Peace Symbols -- Now and Then

Earlier today, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond with my mother and a friend. I needed an ironing board; my mother needed a whole list of stuff. As I sat waiting for her to be checked out and pay for her cartful of purchases, I looked around the store. Hanging from the ceiling was a banner in purples and pinks, kind of batikish -- it showed two peace symbols.

The peace symbol now sells all manner of merchandise -- thongs for one's feet (and perhaps for other places on one's body...); t-shirts and tank tops from Victoria's Secret; office supplies from Staples; baby onesies; necklaces from Claire's.

I find it appalling.

I remember when wearing a peace symbol was risky, controversial, counter-cultural, and daring. People who wore them as clothing, as political buttons, as pendants flirted with being cursed at at best, beaten up at worst. My friend John, who wore his long blond hair in a pony tail and a small peace pin on his jacket came close to being roughed up at a gas station in Western PA where we stopped in 1971 on our way back to Marietta College in Southeastern OH. Wearing peace symbols indicated one had joined "the radicals" or "the hippies" or both. High schools forbade students from wearing them. Colleges didn't bother; the administrators knew they'd lose that battle.

Wearing a peace symbol in the 1960's and early 1970's meant that the wearer had joined "the other side," "the tribe," "the enemies of the state," those who were dangerous, those who opposed the government and opposed the War in Vietnam. They dared to say no openly and forcefully to policies and actions they opposed.

I know all of that because I was there, fully a part of it, fully a member of the generation that refused the givens and instead endeavoured to stop a war, improve race relations, change relations between women and man, change society, and bring about a revolution. I'm not afraid or ashamed to say that. I wore my peace symbols proudly, defiantly and wore my clenched fist pins even more defiantly. The peace symbol, the clenched fist, the peace sign made with the first 2 fingers -- along with long hair for white folk, afros for Black folk, flowers, blue jeans, Army surplus, bellbottoms, granny glasses -- except for the afro, I wore them all. All of them stood for a new way of living, of being, of creating, a new vision, a new commitment to a new future. We each learned to describe it and explain it ourselves; there were few, if any, precedents except for the ones from the previous week or month. Some of us read and quoted the Port Huron Statement and New Left Notes. Some of the more historically- and / or philosophically-minded read Marx. Some who considered themselves revolutionaries read Regis Debray or Mao or Marcuse. For the most part, though, we made it up as we went along.

We wanted peace ~~ an end to the War in Vietnam that threatened to engulf all of Southeast Asia. Until the early 1970's, unless one lived in a major metro area or in a place with a large, activist university, e.g., Berkeley or Madison, WI, declaring openly that one supported peace, opposed The War, wanted justice in Vietnam for the Vietnamese people, wanted the troops brought home, and opposed the military draft, one took a risk of isolation, ostracization, arguments within one's family, with friends, with teachers, professors, administrators. Wearing a black armband could get a high school student suspended or expelled. Peace wasn't patriotic -- it was dangerous.

Now, though, peace is a fashion statement. Everyone's for it, because everyone supports the troops. No danger anymore. No risk. So peace has become easy, its symbol ubiquitous. The question then becomes: Does the peace symbol retain any meaning?

I think I liked it better when being for peace was dangerous. At least then, we knew what it meant.