The Swastika: A Symbol of Goodness or Hate?

Discussion in 'Architecture & Engineering' started by lightgigantic, Feb 17, 2009.

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  1. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    I think its original form was merely a symbol of power/energy. But it is now, a disgusting appearance.
     
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  3. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    On a group I had a Mars freak, believing life exists on Mars. He was posting pictures from Mars lander. On one such image I found a swastika and went to town, : Haha. Life is there of course. And Hindus beat all to Mars. See the SWASTIKA!!
     
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  5. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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  7. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

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    The problem with symbols is that they mean different things to different people. To many, the swastika is a symbol of hatred. To many others, it means the exact opposite.

    That being said; even if I was a Hindu I would still refrain from putting swastikas on my stuff that was easily visible to others because I know that most people would take it the wrong way. To be honest, I don't know how many people realize that the swastika was around long before Hitler and the Nazis.
     
  8. John99 Banned Banned

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    I depends on the context and other details easily determined. An example is in an Indian restaurant or at some ceremonies etc., plus there are visual differences.

    In that context It isnt even acknowledged that it is a nazi symbol.

    Remember, the nazi's really didnt have any meaning for the symbol itself. Some armies use a star or a red circle in the same way.
     
  9. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    What does a knife mean? Hatred or compassion?

    It is not the knife that by itself is good or bad, it the is intention of the user.
     
  10. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    If I was Hindu, I'd tattoo that fuckin symbol right on my forehead.

    People need to get over themselves and move on.
     
  11. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah, so move on. Don't keep on hit by the nazi redux. Look beyond Hitler too. Move on.
     
  12. chaos1956 Banned Banned

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    It really is a terrible thing the Nazis did to the Swastika. Damn you Savitri Devi for proclaiming hitler the Vishnu of a new era. She concluded the ancient greeks were Aryan in origin, (which ok sure people branched off throughout history. that doesn't really give anyone a complete entitlement to an "idea") Basically we all come from the same place. Which is your mothers V. finally the Hindu caste system apparently does not work well with socialism, (probably what drove Neitzsche's insanity and factored in his liking for Buddah over Vishnu who is a destroyer as well as a creator). Great... you kill a couple hundred thousand Jews and you can turn a perfectly nice symbol into something of pure evil. It is exactly what happens when you admit the Ubermensche philosophy into a single person who completely understands the effects of a Stanley Milgram experiment. "I give the orders and the mindless zombie obeys."

    "To say someone else is not a person is to admit that they should feel the same for you"-me

    The Swastika is a symbol of goodness only when seen in the correct light. contrary to popular belief the correct light is not on the forehead of people in "correctional" facilities...
     
  13. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Agree with the sentiment but most of what you said was wrong.
     
  14. chaos1956 Banned Banned

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    what did I say that was wrong? I only attempted to express that someone's (or a group's rather) genealogical morals went a little too far beyond good and evil and ruined a good amount of historical symbolism for todays society.

    Any person who begins a race war is almost certain to find himself a part of the minority. Im sure Charles Manson would agree.
     
  15. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    What a f**** idea!! As if Hindus have tattoos on their foreheads.
     
  16. ScaryMonster I’m the whispered word. Valued Senior Member

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    The US Navy will be spending about $600,000 to redesign or camouflage a 1960s barracks building in San Diego because of complaints that it looks like a swastika when viewed from the air. In the past this might have been a problem only for the occasional air traveler who happened over Coronado island, but with the advent of aerial mapping and visualization tools like Google Earth, everyone can see anything from the sky. In fact, many people have made a game out of finding oddities in satellite photos.
    Now it's one thing to see landmarks like this and snicker over a designer's missteps 40 years ago (the Navy says it noticed the shape but that it didn't think anyone would see it from above), but it's another thing altogether to complain to the Navy about the shape of a building when viewed from space. But people really seem to have the time on their hands: The Navy says it's been inundated with complaints.
     
  17. j.colfax Registered Member

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    all things can be used either way. nothing's by nature exclusively good OR evil.
     
  18. KernNeart Registered Senior Member

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  19. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    I think your command of English, is not good enough to post here.
     
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Outside of India or another country with Indian cultural traditions? Not in a graduate program at a university?

    Probably about thirty-six of us.

    If you study German, after a few months it dawns on you that Swastika can't possbily be a German word. It would be spelled Schwasticke. So you start to wonder where they got it from.
     
  21. kmguru Staff Member

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    The Swastika: A Symbol of Goodness or Hate?

    Western hemisphere: Hate
    Eastern hemisphere: Good Luck, Blessing, Labha in Sanskrit I think
     
  22. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    Except for certain native tribes in the Western hemisphere (like the Navaho iirc). To them, it is a holy symbol representing the four winds, the four cardinal directions. Basically, the world or universe. It was such a powerful symbol that traditionally it was never put into permanent form, only in sand paintings and such during rituals, to be destroyed by sundown. Putting it on a shirt as in the photo in a prior post in this thread would have been sacrilegious to traditionalists.

    There is an episode of "The History Detectives" where they investigate a Native blanket with a swastika. Very enlightening.
     
  23. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Svastika is a Sanskrit word, meaning "being fortunate," although it's hard to translate out of context in precise grammar. It's rooted in the word svasti, which means prosperity, well-being, luck, etc.

    Some say the symbol is nothing more than the letters that comprise the individual words su and asti in a particular Indian alphabet. As a Buddhist symbol it has been incorporated into the Chinese character set, and pronounced wan.

    It occurs in many cultures, including Celtic, Hopi and Navajo, and it was used as the flag of a tribe that rebelled against the government of Panama. After being discovered in Ancient Greek ruins it achieved modest popularity in the West in the late 19th century; it was originally called by its Greek name, the gammadion, but the Sanskrit word svasktika/suasktika replaced it in English in 1871.

    By 1920 it had become a worldwide symbol of good luck, and can be found on European monuments and buildings from that era--although it will be hard to find a European who will show you where they are. The Nazi party adopted it in that year, because of their fanciful notion that the Germans were direct descendants of the Aryans. Because of this, by the mid-1930s it had fallen into disrepute in the West outside of Germany, but not in other cultures.
     
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