SYM·0112 · Circled A
Circled A
a slogan compressed to two letters
- Unicode
- U+24B6 circled latin capital letter a — a generic typographic character; the political mark has no codepoint of its own
- Meaning
- Anarchism. The standard reading is an A for anarchy enclosed in an O for order — a compressed statement of Proudhon’s claim that liberty is the mother of order rather than its daughter.
- History
- The modern mark spread from the 1960s: it was used by the Alliance Ouvrière Anarchiste in France in 1964, and diffused very widely from the mid-1970s through punk, which carried it far beyond anyone holding the politics. Its adoption was decentralised, which is consistent with what it stands for and makes its history correspondingly hard to trace.
- Variants
- Proportions of A to enclosing ring vary freely; the crossbar frequently extends through the circle. There is no authoritative form, and no body that could establish one.
- Related
- 卍 ☭ the other political marks in this Atlas; ☮ Peace (SYM·0011), the other movement mark that outgrew its movement.
- Appears
- Political publications and banners, walls, record sleeves, and a great deal of clothing sold by people with no relation to the politics.
- Evolution
- Political shorthand → subcultural badge → a generic graphic for refusal.
Sources · 4
- documented The A-in-O reading, and Proudhon’s formulation of the relation between liberty and order.
- documented Use by the Alliance Ouvrière Anarchiste, France, 1964, and the mark’s diffusion through punk from the mid-1970s.
- documented The Unicode Standard: U+24B6 is a circled letter in a general typographic series, not an encoding of the political symbol.
- traditional Earlier use during the Spanish Civil War. Frequently asserted, and the Institute has not traced it to a contemporaneous source.