Myths and Politics

In recent years, a medieval theme has re-emerged as a trope for daily discussion, or at least tweeting and facebook posts: "the clash of civilizations". In this case the clash is between the West, which many people conflate with Christianity, and Islam.

These memes tend to only make sense when viewed through a very, very soft focus lens. Boiling down centuries of history, the actions of billions of people and countless religious sects to a single slogan, sentence or a paragraph, of course, would.

The clash of civilizations trope shows one way mythology works, or shows its function in political life. The people who believe a thing called "christendom" exists seem to mean they want to belong to the christendom team. As discussed in earlier posts, people in the western world have lived in a succession of empires, and are essentially de-tribed, but we retain an instinct to belong to a tribe, which we've generalized to the concept of a team.

Ironically, people believe "christendom" is under attack because of the fervent beliefs of the "islamic" terrorists. The language of the terrorists, e.g. infidels, serves to define sides of a conflict.

Symbols and stories can help to define political boundaries. Symbols and vague beliefs are almost always more real than reality. While "christendom", which bristles with the most advanced weaponry in human history, is under threat by impoverished young dudes with AK-47's who are financed by the supposed allies of the West, or by the West itself, political boundaries can be defined by very vague beliefs and symbols.

Retelling of legendary historical stories, e.g. The Song of Roland, in this context can suddenly make them seem extremely significant. Maybe this is one of the ways that religions make use of mythology. Popular stories or fables, or even the oddball stories of astro-mythology, make the transition from entertainment to hallowed artifacts. They become a thing, an institutional property.