August 13, 2013

Symbols of sense, balance, maturity, and intelligent moderation

Because contemporary Western thought has dumbed itself down into a branch of marketing, the dopey Open Borders logo contest inspired me to look for a few enduring symbols representative of unfashionable anti-extremist thinking. 

Off the top of my head:
The classic Chinese taijitu or yin and yang symbol. I particularly like the representation of Diversity in Moderation. A dot of dark exists within the light, and a dot of light within the dark. In contrast, in 21st Century ideology, since we know that Diversity Is Good, then More Diversity Must Be Better. What could be more beautiful than complete diversity?
Oh, wait, that's boring and much less beautiful than the yin-yang symbol. In fact, it's not diversity anymore, it's just homogeneity ... But who could have predicted that?

My next choice is almost as well-known. Unfortunately, Raphael's The School of Athens is not particularly easy to paint on a protest sign to indicate what you are fighting for: 

Our nonnegotiable demand:
Platonic idealism and Aristotelian realism!

Here's an image I've never seen used symbolically, but it has promise:

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about the Apollo Belvedere?

Anonymous said...

"The classic Chinese taijitu or yin and yang symbol."

The earliest known representation of the ying yang symbol is on a picture of late-Roman military shields from 430 AD. Fourth row, third column here.

The Wikipedia discusses this here. All Asian representations of it are later. Could many different peoples have found it independently? Yes.

Anonymous said...

http://static5.depositphotos.com/1020070/465/v/950/depositphotos_4651021-Compass-symbol.jpg

http://www.richardcassaro.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Square-And-Compass-Freemason-Symbols-300x281.jpg

Anonymous said...

Lady Justice seems to convey moderation, careful thought, and wise judgment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice

countenance said...

Open borders really means no borders, so why not just use a blank map of the world or a depiction of the globe?

Anonymous said...

The Presidential seal shows an Eagle carrying both an olive branch (a token of peace) and a bundle of arrows. Somethin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seal_Of_The_President_Of_The_United_States_Of_America.svg

Anonymous said...

OT:

The front page headline of the NY Daily News today was "Murder, She Wrote". The she of the title is the judge who decided against stop-and-frisk.

The NY Post's front page featured an NYPD shield with the word "cuffed" written across it. Both of the city's tabloids have editorialized for s&f.

Tom in VA said...

I'm thinking of a symbol of infinite love, sacrifice, victory over sin and death, and the hope of redemption....hmm, it will come to me eventually.

albert magnus said...

I thought of the eye doctor in The Great Gatsby, T. J. Eckleburg, when I saw Franklin's glasses.

JeremiahJohnbalaya said...

The earliest known representation of the ying yang symbol is on a picture of late-Roman military shields from 430 AD. Fourth row, third column here.

Uh, that very link claims much earlier representation in Celtic art.

David said...

"Sense, balance, maturity, and intelligent moderation"

Vibrancy is worryingly missing from this list, Mr. Sailer.

Titus Didius Tacitus said...

The change from the white and black ying yang to that all-grey disc is wrong.

Areas that are "too white" need "diversity" - in other words they need to be less and less white. Areas that are non-white are already diverse, whether they are all-black, all mestizo brown or all Asian. No-one is calling for the blacks or the yellows or the browns to be blended out.

So the open borders ying yang should go from segregated white and black to a state where all the white parts are grayed out but all the blacks stay black. And the parts nearest the black should be a fuzzy, extra-dark gray, to show that the non-white is spreading and the white is being eliminated. That is what "open borders" is about.

Anonymous said...

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114030/camus-algerian-chronicles-new-english-translation

"It is an odd fact that mass expulsions tend, more often than not, to be invisible, except to the victims; and this appears to be especially so with the Arab Christians today. Their flight has been, in the eyes of the world, singularly hard to detect—not exactly invisible, but not a topic of general concern, either. Why is that?"

Gee, because a certain group of people own the media in the West?

Anonymous said...

Yeah because Wikipedia is such an authoritative source. It's more likely that the Romans got it from China than the other way around.

Anonymous said...

Open Borders Logo. Make the world more VIBRANT.

Anonymous said...

"Open borders really means no borders, so why not just use a blank map of the world or a depiction of the globe?"

Simple statement, simple truth.

Anonymous said...


If borders are opened, then all gates to all mansions in every part of the US MUST be torn down, all fences too. Yes, all, every damn last one of them. Leave me open to those who cross MY borders and I leave YOU open to those who cross those behind which YOU live as well. They both have the same function.

This should put the fencing companies out of business--oh, yeah, no fences or gates around businesses or their property either. NONE. What's theirs is everyone's just as what is mine is everyone's, as the OB people say.

Whiskey said...

OT Steve James Kilpatrick says Elysium is totally open borders White people have a duty to die for Mexican single mothers. Blomkamp has explicitly endorsed open borders and trans racial socialism to benefit the third world and has said White racism and selfishness is the reason for Thirf World poverty. He said it.

Who is right you or Kilpatrick and Blomkamp?

I think you are too much secret honor of Richard Nixon. Hollywood almost to a man hates hates hates average ordinary Whites and wants us exterminated in favor of the third world and that includes Blomkamp.

His view is that all Whites but one aka him are evil racist and non Whites are by definition good. His movie endorses his trans racial socialism, and all socialism involves taking money from Whites to give to non Whites.

Henry Canaday said...

How about the rattlesnake from the old Revolutionary War “Don’t Tread On Me” flag, only the snake, instead of being coiled, hissing and ready to strike, is dead, chopped up and being roasted on a spit by three guys in sombreros?

Internectine said...


"Henry Canaday said...

How about the rattlesnake from the old Revolutionary War “Don’t Tread On Me” flag, only the snake, instead of being coiled, hissing and ready to strike, is dead, chopped up and being roasted on a spit by three guys in sombreros?"



-Now that's a fitting image....

But to make it more recognizable to the Eloi in zombieland, make it an Eagle being roasted.