Symbol Slaves

A friend, AnnaMR, asked me what I meant by saying we were slaves to our symbols. In the comment area, I sort of meandered around, spouting generalities, winking wisely, pointing to the sky, shaking my grey mane, and generally acting as if I had a clue. While I was sleeping, I remembered that I had recently had a good example of symbol slavery. I shall repeat it here: http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=24659266&postID=2435726553377631180 November 16, 2008 Is The Holocaust Over?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-burg16-2008nov16,0,4227786.story Holocaust's unholy hold The deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it becomes to be free of it. By Avraham Burg November 16, 2008 ...The Shoah is so pervasive that a study conducted a few years ago in a Tel Aviv school for teachers found that more than 90% of those questioned view it as the most important experience of Jewish history. That means it is more important than the creation of the world, the exodus from Egypt, the delivering of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, the ruin of both Holy Temples, the exile, the birth of Zionism, the founding of the state or the 1967 Six-Day War... ...I voluntarily withdrew from political life in Israel. I couldn't help feeling that Israel has become a kingdom lacking in vision and without a prophetic horizon. On the surface, everything is in order; decisions are carried out, life moves on, the ship sails along. But where is this movement heading? No one knows. The sailors are rowing without seeing anything; the lower-ranking officers are holding their eyes up to the leadership, but the leaders are not capable of seeing past each coming, rising, tumbling wave... ...utopian vision has fallen silent in Israel. Concerns for personal survival and well-being, as well as fear about the ongoing bloodshed and security emergencies, about Gaza and Iran and the realities of demographics and population, have silenced the moral debate and blocked the horizons of vision and creative thinking. I believe Israel must move away from trauma to trust, that we must abandon the "everything is Auschwitz" mentality and substitute for it an impulse toward liberty and democracy... The Past as Panopticon Prison. (You may safely ignore the last sentence about Panopticon. It is a mere filigree of Foucault and my attempt to ride his coat tails.)