Myth of the Mythless: Why the Left and Politics Still Need Mythology

Myths are a visionary sacred narrative that provides society with its values, significance and symbolic foundation. In the current field of politics, where liberal rationalism of Habermas and Rawls dominate, myths are viewed with suspicion. They denote falsehood, archaic knowledge or tool for mass manipulation. It is dismissed as a mode of thought incongruous to the modern political world because of its ‘irrationality’. This desire to purge myths from politics fails to recognise the ineradicable role of myth as a symbolic and affective form. How it provides society with collective representation and understanding of the world. As a consequence, they are essential for effective politics; they bestowed the faith and motivational drives that orient our actions. The Left needs to engage with the mythical to intervene and challenge the prevailing market logic of neoliberalism and rise in xenophobia. This does not entail succumbing to dogmatism, as Barthes claims; on the contrary, myths are not formalistically naturalising but rather permit a pluralism of meaning that can support emancipatory politics. Tapping into the current demands of ‘real’ democracy from political movements, a ‘myth of democratic politics ’ based on Rancièrean work, can provide a foundational framework to realise a new vision of politics based on dissensus and power of the people. It is a vision of politics that can revive the Left as a powerful political force, which shapes our collective future.