I was driving arund Newcastle and Northumberland today; and saw quite a lot of houses decorated with a combination rainbows and union jacks; and slogans in support of the National Health Service.
This is interesting as an illustration at the way symbols can be - all but instantly - re-purposed in this non-culture we inhabit. Until the-day-before-yesterday - the rainbow was a symbol of support for the agenda of sexual revolution (i.e. the global Establishment program for corruption and sexual abuse of children); while displaying the Union Jack was associated with working class skinheads specifically, and 'right wing' nationalism in general. Those who 'proudly' displayed the QWERTY rainbow would certainly not display the union jack, and would despise or hate those who did.
Yet here we are; the symbols of Left and (sort-of) Right instantly adopted with a different meaning, that apparently everybody instantly understands: solidarity behind the (if 'necessary') permanent agenda of lock-down-social-distancing.
This shows, on the one hand, that symbolism does not have the kind of objective power that it used to have; mainly because all symbolism is both weak and subjective; further, that human subjectivity is now porous to the mass of in-putting stimuli that is the mass-social media.
On the other side; it shows that the Establishment still have a use for this symbolism; not least because adopting it quickly and eagerly is a signal of obedience.
Because decorating one's home with flags and signs used to be (until very recently) regarded as an infra dig, lower class, 'blue collar' kind of thing - whereas the current rainbow-union-jackites include the upper middle class, professionals, public sector bureaucrats... Readers of the Guardian and Independent 'newspapers'; those who regard the BBC as an impartial organisation.
In sum; the new symbolism is of those who aspire loyally to serve the the new Global Totalitarian Dictatorship - and they don't care who knows it!
