The Symbolic Hierarchy: Who Gets to Live Fully?

In theory, every society treats its members as equal, but in practice, visible and invisible hierarchies shape relationships, recognition, and symbolic value.

These hierarchies determine who can occupy the symbolic center and who remains on the periphery, profoundly influencing how individuals can express their vital force — the inner energy that makes life authentic and creative.

In the first part, we will explore these dynamics, and then illustrate them through examples from cinema.

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The Symbolic Hierarchy Explained

1. The Symbolic Center

The symbolic center includes those who are legible, legitimate, and valued by the majority or by the dominant elite

Characteristics:

• Recognized dignity and social prestige
• Access to networks, media, and institutions
• The ability to express one’s personality without being perceived as deviant or threatening to the dominant norm

Concrete example:

Public figures, cultural icons, and influential individuals within major institutions often occupy the symbolic center: they embody the dominant codes, visibility, and legitimacy recognized by the majority.

Advantages:

• Freedom to create and act (continuity of the dominant culture)
• High symbolic and social capital
• A more freely expressed vital force

2. The Minority Periphery

Individuals from visible or cultural minorities often find themselves in the symbolic periphery.

Characteristics:

• The need to conform to implicit norms in order to be accepted (assimilation)
• Limited visibility and conditional recognition
• Adaptation and self-censorship to survive socially

Consequences for the vital force:

• Creativity and authenticity often filtered
• Constant compromise between symbolic survival and personal expression
• Indirect transmission of caution and adaptation to one’s children (following the center of legibility instead of inner truth)

Concrete example:

When someone from the periphery participates in projects associated with the symbolic center, they may gain prestige and legitimacy, but frequently at the cost of adapting part of their originality to fit dominant norms.

3. Vital Force: The Energy of Life

Vital force is an individual’s capacity to:

• Create, feel, and explore fully
• Preserve singularity and inner freedom
• Sustain authentic projects, passions, and relationships

Relationship to symbolic hierarchy:

• At the center: the vital force can be expressed freely because the dominant norm validates individuality.
• On the periphery: the vital force is often constrained by the need to conform in order to survive socially and symbolically.

4. Prestige vs. Authenticity

A central phenomenon in hierarchical societies is the paradox of prestige:

• Minorities can attain temporary or conditional prestige by participating in projects linked to the symbolic center.
• But this prestige often comes at the cost of part of their authenticity and personal expression.

Mental diagram:

• Symbolic Center → Prestige, visibility, legitimacy
• Minority Periphery → Filtered authenticity, restricted vital force

5. Strategies to Preserve Vital Force

Even within a constraining system, micro-spaces exist to protect one’s vital force:

1. Creating organic projects — where creativity and singularity are not filtered by dominant norms
2. Developing alternative networks — communities where authenticity is recognized
3. Maintaining a conscious balance between symbolic survival and personal expression
4. Awareness of hierarchical dynamics — knowing when to conform, when to resist, and how to protect one’s vitality and that of one’s children

6. Differences Between Countries and Systems

• In highly centralized and normative societies (e.g., France), minorities often must navigate rigid codes, limiting their expression.
• In more pluralistic and flexible societies (e.g., the United Kingdom, USA), it is often easier for minorities to reconcile prestige and authenticity, thanks to merit recognition and more porous symbolic hierarchies.

7. Conclusion

Symbolic hierarchy is an invisible yet powerful social reality. It determines who can occupy the center and who remains on the periphery, directly influencing how each person can express their vital force.

• Being at the symbolic center offers prestige and freedom, but is accessible only to those aligned with dominant codes.
• Being on the periphery often involves compromise, but awareness of this dynamic makes it possible to create spaces where authenticity and vital force can survive and grow.

The true art of living — even for a peripheral minority — lies in finding or creating a space where material and symbolic survival do not suffocate the vital force, allowing the individual to live fully and express their singularity.

The mechanism explain in Cinema

These three films stage his framework almost perfectly — but each explores a different response to symbolic hierarchy.

1. The Lover

Symbolic Center

French colonial society in Indochina:

• White colonial identity = symbolic legitimacy
• French institutions = prestige
• Racial hierarchy is explicit
• Even when economically fragile, the young French girl symbolically belongs to the ruling race (at the time, in the film).

