Last modified: 2005-05-28 by phil nelson
Keywords: vexillology |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
See also:
It would probably be better to see vexillology as an offshoot of heraldry. Until recently, it seem as if the study of flag was not even considered without its relationship with arms. It is probably due to the modern age tendency to create national flag with little if no connection to its coat of arms that actually brought about a paradigm shift.
Vexillology is about cataloguing and finding genealogical link between various flags but just as writing a book is in no way a requisite skill for a librarian, Vexillography, the creative side, is neither to vexillology.
I believe that necessity is probably the instigator of most flag. There are
myths attached to most historical flag about its symbolism or its creator that
have been thoroughly debunked. While those are born of emotion (due to a
search for legitimacy) the work of the vexillologist is to report the facts
while trying not to be influenced by a side. He has to be able to say:
"this is what can be proven by document, this is what we can infer from
document and this is what as been said but cannot be verified". In all
this, it is not emotions that guide the vexillologist but knowledge of basic
document analysis.
Marc Pasquin, 8 February 2004
Unless you consider under "scientific" only those related to natural sciences, and moving to "academic" all "other" things like study of folklore or numismatics or whatever. These studies are made academic (as opposed to "nonacademic" interest in the same) only be using the "scientific method" in studying them - right?
Regarding the possibility of prediction - I think that the whole issue is
overemphasized. One should never expect a vexillological community to be able
to predict how any future flag is going to be, just as no one expect the
numismatics community with all it experts to predict what the next years set
of coins of Georgia or Serbia and Montenegro would look like. Like us,
numismatist can only provide "educated guesses" and "sensible
predictions" but both these studies have no means to predict what the
legislators are going to do at their whim - remember that the development of
flags (just like that of coins design) is not a "social phenomenon"
that could be traced and predicted, but is based on the decision of the people
(legislators) who are, as a rule, not aware of the history and the phenomenon?
"rules" and who may take a decision no-matter-what.
Željko Heimer, 8 February 2004
Fact gathering, theory, etc. are also inherent in other disciplines, for instance back in the dark ages when I was in college, we were discussing the theory of literature, of linguistics, of history and so forth.
In fact one of the major problems with the potential evolution of vexillology as a discipline in and of itself is the fact that (as noted in Orenski) there are few theoreticians in the field. The current methodology is based upon the primary historic model which has been espoused by Smith and others since the use of the term vexillology was first considered. We are dealing in the soft underbelly of history and, by extension, the emotion that is related to the use of the flag object. I think this was discussed in some detail in various posts over the years in the way the Uni