(February 20, 2015 at 11:52 am)tantric Wrote:(February 17, 2015 at 2:58 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: How about racism combined with a staggering ignorance of anything cultural or religious?
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/swastika...ell/nkB68/
Will the swastika ever return to its' original meaning? I did a mural on the wall of my 2nd bedroom that showed Ganesh trapping a storm spirit with one hand, holding his symbols in another, embracing the wall electrical socket with the third and holding up the fourth showing a right-facing swastika (crossed lightning bolts) on his palm, and the only thing that registered with people was 'nazi'. Yes, the elephant headed god of nazis - people, go figure.
Probably not for people in the west. If people understood why the Nazis chose the swastika, it would help considerably. But most people seem blissfully unaware that Hitler was superstitious and thought a good luck symbol would help him. His superstitious beliefs also led him into military blunders, as he sometimes paid more attention to his astrologers than to his generals. Of course, given his moronic views on race, it should be no surprise that he believed a whole lot of nonsense.
I think that more attention should be paid to how stupid his ideas were, rather than just saying that his ideas on race are evil. In fact, if one wishes to understand why his ideas are evil, one needs to understand how groundless and stupid they are. If the beliefs had been reasonable, then they would not have been evil.
My advice is to never use a swastika in the west for any reason, unless you very clearly give the meaning and context, so that the viewers will understand it. Even then, you are going to get people who will just see the swastika and react to it, without paying attention to anything else, so you had better be prepared for that.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
