survive being burned by those who believe that freedom has been betrayed. The symbol that cannot bear criticism may not be worth preserving.
Perhaps our ancestors’ greatest insight was this: the sacred and the profane are not opposites, but partners in the eternal human quest for meaning. In the tension between reverence and rebellion, between honoring our symbols and questioning them, we find not weakness but strength—the strength of a people confident enough in their ideals to let them be tested by fire.
The conversation continues, as it has for millennia, between those who would protect the sacred and those who would challenge it. In this dialogue lies both our greatest danger and our greatest hope.