"The Past Is Beside Us": A Conversation with Professor Guy Nave on the Power of Symbols

The fire, the vote, the triumph — when it happens, Decorah News shows up. Support us being there. "Such cultural symbols nevertheless retain much of their original numinosity or 'spell.' One is aware that they can evoke a deep emotional response in some individuals, and this psychic charge makes them function in much the same way as prejudices. They are a factor with which the psychologist must reckon; it is folly to dismiss them because, in rational terms, they seem to be absurd or irrelevant."— Analytical Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, Man and His Symbols What began as the booking of the band Confederate Railroad by the Winneshiek County Fair Board has unfolded into something deeper and more unsettled: a community discussion about history, identity and the meaning of symbols. Guy Nave, a Luther College professor of religion, sees the controversy not as an isolated dispute, but as part of a much longer and more revealing historical pattern. "Symbols have historical context," Nave said in an interview on Tuesday with DecorahNews.com Reporter Alexander Rosenow. "They become visual metaphors for something larger." That "something larger," in the case of the Confederate flag and the imagery tied to it, is precisely where agreement seems to fracture. A Symbol That Carries its Past The Confederate flag, often defended as a marker of heritage, cannot be separated from its origins, Nave argues. Historically, it emerged as the battle flag of the Confederacy during the Civil War, representing states that seceded from the Union. But what happened after the war is just as important. According to Nave, the flag did not maintain a constant presence in Southern culture following the Confederacy's defeat in 1865. Instead, its resurgence has appeared in waves, and those waves follow a concerning pattern. "Almost every rise of renewed energy with the Confederate battle flag has been connected to Black progress," he said. "A reaction to it." He points to several periods: the post-Reconstruction era, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s, and even the years following the election of President Barack Obama. Each moment, he says, coincided with increased visibility and advancement for Black Americans. Taken together, those patterns challenge the idea that the symbol is merely antiquated or benign. "To say that the Confederate flag doesn't mean what the Confederacy itself said it meant," Nave said, "flies in the face of their own founding documents." Divide Over Meaning The tension at the heart of the current debate is not new. For some, the Confederate flag represents family, regional pride, or cultural identity. For others, it is absolutely inseparable from slavery, racism, and white supremacy. Bridging that divide is difficult, Nave acknowledged, but not impossible. It begins, he says, with a commitment to historical accuracy. The Confederacy's own leaders were explicit about their cause, he noted, citing foundational speeches and documents that framed the system as one rooted in the subjugation of Black people, such as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' 1861 "cornerstone speech". In that speech, Stephens stated that the Confederacy was founded on the idea that Black people were inherently inferior to white people. Nave believes that reinterpreting the symbol without that context risks distorting history itself. At the same time, he believes conversations about symbols often fail because they prioritize winning over understanding. "I think we engage in what I call 'sequential monologues'," Nave said. "You speak, I wait for my turn, and then I speak. That's not dialogue." Real dialogue, he argues, requires humility and a willingness to accept that one's understanding may be incomplete. "If we could make understanding the goal rather than winning," he said, "we might actually get somewhere." The Weight of the Present For Nave, the Confederate flag is not just a historical artifact. It is a living symbol with ongoing consequences. "As an African American, my engagement with that flag has a long history with my ancestors," he said. "And that history is part of who I am." He draws a striking comparison to environmental damage to explain how the past persists. Scientific research shows that it can take up to 1,000 years to replace just one inch of topsoil after severe degradation. The legacy of slavery, he suggests, operates on a similarly long timeline, "If even just the land takes that long to recover," he said, "what does that say about the effects on the bodies and minds of human beings?" The point is not rhetorical. For Nave, it underscores a central misunderstanding in public debates: the idea that history is finished. "The past is not in our rearview mirror," he said. "The past is beside us." The present legacy of historical chattel slavery and the benign romanticization of racist symbols and ideology is a focus of Nave's R.A.C.E. (Racism And Christianity Explored) course. A Local Decision, a Broader Question The controversy surrounding the booking of Confederate Railroad has sharpened those broader questions in Winneshiek County. Critics argue that the band's name and associated imagery invoke the same symbolism and history tied to the Confederate flag. Supporters often argue that the concern over the name places too much emphasis on history, maintaining that it is simply a band name and not meant to evoke the symbolism some critics perceive. Nave sees those responses as part of a larger pattern of disengagement. "I think we don't understand each other," he said. "And many of these debates become about 'winning' and 'losing' instead of trying to understand why someone feels the way they do." Complicating matters further is the perception that the fair board has distanced itself from public input. Attempts by media and community members to contact the board have been unsuccessful. For Nave, that lack of accessibility is troubling. "An entity that represents the public good withdrawing itself from the public," he said, "that's concerning." The Role of Education If there is a path forward, Nave believes it runs through education, but not in the traditional sense. Too often, he said, education focuses only on logic and facts, ignoring the emotional dimensions that shape how people interpret those facts. "Most decisions we make are rooted in emotion," he said. "If we're only speaking to people intellectually, we're missing something." Effective education, in his view, must engage the whole person: intellectual, emotional, and even spiritual. It should not talk down to people or create hierarchies between those who are "educated" and those who are not. "Genuine education seeks to meet us where we are," he said. "And to transform us." Beyond Opposition Ultimately, Nave is less interested in who is "right" than in how communities move forward. He challenges the idea that change comes from forcing others to adopt one's position. Instead, he describes a different model, one that emerges through genuine dialogue. "If your position is A and mine is B, change isn't you convincing me to come to A or me convincing you to come to B," he said. "It's both of us ending up somewhere we couldn't have reached without each other." This model of debate, which Nave facilitates in his "Clamoring for Change" course, is reminiscent of Hegelian Dialectics, a philosophical method pioneered by German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, later popularized by fellow philosophers like Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in which concepts or historical stages (thesis), generate internal contradictions (antithesis), leading to a higher, more complex truth (synthesis) through a process known as "sublation".In a moment when even a county fair booking can ignite national themes, that kind of change may feel distant. But for Nave, it remains essential. Because symbols, as Jung suggested, are never just symbols. They carry memory, emotion, and history, often all at once. And simply ignoring that weight does not make it disappear. Your inbox, upgraded! Subscribe for free and enjoy handpicked stories, helpful advice, and local insights delivered weekly.