Michael Mitchell: Archive

Freud probably didn't say this but since that likely fact just reinforces my point, I'm still going to use "his" quote.

A cigar is always just a cigar. It's not a symbol for anything because it's not a symbol at all. It's just a fucking cigar.

Cigars may acquire significance and meaning to someone for countless reasons, maybe a beloved great-grandfather used to smoke them and now every time you see one or smell a certain kind of cigar smoke it makes you think of him, but that doesn't mean cigars then become symbols for your great-grandfather, even though they actually make you think of him.

Symbols are a certain kind of object. They're invented for a reason, to represent something else. They can even acquire a special significance of their own, such as all the creative ways we find to draw the letter "A", but their purpose and meaning, which can change or evolve over long periods of time, are temporally fixed, otherwise no one would know what they fucking mean.

Just as a symbol can't be detached from what it represents, actual objects can't be fully representative, used as symbols only, as if what they represent is more important than what they are. That's what symbols are for, to represent other things, especially things like ideas which have no physical existence. If everyday objects become symbolic, the whole system breaks down, and meaning itself disintegrates, because there's nothing for the symbols to represent. Since something in reality is the meaning of every symbol, reality must come first. Eradicate human consciousness and no symbols would exist at all, nor would any "meaning".

Symbols only work because their meaning is universal. The letter "A" represents sounds, for example. If everyone determined those sounds for themselves, not only would it destroy communication, it would destroy thought, because language is how we retain knowledge. Not all symbols are that important, but when they are...

The reverse is true, too. Reality, everyday objects like a cigar, man-made or natural, can't be made symbolic because they're the things symbols represent. For instance, a tree is not a symbol for all trees. It's a particular tree, unique and separate from everything else that exists. You could use one to indicate the word that represents it and all others, assuming someone knows you're doing it, but it's still just a fucking tree. If the meaning of a symbol isn't fixed and universal, then it's not a symbol at all. That's why symbols must be invented. They only exist to take the place of other things.

Hidden and coded communication plays with this fact of reality and it can drive people insane over time literally because meaning is approximate, variable, and can become impossible to identify with any certainty. Deception is not communication. It's miscommunication on purpose, very psychologically dangerous conceptual territory.

There's nothing wrong with using a cigar to represent something else, as a symbol, sign or signal or whatever, as long as you don't forget that it's just a fucking cigar, that it's symbolism is temporary or very specialized, and that the person you're using it to communicate with must know it, too. You can even use something as a symbol only for yourself without any psychological detriment, like tying a string around your finger to remind you to do something, as long as you remember that the meaning of the symbol is only known to you and to everyone else it's just a string.