Political myths and mythologies

political Myths and mythologies is a work of the French historian Raoul Girardet published in 1986.

Methodology

Work concerning the Histoire of the political ideas almost exclusively devotes to the systems of rational thoughts (for example Montesquieu, Marx). By this study, Raoul Girardet wished to restore the place occupied by the Imaginaire in the history of the political ideas, because only explains sometimes powerful attraction to him that exert the rational systems. However this work did not go without difficulties. It was initially necessary to define the Mythe - at the same time explanation, fabulation, factor of mobilization, but also particular mode of speech, similar to the dream - then a work method. Lastly, it was necessary to take account of the risks of such a company, in particular the risk of simplification: by underlining the structural analogies, one can manage from there to erase all the differences which distinguish the Idéologie S.

However, once these difficulties and these risks taken in account, the study can be carried out, and Girardet organizes it around four topics - the conspiracy, the saver, the golden age, the unit - which are, at the bottom, four examples tending to show the fundamental importance of imaginary, of the myth, in the evolution of the political ideas and the company.

These four demonstrations also tend to explain, in a general way, how are born the political myths. Those appear during the critical time, in the moments of crisis of identity, faintness related to the changes of the company and the lifestyle. The birth of the myth can thus be interpreted thus as the sign of a disordered state of the company: indeed, in normal weather, the collective ceremonies and other festivals are enough to satisfy the imaginary one. It is when the internal tensions grow that the myth becomes necessary, the imaginary one reacting against changes and a disenchantment (with the direction wéberien) which it feels like an aggression.

Four studied myths

In his introduction, R. Girardet defines his work method, which initially consists in defining contours of the mythological “constellation”, then to release the fundamental structures of them, before advancing explanations and interpretations. He presents in the work four political myths.

Conspiracy

To define contours of this “constellation”, the author calls upon three accounts, which symbolize the three components of the same myth. The first account is the Discours of the rabbi , document which will inspire the Protocoles of Wise of Sion , and which maintains the idea a Jewish conspiracy . The second is an extract of the Juif wandering , of Eugene Sue, which proposes a plot Jesuit. The last account is resulting from Joseph Balsamo , from Alexandre Dumas, and represents the maconnic conspiracy .

For these three aspects of the plot, one finds common structures and topics. That they are the Jews, the Society of Jesus, or the freemasons, the idea of a pyramidal organization, directed by an anonymous authority, and in which the individual is grabbed, is always present. The universal character of the organization constitutes a danger to the fatherland, the conspirators seeming exogenic and not identified elements, excluded from the social body. The organization is surrounded of the greatest secrecy, which is translated in the field of the imagery by night meetings, in dark places (underground, hollow), between masked individuals and vêtus of black. The objective of the plot is the domination of the world, the will for power of the conspirators having others limiting only the universe itself. For this purpose, the mutual Espionnage, treason, and especially handling are used. This one consists before very causing the disintegration moral of the beings, the perversion of childhood, by the means of the Femme, handled and destroying. It is thus about a will of control total, insidious, which one finds by examining the bestiary related to the myth of the conspiracy. The plotters incarnate themselves in crawling and viscous animals: snake, Octopus which wraps the ground of its tentacles, spider, but also Sangsue S. With viscous is added the topic of the Vampire, which aspires at the same time blood, the richnesses and the heart, to leave bloodless men and countries. Lastly, to fight against the plot, the only weapon seems to be the Feu, purifier, redeemer.

Such are the structuring elements and the recurrent themes of the myth of the conspiracy. This defined, one can advance some explanations. If the topic of the plot re-appears sometimes with such an amount of force, it is that it is sometimes instrumentalisé: thus the conspiracy Jesuit reappears during all the great laic fights . Often the myth also has real factual bases: the freemasons exist indeed. Nevertheless, if historical reality can constitute a starting point, she does not explain the formidable distortion which exists between reality and its second reading by the myth. At the bottom, the topic of the plot could be regarded as a paranoiac reaction of the company, which feels threatened by the upheavals of the incipient Modernité; the topic of the plot had a virulence particular to the turning of the century. The myth of the conspiracy is also the corollary of the “search for a church”, of a community of well. The plot is thus the “negative projection of tacit aspirations, the reversed expression of more or less unconscious, but always unsatiated wishes. ”

The saver

To outline the limits of this myth, Girardet takes two examples, one real and the other imaginary one. The first is that of Antoine Pinay, “hero of normality”, attache with a whole whole of values statutory, and called to restore stability. Second is Tête of gold of Claudel, hero of the exception, which refuses on the contrary the standards and the statutory values, and brings the upheaval and glory before falling. In spite of their differences, they are there two savers in whom is incarnated a collective destiny.

The “constellation” of the saver structure this time around four types.

One finds initially the model of Cincinnatus, i.e. that of the old experienced man, who, after having formerly rendered service with the nation, withdrew himself, and that one recalls to deal with new danger. It is a call of the present with the past, driven by a desire of permanence and protection. Philippe Pétain, for example, corresponds to this model.
One finds then the model of Alexandre Large the, whose legitimacy is anchored in the immediate present, and who knows the time of a flash a glory étincelante before being struck down. This model is incarnated in Napoleon, and one finds there also Tête of gold.
the third type is that of Solon, i.e. of the founding father, whose wisdom makes legitimacy. The de Gaulle of 1958 belongs to this type.
the last type is that of Moïse, the prophet, the guide, such Napoleon prophesying the release of the people with Sainte-Hélène.

If these four models form distinct types, they also make it possible to raise of permanences, of the parallel structures. Thus the “process of heroisation” always cuts out it in three phases: the call, the advent, then posterior second readings of the action of the saver. In the same way, one can release from the constants in the imagery. To represent the saver, one chooses images calling upon the light and/or verticality: Oak, Headlight, torch, etc the major topic is thus that of the guide and the guard to which one is identified, in particular via the Verbe.

The explanatory factors which justify the passage of reality to the myth are numerous. What creates the myth, it is initially the need for “revealing ideological”: the hero is in charge of a certain number of values which give him a new weight, exceeding his actual weight. So that there is change of reality to the myth, it is necessary also that the saver is in conformity with the “models of authority” of the country in which it intervenes: thus Pétain had it the moral authority of a teacher, and the ranks of a Militaire. The appearance of the saver is thus conditioned by historical and social waitings of a given company. But especially, the creation of the myth corresponds to a crisis of legitimacy (when the legitimacy of the institutions in place is not obvious any more), which is moulted in crisis of identity (interiorization of the collective by the individual). On the collective level, the social identity is recomposed by adhesion with something - or somebody in the case of the saver - of nine, while, on the individual level, the reconquest of oneself is carried out only in the tender with others, with a new father. There still, the creation of the myth intervenes to answer a crisis and an anguish of the company and the individual.

The golden age

The myth of the golden age is defined by a whole whole of a little nostalgic images. They are “times of front”, the lived or historical good old days (the ancient Greece for example), which are opposed to a forfeiture characteristic of time present. This attachment at old times is characterized by the concern of preserving traces of these times (collections, cyclic return of the modes).

The first structuring element of the myth of the golden age is the attention paid to the “purity of the origins”. As regards the currents of thought, one seeks to find the spirit of the founding fathers (“first” socialism, etc). As regards the company itself it is the state of nature which is sought, state likely to it image of a Éden before the fault, when neither diseases nor work came to sully the life with the man. There is thus a kind of worship of innocence, the primitive one, naturalness, to which the rejection of the Culture is added, regarded as a degeneration, idea maintained, inter alia, by Rousseau. The second convergence point is the worship carried at the great times of the past, the such Antiquité or the medieval period, considered as at the same time social and political models. Lastly, the last structuring element seems to be the bound attachment, this time, not at a time, but with a social model which is the rural model : with the corrupting City, salts, noxious, poisoned by the money, are opposed the values of the ground (imagery and topic taken again by Pétain), solid and authentic. There are a judgment of the Civilization and profit which one finds at men as various as Rousseau, Proudhon, Drumont, which shows the unifying power of this myth.

Among the explanatory factors, one still finds this time the instrumentalisation political, more or less conscious. The attachment with certain elements of the past determines a corresponding vision of the present and future. Thus, the development of the the Middle Ages, at the beginning of the 19th century, is not it without relationship with the Restauration. However, like always, the factors politico-histories are not enough to explain the transformation of a reality into myth. It in faintness is felt vis-a-vis the modern society that it is necessary to seek the origin of the mythology of the golden age. The advent of a new business caused a loss of landmarks: the Community cores of solidarity, turned in on themselves, which characterized the rural company, were broken (regret of the unifying village f4etes). Fear related to the loss of these refuges, added to individual nostalgias (wish of the return to childhood), comes to nourish the myth of the golden age, to each time accelerations of progress come to threaten old balances.

The unit

The myth of the unit is defined in opposition to the topic of plurality. The first installation, like condition sine qua non of the happiness, the unit and the community, which incarnate themselves in the banquets, the collective festivals, and also of the social experiments like the Phalanstère S. For the defenders of plurality (Benjamin Constant, inter alia), it is the individual freedom which precedes all the other values. It is thus in this opposition that the mythological nebula of the unit was built.

The myth of the unit structure around the objectives which its defenders seem to be themselves fixed. The first of these objectives seems to be the “reconstitution of the moral bases and monk of the policy”, which passes by a reunification of temporal and the spiritual one, necessary to resolder the company. This unification has extremely different exits, according to whether she is orchestrated for the benefit of the policy (it is the Civil society of Rousseau) or of theological (according to the theories of Joseph de Maistre). But what precedes, beyond this difference in result, it is the common purpose, and the similar wills of unit. The mystic of the unit also organizes herself around the topic of the fatherland. It is then a question for its partisans of showing that the unit is preexistent with the effective unification of the country - and with the French revolution, which is the real instigator -, and who she must be defended costs which costs, which explains the importance that revêt the Frontière in the imaginary collective policy.

There still, the myth answers a faintness sociétal, strong near to that which justifies the myth of the golden age. One finds the fear of a rupture of social fabric, caused by the specialization of each one (separation of the clerk and the scientist), the fear of a confrontation between formerly plain values. They are the noxious effects of the modern society, the Individualisme and the Progrès which are once more blamed. But there is in the myth of the unit an additional expenditure of religiosity, an identification with God, which is One.

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