Tending the Garden Episode 9 – “The Role of Art and Symbol”

In this episode, the AI hosts explore Chapter Eight of J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden, titled The Role of Art and Symbol. Building on the idea that formation is relational and ecological, Alejos turns the focus outward — to the symbols, designs, and aesthetics that quietly shape who we become.

The hosts unpack Alejos’ central claim: aesthetics are not decoration — they’re formation. Beauty, art, and design act as moral forces, training our instincts long before we reason about them. As Alejos writes, “You don’t need to read a manifesto to be formed by it. Sometimes it just takes a logo or a song.” Symbols, he argues, are portals: they invite participation, directing us through the same four praxial modes discussed in earlier chapters — Story, Game, Instruction, and Philosophy.

But not all symbols tell the truth. The hosts discuss Alejos’ warnings about valence hijacking — when untrue or manipulative messages borrow the emotional weight of beauty or goodness to simulate virtue — and symbolic contamination, when corrupted symbols (like “father,” “leader,” or “church”) poison trust across generations. These distortions, Alejos warns, fracture our shared moral grammar.

The episode closes on a redemptive note: symbolic repair. Healing doesn’t come through cynicism or replacement, but through re-anchoring symbols to truth by living faithfully within them. As Alejos writes, “Symbolic repair doesn’t force belief — it makes truth believable again.”

By the end, the hosts invite listeners to look around their own environments and ask: What symbols are shaping you? And do they still tell the truth?