Can’t Seal the Deal

Coming up with a Great Seal for California or Los Angeles is a fool’s errand. No piece of art or logo design can please everyone or fail to offend many. Art itself is always debatable but add to artistic subjectivism issues of semiotics and symbolism and we are sinking in the mire and subject to the vetoes wielded by the most exquisitely sensitive among us.

As Chris writes, some are trying to get our old seal back, the one where the mission church that is still on the seal, gets its original cross back. If you are going to let the church remain, what is the point of removing the cross? The California Missions were Catholic Churches. This is far worse and sillier than the statuary rape of attaching fig leaves to classic sculptures in Europe.

As a Jew, I am not offended by the accurate depiction of our history with the use of relevant symbols and signs. It is an historic lie to clean up our story. There is something to object to, discuss or learn from the missionary practices and their treatment of our Native American population. But erasers, airbrushes and Photoshop are not the ways to edit our stories.

Our new, and in theory, politically correct seal is still objectionable to the easily offended (or those who have eyes to see). The figure in the center is the Goddess Pomona. No crosses allowed but a Roman Goddess? Picturing the human form is prohibited in many branches of Islam and some Jewish groups out of fear of idolatry. And why is a female portrayed and not a male too? Sexist, objectifying and highly objectionable!

Then how ‘bout that cow—a symbol sacred to Hindus? Why do they get a symbol and my Christian brothers and sisters none? Look at the Masonic tools—the symbols of a secret cult with religious and mystical overtones. Anyone really not know what that fish stands for? It is Christianity sneaking back in. How about those two stars? Do they represent Northern and Southern California or could they be the Old and New Testaments? What about the Qur’an, the Upanishads, the Tao? Oh, and that sailing ship. What a slap at our Native Americans, what a painful reminder of the first illegal immigrants and how they enslaved the natives, converted them and brought all kinds of diseases. It too has to go. It all has to go.

Now let’s look at our flag…or just maybe there is a non-controversial seal.