It may seem like a personal attack, I don't mean it that way at all, but it's hard to formulate a response to such an undisciplined and shall we say "non-linear" approach to rebuttal, if it is that, of the points I raised.
I haven't and wouldn't suggest that words don't have history, so we are clearly in agreement there. Context is all in the argument that I made, again we agree. It is 100 percent certain in the case of signs, because we have in English by convention assigned such a definition to the word, that signs are things which represent other things when the connection between the two is arbitrary. That's true whether verbal signs, written signs, or what have you. I'm not sure then what your argument is.
We have another common mammal companion animal that we English speakers refer to as dogs or in the singular a dog. The French for some reason like to use the word chien when there is one, chiens when there are two or more. Funny French, they say them both the same though. There is exactly no relationship between those animals and the sounds that English or French speakers use in conversation or the marks we make when writing.
Regarding the so called "occult" symbols it's again difficult to respond when you seem both to be making and demolishing your argument at the same time.
So what if there are symbols that have history and continue to have the same meaning to a select group of people? Latin, Aramaic, and Sumerian are sets of signs with very specific meanings and highly sophisticated rules for their use(the swastika is a sign rather than a symbol as well). Those languages all have sets of specific marks which when placed in very specific orders create written signs which correlate to specific verbal signs. Those languages are pretty much dead languages, but their verbal and written signs continue to have meaning to a select group of people who are conversant with them. We as contemporary English speakers have roughly the same repertoire of phonetic elements that were available to daily speakers of any of those three languages. We even use the same letters the Romans used with the addition of J, U, and W.
There are limited numbers of comfortable combinations of those phonetic elements, and we have words that are directly derived from Latin, so we often make combinations that are very similar to Latin words, but there is no way that I can accidentally start to speak in Latin or write it. I can't even intentionally do it well without considerable effort. Latin is a system and unless I adhere to a significant portion of the rules of the system, most obviously and relevantly what the specific meanings of the signs are, it isn't Latin. It's hard enough to do that consistently in English and there's no way it will happen without intending it to happen.
Now, I can learn Latin from someone who knows the language. In order for that to be possible, I must understand that within the conventions of Latin certain symbols carry certain meanings. It is easy to demonstrate that the meanings of those symbols would be dependent upon an agreement that we would be speaking Latin when we used them. I know nothing of Latin actually, but in French for instance coin means corner while in English is means a small usually metal thing that represents a unit of stored production. Bras are arms in French, but things that support breasts in English. Those signs themselves, whether written or spoken have no inherent meaning and only have one where one exists within a particular language's structure.
Facts of History and years of conditioning have made Marilyn Manson's use of Nazi symbolism mean something completely different than those symbols meant to the Nazis. Most obviously, MM uses the symbols to refer to Nazis, when I don't think the Nazis were ironic enough to be referring to themselves.
It's a nice array of images you've got there, but it's odd that you would suggest they are in any way related when they are visibly very different things and have as the labels testify, very unrelated origins. What does "it" mean? Which it would that be? If you are referring to the swastika specifically, or really any of them, then you would have to indicate -to whom?- for that question to even have a meaning.
I just hate linking to wikipedia, but the damn thing is so handy. These refer to verbal signs, but the principles are applicable to any sign or symbol I would argue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cognate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend
