*From a discussion with Caveat Magister on Eagleton's After Theory.* Metaphors compare two things which are similar in some respect. "Argument is war" captures the hostility between two parties when they are engaged in either argument or war. Symbols, on the other hand, don't have to be anything "like" what they represent. The letter "d" doesn't have to be like the sound it represents. That sound could just as well have been represented by any other random squiggle. (I might be wrong here. Maybe linguists have shown that the curvature of the letter "d" somehow matches the shape of the mouth necessary to make that sound.) This is a rather pedantic point, which only considers the most abstract of symbols. There are more concrete symbols, such as the figure of Christ. These certainly seem more like metaphors. Still, I think that metaphors and symbols serve different psychic needs. On the one hand, and I am completely making this up as I go along, metaphors seem to serve our need for prediction. For instance, by comparing depression to the "darkest night", I can predict that the onset of depression will make it far more difficult for me to see into my future. Metaphors allow us to see recurring patterns in nature, even complex and non-obvious ones. On the other hand, what all symbols have in common, to my mind, is that they are miniatures of the things they represent. Perhaps they respond to our psychological need for some degree of control and manipulation. In a fluid and chaotic world, symbols offer us a stable foothold (or handhold). We speak of "manipulating" and "grasping" symbols. Symbols make it easier for us to understand the changing relations of things and events. I can look at a religious painting, and in one glance see how the different symbols relate to each other. I can look at another painting, and see how those same symbols might have a different configuration. Symbols: (1) Are Qualitative, because they deal with relations. (2) Engender trust on an emotional level, because they give us a sense that the universe is comprehensible by our finite minds. (3) Instil a sense of possibility because they are the perfect medium for exploring the combinatorial aspect of reality. Language gains its power from the ability to form an infinite number of sentences from a finite number of words. (4) Can be either abstact or "specific, detailed and grounded in experience". If the latter, they must still be a miniature of the experience. Perhaps that is when they are at their most potent, for they seem to perform the impossible feat of stabilising that which is inherently chaotic and in flux. The reason why rationalized societies tend to impoverish or pathologize their symbolic resources is that they become too addicted to the illusion of control which symbols give us. We give in to the fantasy that shuffling symbols around is all we need to do, like the economist who obsesses over abstract economic models. Burning Man and religion restore the vitality to symbols because they remind us of the larger reality that lies beyond us.