I’ve gotten to talking to at least a few people about leftist politics, of varying sorts because of it.
Honestly, most people who recognize it aren’t immediately seeing it and thinking “THE THIRD ARROW MEANS ANTI-COMMUNISM! AAAAHHH!”
Hell, more obscure than that, do even most leftists know that one of the arrows stands for anti-monarchism?
No. They see it, divorced from its original usage, as a general anti-fascist symbol. In that sense, I use it because it’s a way to dogwhistle my politics rather than using a antifa flag logo (which chuds know about now) or a hammer and sickle (which interestingly, was the other patch in the two-pack I bought off etsy, with the three arrows patch)
It’s like the save icon in your word processor. The picture is of a floppy disc, something we don’t use anymore. But the image has grown to have a more general, related meaning, beyond just being a picture dead media format. Time has sanded off the specificities of the symbol’s meaning, and simplified it to a more abstract essence.
Interesting. I guess I always saw it and focused on the anticommunist part, probably because I’m used to running into Western leftists who don’t support AES. If it’s being used more widely the way you use it, then maybe my knee jerk reaction was wrong. Next time I see one, I’ll have to strike up a convo.
Lol at the patch combo, I wonder if that was on purpose?
I’ve gotten to talking to at least a few people about leftist politics, of varying sorts because of it.
Honestly, most people who recognize it aren’t immediately seeing it and thinking “THE THIRD ARROW MEANS ANTI-COMMUNISM! AAAAHHH!”
Hell, more obscure than that, do even most leftists know that one of the arrows stands for anti-monarchism?
No. They see it, divorced from its original usage, as a general anti-fascist symbol. In that sense, I use it because it’s a way to dogwhistle my politics rather than using a antifa flag logo (which chuds know about now) or a hammer and sickle (which interestingly, was the other patch in the two-pack I bought off etsy, with the three arrows patch)
It’s like the save icon in your word processor. The picture is of a floppy disc, something we don’t use anymore. But the image has grown to have a more general, related meaning, beyond just being a picture dead media format. Time has sanded off the specificities of the symbol’s meaning, and simplified it to a more abstract essence.
Interesting. I guess I always saw it and focused on the anticommunist part, probably because I’m used to running into Western leftists who don’t support AES. If it’s being used more widely the way you use it, then maybe my knee jerk reaction was wrong. Next time I see one, I’ll have to strike up a convo.
Lol at the patch combo, I wonder if that was on purpose?