Looking at clothing in the mall my J Dub wife sees a shirt with the peace symbol on it and so remarks upon it in a negative fashion.
Discuss.
The Peace Symbol- why looked down upon by JWs?
by JimmyPage 15 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
Mickey mouse
Perhaps because the only hope for peace for mankind should be "Jehovah's Kingdom"? Maybe if there was a little WT emblem worked into the picture that would be OK?
-
JimmyPage
From Wikipedia:
This symbol (?) was originally used for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain, and originally was used by the British nuclear disarmament movement. It was subsequently adopted as an international emblem for the 1960s anti-war movement, and was also adopted by the counterculture of the time. It was designed and completed February 21, 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist in Britain for the April 4 march planned by DAC from Trafalgar Square, London to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England [ 4 ] . The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament. In semaphore the letter "N" is formed by a person holding two flags in an upside-down "V," and the letter "D" is formed by holding one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down. These two signals imposed over each other form the shape of the peace symbol. In the first official CND version (preceded by a ceramic pin version that had straight lines, but was short lived) the spokes curved out to be wider at the edge of the circle which was white on black. [ 5 ] [ 6 ]
Holtom later wrote to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News, explaining the genesis of his idea in greater depth: "I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it." [ 6 ]
A U.S. ArmyPoW discusses his peace symbol necklace with his North Vietnamese Army captors during the Vietnam War
The peace symbol flag first became known in the United States in 1958 when Albert Bigelow, a pacifist protester, sailed his small boat outfitted with the CND banner into the vicinity of a nuclear test. The peace symbol button was imported into the United States in 1960 by Philip Altbach, a freshman at the University of Chicago, who traveled to England to meet with British peace groups as a delegate from the Student Peace Union (SPU). Altbach purchased a bag of the "chickentrack" buttons while he was in England, and brought them back to Chicago, where he convinced SPU to reprint the button and adopt it as its symbol. Over the next four years, SPU reproduced and sold thousands of the buttons on college campuses. By the late 1960s, the peace symbol had become an international symbol adopted by anti-war protestors of the Baby Boomer generation. [ 7 ]
In Unicode, the peace symbol is U+262E: ? , and can thus be generated in HTML by typing ☮ or ☮. However, many browsers will not have a font that can display it.
[edit] Symbol Archive
The original drawing of the CND is housed in the Peace Museum, U.K. [ 8 ] in Bradford, England, where a replica is on public display.
[edit] Antagonism
Cold-War era TIME cover of September 17, 1951 by Boris Artzybasheffparodying the hammer, sickle and red star symbols, mixing them with the “dove and olive” symbol and Stalin’s face
The fact that the symbol resembles a bird foot in a circle gave rise to alternative interpretations, ranging from plain mockery of "crow's foot" or "The footprint of the American Chicken" to a number of occult meanings, such as an upside down crucifix with the arms broken downward, suggesting the way that St. Peter was martyred (see Cross of St. Peter), or a representation of Jesus on the cross upside-down. This broken cross of Christianity was commonly conjectured as an antichrist symbol in the 1960s. Others have claimed that the symbol resembles a medieval sign known as " Nero's Cross " that represents Christian heresy. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] Alternatively, some have suggested that the symbol is an inverted Elhaz rune, which would reverse the rune's meaning, according to the critics, from 'life' to 'death' (although the Elhaz rune is thought to mean elk [ 13 ] ). Gerald Holtom's explanation of the genesis of the symbol and his first drawings of it, however, do not support those interpretations. Ken Kolsbum, a correspondent of Mr. Holtom, says that the designer came to regret the symbolism of despair, as he felt that peace was something to be celebrated and wanted the symbol to be inverted. [ 14 ] The peace symbol was also believed by some to represent a swept-wing bomber, the type that would be used to deliver a nuclear weapon. Ironically, a nearly identical symbol was used by the Nazi German3rd Panzer Division during World War II. [ 15 ]
Richard M. Spencer, late of the World Wildlife Fund, creatived much unexpected derision when he used the symbol for the marketing campaign "Have you hugged a panda today?" which featured a drawing of a panda holding a peace sign. The posters were made during the height of the Vietnam conflict and the use of the peace sign turned off many would be supporters. The posters were redone with the panda holding its arms out instead.
-
hillbilly
....back in the early 70's when I was a boy (Grandpa Simpson voice-over) the people in the Society noted that the peace symbol was similar to the Egyptian fertility symbol...
It's all about sex ya know.
Hill
-
JimmyPage
That being the case then I'm wondering if someone could vouch for the authenticity of this photograph of the goddess Artemis of Ephesus.
-
WTWizard
It is looked down by the witlesses who do not want worldly people to promote peace. I bet they would be preparing for sudden destruction if the world ever did successfully create peace, security, and prosperity--or their God Jehovah Baghead, the Almighty Sore Loser He is, would disrupt it like He did at Babel.
-
blondie
The peace symbol was used by groups that were political in nature per the WTS and thus neutrality was compromised. The 2 finger peace sign was frowned on too.
-
lancelink
In the 70's at my KH it was thought to be an upside-down crucifix with a circle around it.
-
Nosferatu
JWs like war. War = persecution. Persecution = Last Days.
-
Dagney
Being a child of the 60's, I wanted to draw it everywhere. My JW mom used the "conjoined sex organs" approach to explain why JW's don't use it. Even as a little kid, I thought THAT was nuts.
Many a PeeChee folder of mine was ripped and thrown in the trash. Although...look at me now...I AM a full blown apostate....hmmm.....
