PR Straight Talk

When I was a student in at The University of Vienna, I took a course on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein - who was of course one of the world’s greatest philosophers.

Wittgenstein used to say, “words are pictures, and pictures hold us captive.” There is much truth to that statement.

If I am a Liberal and I am told you are a Conservative, or if you are a Conservative and you are told I’m a Liberal - we already form pictures in our minds about who we think the other is. Isn’t that so? Can these pictures keep us from truly knowing one another as human beings?

Can they block our appreciation of one another as living, breathing, intelligent, creative, emotional and sometimes fearful, fumbling beings? Can pictures based on words block our experience of one another in all our glorious multi-dimensionality? Can they block our experience of each other’s commonality?

Can words, or labels, keep us from experiencing Life - from one another’s aliveness and the true presence of our sheer beingness - and ultimately, from recognizing our deeper connection as Americans - and beyond that as inhabitants who share the same space and breath the same air on this one planet?

I think it happens all the time. Hopefully, we can respect the differences in another’s point-of-view and allow our experience of each other to transcend these limitations - for there is so much more beyond the words and pictures. Actually, if you dig deeply enough, you may actually find…yourself.

Symbols are pictures too - and symbols can create limitations - if we let them. Last night, Lou Dobbs of CNN criticized those who are critical of those of us who wear the pin of our American flag on our lapels.

He referred to recent remarks by Katie Couric of CBS, and Bill Moyers of PBS. He referred to their inferences that the flag thus shown is often an earmark of those who are intolerant of those who are critical of the war, or who criticize the right of freedom of expression and the right to dissent.

My own view is that if the symbol of our country has become so narrow as to attach itself to that kind of point-of-view, then more people who stand up for the Bill of Rights should wear the flag on their lapels - so as to make the point that we must never hold this precious symbol captive to any singular ideology or attitude that is contrary to the larger truth of who we are as Americans by Constitutional right and the rights expressed in the Declaration.

Words are pictures and pictures hold us captive - and symbols can hold us captive if we allow them to.

The flag of our country stands for our freedom, our independence and our fundamental human right to express ourselves as individuals; and to be tolerant of one another for our different points-of-view and for all those who peacefully exercise this right. It is a symbol that stands for something that brave Americans have fought and given their lives for throughout the decades.

This symbol should hold no one captive to any point-of-view, or as an argument that demeans another’s right of freedom of expression. Any American, of any political party or point-of-view, should feel free and proud to wear and display it, if he or she so chooses, as a symbol of its deeper meaning and significance for us all.