Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter
Keywords
heraldic creations, ethical code, Walter Angst, Swiss American Historical Society
Abstract
Most of my contemporaries have many misconceptions about all things heraldic. Most people - if they even know what we are talking about - consider heraldic designs disdainfully as pretentious, superfluous, even silly, or at best arcane frills having to do with royalty. They are wrong. Armorial bearings are an expression of such things as sovereignty, of individuality, of beauty, of sagas, history, past glories and civic achievements. Just fancy our villages and resort places back-home: how poor would they be if they could not display their panoply of colorful community flags fluttering in the alpine breeze. Even here in the United States, we are surrounded by manifestations of heraldry: just look at the graphic arts used in advertising, or at illustrated instructions given to multilingual audiences. True, these designs are not centered in a shield and are not hereditary, as are coats-of-arms, but they nevertheless are heraldic in character. That they are not recognized as such by most of our contemporaries, is somewhat astonishing: just two, three generations ago, anyone with a college education was familiar with heraldry as part of his or her general knowledge.
Recommended Citation
Angst, Walter
(1988)
"NEW HERALDIC CREATIONS AND MY FOURTEEN-POINT ETHICAL CODE,"
Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 24:
Iss.
3, Article 6.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol24/iss3/6