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:
“An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“U.S. international and security policy ... has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call “the Fifth Freedom,” understood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)