Symbols

Humans cannot live on symbols alone. When we manipulate only words, concepts, and images, we may appear to be engaged in sophisticated thought, but in reality, we lose our connection to the real world, and ideas begin to proliferate on their own. In that state, the criteria for determining what is true and what is false are lost, and eventually, thought falls into a closed loop. It is, so to speak, the hell of solipsism.

Andy Warhol, a representative figure of contemporary art, was a genius of symbolic manipulation. To him, Marilyn Monroe and Campbell's soup cans were symbols that constituted consumer society, and through their repetition, he transformed modern society itself into a work of art. However, it is known that Warhol had a chapel in his home. He attended church daily and maintained his Catholic faith. It is symbolic that an artist who pushed the world of symbols to its limit ultimately placed himself in an absolute reality—religion—that he could not manipulate himself. Humans cannot maintain mental balance with symbols alone.

This issue has been discussed repeatedly in philosophy as well. Husserl believed that the world is not merely a product of private consciousness, but that it is established as an objective world only when an "other" exists. In a world of just myself, there is no standard to distinguish whether it is a dream or reality. However, when others experience the same world and confirm it with one another, the world acquires objectivity. Objectivity is not so much a property of things themselves, but a world supported by intersubjectivity.

Conversely, in a world that has lost the other, symbols proliferate endlessly. Words call forth words, theories beget theories, and verification against reality is lost. Consequently, thought loses the opportunity to be corrected from the outside and becomes a self-contained system. It may appear logical, but in reality, it is unverifiable and cannot be judged as either true or false. Solipsism is precisely such a state.

Perhaps it is because they knew of this danger that cultures have nurtured institutions such as religion, community, family, friendship, love, and festivals throughout long history. Humans necessarily need places where they can interact with others, move their bodies, touch reality, and have their ideas corrected. If that mechanism is lost, ideas proliferate without limit, and humans lose their sense of reality.

Since the postmodern era, the idea that "everything is a symbol" has had a strong influence. However, humans cannot live as symbols themselves. No matter how much the information society advances, people can only maintain their mental balance by talking to others, eating, living with their bodies, and touching reality. Symbols enrich culture. However, the fact that culture itself incorporates communal existence with others is because, throughout long history, we have known that humans would break if they relied on symbols alone.