Anti-Symbolism

In one sentence: Symbols are overrated, meaning is underrated. That’s my lesson, thanks for coming.

We live in an age of symbols. Logos, flags, badges, certifications, titles. Internet creates even symbols/memes, that have no meaning. 6-7, anyone? We have become so attached to these representations that we often forget what they were meant to represent in the first place. And even if we know it, we often treat symbol and meaning as two separate things. Symbols first, and meaning second. My goal, today, is to convince you, to treat meaning first, and symbols second.

The Symbol Becomes the Goal

In a Czech movie Pelíšky, one guy (a communist) asks his brother (who is anti-communist): If I put two exactly same boxes of safety matches in front of you, and told you that one of them is American, which one would you choose?

The other guy proclaims: Of course, the American one!

And I understand a bit. It’s matches. American matches are not automatically better than any other ones. But many people during totalitarian regime, wanted to associate themselves with freedom. Even in things, that are not tied to liberty in the real substance.

There is another aspect in this. We have prejudices and biases. These exist for a reason. If a prejudice works well, it saved you from being attacked, scammed, killed. If a prejudice didn’t work, most often you just lost a chance to meet someone new and maybe do some business. Payoff of prejudice have been higher than cost of it.

So then, a christian sees a man with cross on his neck. He will more likely help him. But the guy could be a psychopath who is using symbol to use others. In this case, it is quite easy to recognize the fact, the man is a psychopath. So over time, others learn that the cross is there to game others. If there would be no cross, it wouldn’t take that long to find out.

Why this works? Because people with crosses on their necks are more often good than bad.

So now, in 2026, what symbols should we reevaluate?

University degrees

There’s nothing wrong about being educated. But the line between people with a degree and without has blurred a lot.

For instance, I would bet more on a clever lifelong learner without a degree over one with a degree, who stopped learning. Ongoing learning is much more valuable nowadays. Things change too quickly, and willingness and ability to learn fast are maybe more important, than higher degree.

Also, I have strong doubts about how academia works. A phenomenon of publish or perish has been destructive for a while. Add a recent fact that AI co-writes the paper, AI then peer reviewes the paper, and later AI decides if the paper should be published, doesn’t help. There are now many papers only the author reads properly.

For a long time already, you can almost buy a degree. In many fields, you can study full remote, dumbed down version, and still pass and get the degree. On top of that, many prestigious universities like Oxford Uni are accepting students with results that would be unacceptable in the past as a part of their affirmative action. I guess, the same happens a lot in the USA. This directly says: “Hey, degree from this university no longer represents the top of the top!”

When interviewing candidates, I have stopped even looking at their education.

Instead, I speak with them about things they did. And how are things done. Best practices, etc.

The same is true for certifications and badges. Certified Scrum Master is a great example of pointless badge everyone gets, as soon as he goes through unnecessarily expensive training from ScrumAlliance.

Many such cases!

Moral signaling, wealth symbols and internet culture

A hashtag #IStandWithCurrentThing. Flag in a profile, but zero financial or other contributions toward their goals.

People who did Paleo, then keto, vegan, Mediterranean, and now they are proteinmaxing & fibermaxing, but are still fat and unhealthy.

And I could go on. Trust me. I have two small kids who are now quite a lot aware of memes, and all this culture. And I can see they parrot words without knowing the real meaning (often, I am happy about that). Lots of memetic culture doesn’t even have any deep meaning, and it is all done just for fun. Duh! Young people cook those things just to keep themselves entertained.

Oh, and young fashion YouTubers, who spend hours ruminating about Balenciaga pants, and collector sneakers. In many cases, very ugly.

And all that Dark Academia, trying to look like Harry Potter mixed with… a fantasy of what British Universities looked like 70 years ago.

And old money, without any money whatsoever.

So what to do about it?

Read, listen, see things as they really are. If there are symbols used, try to replace them in your head with real meaning and see, if things will not get better. Ehm, I don’t want to reinvent critical thinking here, but you get me. Do not let yourself be bullshitted by symbols.

Balenciaga things are ugly. You don’t like the pants. You like the model in your head, of a person looking at you, who has a model of you in their head, where you look good in those pants. Meanwhile, that person probably isn’t thinking about you at all.

Old money is timeless, lasting, high quality clothing. It might be a british handmade brand. It might be some local brand from your country, wherever you are. Fake trenchcoat made in China, that will rip into pieces in 3 years is not old money. The most boring brand in your country, that is making coats for 5 decades, and your grandma has one longer than you are alive - that is old money.

Someone who believes in trinity is a christian. Not the guy with a cross on his neck.

And on the other side. From time to time, it makes sense to let your prejudices rule.

I have seen a druggie with machette a while ago. He was shouting at others from distance. I didn’t go closer to him to find out, if he couldn’t give me a lesson about Kierkegaard. Either he would teach me a lesson, or… his machette would teach me a lesson. I would regret.

In short, and to repeat myself. If you perceive the symbol more than meaning, be careful. Most likely, it’s worth ignoring it and focusing on the meaning instead.