Periphery

The Chinese suitor:

• Wealthy but racially excluded
• Economically powerful, yet symbolically inferior
• Cannot marry her because of family and racial codes — their respective families would never accept a union, as each belongs to a different symbolic center.
• He has money, but not center legitimacy. The hierarchy constrains both parties: it privileges the girl symbolically while limiting the suitor socially.

Vital Force

The affair itself is pure vital force:

• Sexual awakening
• Emotional intensity
• Transgression

Yet this vitality exists entirely outside public legitimacy.

Prestige vs. Authenticity

• The girl enjoys symbolic privilege but is economically fragile.
• The suitor has economic prestige but racial limitation.
• Their relationship cannot survive socially because symbolic hierarchy overrides personal desire.

Key Insight

Desire attempts to cross the hierarchy and customs (age gap), but the hierarchy asserts itself — leaving no sovereignty to either party. Both are constrained, showing that even those with privilege cannot freely express their vital force when social and familial codes intervene.

2. Burning

This is perhaps the most precise modern depiction of this framework.

Symbolic Center

Ben.

• Wealthy
• Relaxed
• Socially fluid
• No visible struggle

He embodies effortless legitimacy. He does not need to prove himself.

Periphery

Jong-su.

• Poor
• Isolated
• Uncertain career
• Emotionally unstable

He feels invisible.

Vital Force

Haemi represents fragile vitality:

• She wants to dance
• Travel
• Be seen

But she is socially precarious. Her vitality has no institutional protection.

Jong-su embodies restrained creative vitality:

• He wants to write and express himself
• He struggles to act on his literary ambitions due to social invisibility and uncertainty
• His energy is constrained, often forced into private reflection or frustration

Prestige vs Authenticity

Ben’s power is subtle and quiet. He can “burn greenhouses” (possibly people) because:

• The center absorbs deviance.
• His strangeness is interpreted as eccentricity, not threat.

Jong-su, by contrast, cannot express rage safely. (perhaps only through writing)

Key insight:

The center can be strange and still remain legitimate. The periphery cannot.

3. The Talented Mr. Ripley

This is about violent desire for the center.

Symbolic Center

Dickie Greenleaf:

• Wealth
• Beauty
• Cultural sophistication
• Social ease

He exists effortlessly in prestige.

Periphery

Tom Ripley.

• Poor
• Socially anxious
• Watching, imitating
• Not naturally legitimate

He studies the center like a language.

Vital Force

Tom’s vitality is distorted. He does not want to create —he wants to become.

His energy is directed toward:

• Assimilation
• Replacement
• Erasure of difference

Prestige vs Authenticity

Ripley gains the center through imitation and violence.

But:

• He loses any authentic self.
• He becomes pure performance.

He achieves prestige at the cost of identity.

Key insight:

Assimilation without selfhood produces emptiness.

Comparative Summary

The Core Pattern

All three show:

• The center defines legitimacy.
• The periphery must adapt or transgress.
• Vital force survives only in fragile, hidden, or destructive forms.

But they differ in response:

• The Lover → tragic intimacy
• Burning → quiet existential despair
• Ripley → predatory assimilation

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Conclusion

Across societies and cinema, a clear pattern emerges: symbolic hierarchies define who can occupy the center and who remains on the periphery, shaping the expression of vital force — the energy that fuels creativity, desire, and authenticity.

Films like The Lover, Burning, and The Talented Mr. Ripley illustrate different responses to these hierarchies: from tragic intimacy and quiet despair to predatory assimilation. In each case, those at the center enjoy freedom, legitimacy, and the ability to express their vitality, while those on the periphery must navigate constraint, compromise, or even self-erasure to survive socially.

The lesson is universal: symbolic legitimacy cannot be taken for granted. Vital force can flourish only when individuals recognize the hierarchies they inhabit and consciously create spaces — internal, social, or virtual — where authenticity and creativity are protected. Whether through quiet resistance, careful adaptation, or daring transgression, the challenge remains the same: to live fully and assert one’s singularity in a world that constantly measures worth by symbolic alignment.

Ultimately, these films remind us that freedom of expression, creativity, and desire are never purely personal — they are always negotiated within the structures of power, legitimacy, and visibility that shape every society.