The Political Myth

Abstract

The rampant growth of political myths in the twentieth century is often regarded as one of the most disturbing phenomena of the modern world. At the least, they are a principal instrument by which totalitarian régimes have brought misery to mankind on an unparalleled scale. By making effective use of concepts such as the chosen race or class, and of a mythical language and symbolic rites, such systems have challenged the rational as well as the moral norms on which western civilization, and democracy in particular, was supposedly built. After the Second World War, during which the appalling consequences of political myth-making were so vividly demonstrated, attempts were made to analyse this mysterious power by theologians and philosophers, psychologists and sociologists, political scientists and historians, from their different vantage-points.¹ Since in many ways political myths appear to be akin to the mythical structures elaborated by primitive civilizations and the forerunners of European culture, there were also attempts to find analogies derived from ethnology and anthropology. But the study of a given problem from various methodological standpoints does not always lend it greater clarity and this seems to be so in the case of the political myth.

Non ridere, non lugere neque detestari, sed intelligere (Spinoza)