How symbols shape culture
A symbol carries meaning before anyone can explain it — and keeps working after the explanation is forgotten.
Symbols are compressed agreements. They let a group act on shared meaning without restating it each time, which is why they outlive the arguments that produced them.
That efficiency is also their risk. A symbol can be inherited intact while the meaning underneath drifts, or is deliberately replaced. Reading a culture well often means asking when a symbol's sense last changed, and who changed it.