A symbolic action is an action that has no or little practical effect, but symbolizes or signals what the actor wants or believes. The action conveys meaning to the viewers.
Symbolic action may overlap with symbolic speech, such as in the case of flag burning to express hostility or saluting the flag to express patriotism.
In response to intense public criticism, businesses, organizations, and governments may take symbolic actions rather than, or in addition to, directly addressing the identified problems.
Symbolic actions are sometimes derided as slacktivism.
Read more about this topic: Symbologists
Famous quotes containing the words symbolic and/or action:
“Iconic clothing has been secularized.... A guardsman in a dress uniform is ostensibly an icon of aggression; his coat is red as the blood he hopes to shed. Seen on a coat-hanger, with no man inside it, the uniform loses all its blustering significance and, to the innocent eye seduced by decorative colour and tactile braid, it is as abstract in symbolic information as a parasol to an Eskimo. It becomes simply magnificent.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude.... A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)