Funny enough, we were just discussing this phenomenon in the context of “education” the other day. My experience working in a Montessori environment was the opposite—it emphasized the concrete first, using direct tactile experience as the foundation for abstraction. In contrast, traditional education often prioritizes symbols over reality. An apple isn’t actually an “Apple”—the apple you hold in your hand is the apple. Yet people conflate the symbol with the thing itself, making them susceptible to lexical control and propaganda designed to sever them from direct experience and, ultimately, from constructing reality on their own terms.