Symbols Aren’t Culture

Our symbols challenge us to live up to them

A few years ago, we moved to Texas. Our home inspector went above and beyond his reporting scope to share some maintenance tips, with extra pictures and instructions. 

“Thanks,” I said, “I really appreciate it! I know you didn’t have to do this.” 

“Can I ask a favor of you then?” 

“Um. I’ll consider it?” 

“You gotta get a cowboy hat when you move down here. When I grew up here, everyone had a cowboy hat. I’m trying to make Texas Texas again.” 

I said I would. I’ve moved a lot and learned the hard way that it doesn’t pay to fight the local culture. 

But as we got settled, it became less and less clear what that “local culture” was. Our neighbors are great, but they are from Scotland, Mexico, New Jersey, Ohio, and California. Our new friends from church and school are similarly distributed. We have only a few acquaintances who were born and raised Texans. 

How they hell were we supposed to help make Texas Texas? We’ve all read about the Alamo, sure, but our social circle was practically airgapped to any kind of Texan heritage. Were we supposed to just re-synthesize the culture from old Westerns? Throwing on some boots and spurs like a daily driver Halloween costume wasn’t going to do it. That would be “fake and ghey,” or, as I’ve read that they say in Texas, “all hat, no cattle.” 

I was bummed about this. Not because I have some abiding desire to prove myself a real cowboy, but because we’d moved to Texas for some important reasons. How could the culture that created those conditions persist when nobody around had any connection to it? 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this isn’t just a Texas problem. It’s endemic to being “American” or “Canadian” or even “Western.” Forget Texan, will my kids grow up to be American? Will they even grow up to be part of my FAMILY? Fireworks on 4th of July and my last name aren’t any closer to true cultural heritage than cowboy hats are. 

They’re just symbols: pallid, synthetic stand-ins for real culture. We’ve desperately lashed them together into a cultural life-raft as our entire civilization drifts into “here be monsters” territory. We’re unnerved because we can see that it’s not a seaworthy craft. Deep down, we know that symbols like fireworks and cowboy hats aren’t going to save anything.  Symbols aren’t really culture. 

No, culture is what you do¹. Symbols aren’t culture, but they can point the way to culture. I was making the classic error of mistaking the finger pointing at the moon for the moon. Properly interpreted cultural symbols imply behavior. They imply action. Lots of “conservative” culture feels inauthentic because it isn’t paired with the actions its symbols imply. 

Cowboy hats imply the behaviors of rugged men who spent time in the brutal Southwestern sun conquering land, animals, and fellow men to carve Texas out of Mexico and tame the West. The Betsy Ross, the Gadsden, and the Stars and Stripes imply defiance, rebellion, and functional independence. Lady Justice implies fairness, even at cost to ourselves.

What are we creating? Who are we defying? Are we independent? Would the men and women who created these symbols recognize these behaviors from us? Would they be satisfied with us as their standard bearers? Or would it all look like costumes to them? 

The Elliott’s of Two Ls and Two Ts have murky origins from the violently-contested Anglo-Scots border. They were probably border reivers (or bandits), who lived and died by the sword. The clan crest bears this out:

The motto “Fortiter et Recte” translates to “Boldly and Rightly.” When I taught my kids about this, they asked what it meant. Without having overthought it (like I have here), I answered, “it means we Elliotts are brave about doing the right thing.” “Oh,” they responded, “what are you brave about, Baba?” 

😳

I probably haven’t lived up to that motto. I’ve dithered about committing to a moral system and been too quiet about speaking basic truths, like that men and women exist. Why? Because I was worried about being insulted? Or fired? What would my ancestors think? The ones with missing fingers and arrow-heads lodged in old wounds? 

I’ll probably never overcome the doge/wolf meme of modern manhood, but I’d like to think that if I could have a drink with the men who (probably²) adopted that motto, they’d recognize me as a man. Sure, they’d laugh about my pathetic body count and desk-jockey hands, but would they accept that I did and said what I thought was right? 

That is the proper role of our symbolic heritage. To point to real heritage. Our symbols are not just excess historical reactants.

They are instructions; they are challenges. They are calls to action, to sacrifice, maybe even to arms. From across oceans and eras, the symbols my ancestors left have caused me to ask myself if I am worthy of bearing them. Do I know what is right? Am I bold enough in pursuing it?

Likewise, our home inspector had issued a challenge. It wasn’t (I think) to be Doc Holliday or ride in a rodeo. It was just to recognize and embrace Texas as something distinct. To recognize that, wherever the culture goes from here, it doesn’t have to be the same way as the rest of the United States or Mexico or anywhere else. So as I watch the rest of the West going to hell in a TikTok hand basket, that’s something I’ll do enthusiastically. So, I got a cowboy hat. 

1. “What you do is who you are” is a pithy framework even if the book was awkward. 

2. Many Sottish clans adopted crests during the Victorian era (long after the reivers had been pacified and integrated) because heraldry was a popular status game at the time. Were the Elliotts among them? The meta implications of retconned synthetic culture and its impact on your descendants/distant relatives to action is AT LEAST one other essay of its own.