Old religious symbols can be inverted to imagine a transformed society

Evidence

Caroline Bynum acknowledges gender differences in the way people appropriate and interpret religion in its symbolic and practical forms, inasmuch as people are gendered beings, not humans in the abstract. Bynum calls attention to the radical potential in this acknowledgment: “For if symbols can invert as well as reinforce social values … if traditional rituals can evolve to meet the needs of new participants .. . then old symbols can acquire new meanings, and these new meanings might suggest a new society.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 575

Categorization

• XREF: Bynum’s claim that symbols can invert or reinforce values underlies the ‘radical obedience’ strategy of claiming orthodoxy precisely to redefine it — mechanism worth retaining for the respectability framework. — connects to: The same Latin phrase flipped meaning across eras due to cultural change — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 243; Traditional societies use the past as the template for the present — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 642; Fragmented cultural symbols now hold diametrically opposed meanings simultaneously — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 727

Broader Connections

• Fragmented cultural symbols now hold diametrically opposed meanings simultaneously #corroborates (0.83) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 727
• Traditional societies use the past as the template for the present #complicates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 642