Recognizing the innateness of our propensity for a symbolic and iconic dimension to life need not mean abandoning hope of ever extricating ourselves from the grip of today's virtual reality. Although acknowledging the extent to which any force drives us is a good first step in reducing its influence, it is neither necessary nor prudent to stop at this stage.

One promising near-term step we can take is to simply reconsider what our human penchant for images and symbols gets us.   Good images can, after all, convey extraordinarily large quantities of compressed information and insight—as attested to not only by the output of Madison Avenue, but also by the parables of Jesus.

Iconic thinking is neither inherently bad nor intrinsically harmful to us.  Like any other powerful force, it simply needs to be put to constructive use.

It is more realistic to be concerned about our contemporary distribution patterns of the skills needed to tap effectively into the mythical and iconic aspects of our perception.  Today, proficiency in this realm has become overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of people whose goals are merely to bump up ratings or circulation, or to hawk this consumer product or that political candidate.

Isn’t the ability to move us on a symbolic or iconic level the sort of skill that a healthy society would normally expect of its greatest artists?  What has happened to ours?  Have those with significant gifts all been seduced by the more bankable recognition and prestige that goes with creating today’s more dominant cultural artifacts—the television commercial and the political campaign, the shoot-em-up movie and the shopping mall?

For that matter, what has become of the priestly classes who have traditionally formulated the overarching themes that a society’s images and symbols are employed to express?  Is it possible that today, they are all various types of consultants?

And what about the powers whom priestly classes have traditionally guided and served?  Are they now all politicians—whether elected, corporate, or of other organizational denominations?

Perhaps more to the point, could some of our more highly proficient navigators of the mythical and iconic dimensions of cognition be induced to re-apply their abilities in a manner that is more generally beneficial?

If we crave a heroic dimension to contemporary life, it does not seem too much to ask that this involve something more substantive than the Marlboro Man.   Or to view the proposition from another angle, to what degree does dissatisfaction with the emptiness of our prevailing culture’s symbolic life fuel today’s movement back toward religion?

Either way, it seems in our interest to find ways of inducing the masters of Madison Avenue and K Street and Rodeo Drive to apply at least a portion of their talents to something more than just selling things.