The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations

Chiara Bottici, Benoît Challand

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136951190
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

While globalization unifies the world, divisions re-emerge within it in the form of a spectacular separation between Islam and the West. How can it be that Huntington's contested idea of a clash of civilizations became such a powerful political myth through which so many people look at the world?

Bottici and Challand disentangle such a process of myth-making both in the West and in Muslim majority countries, and call for a renewed critical attitude towards it. By analysing a process of elaboration of this myth that took place in academic books, arts and media, comics and Hollywood films, they show that the clash of civilizations has become a cognitive scheme through which people look at the world, a practical image on the basis of which they act on it, as well as a drama which mobilizes passions and emotions.

Written in a concise and accessible way, this book is a timely and valuable contribution to the academic literature, and more generally, to the public debate. As such, it will be an important reference for scholars and students of political science, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, Middle Eastern politics and Islam.

1 Political myths

Social scientists have long emphasized the political role played by myths and other forms of irrational discourses. Anthropologists have always dealt with them: as external observers catapulted into foreign regions of the world, they were in the best position to perceive them. The presence of myth among primitive populations could easily appear as a consequence of their ‘primitiveness’ and of the fact that politics could hardly be separated from religion here.¹ Historians and sociologists have also devoted an important part of their work to the symbolic dimension of politics – suffice it to think of Bloch’s The Royal Touch (1973) or Weber’s work on charisma (1969).

In the last few decades, interest in the symbolic and mythical dimension of politics has further increased. For a variety of reasons, different disciplines have been pointing out that, so to speak, we are all ‘primitive’, or to put it in the words of Bruno Latour ‘we have never been modern’ (Latour 1997). While anthropologists started to look at modern societies, by applying to them their own methodological apparatus for the study of myth, the very dichotomy ‘primitive’ versus ‘modern’ came under attack (Balandier 1981: 115). In particular, the recent rise of identity politics and revival of nationalisms have rendered manifest that myths are an important component of politics, even in contemporary modern societies.

While historians, anthropologists and social scientists discuss and debate their different case studies, we still lack a consolidated theoretical framework for the use of the concept of political myth. This chapter shows that philosophy can be of great help if we want to understand what political myths are in general, and why we need them in particular. It does this by addressing the twofold question ‘why philosophy?’ and ‘why political myth?’ The first part looks at the ways in which philosophy can contribute to a better understanding of political myth, firstly by addressing the weaknesses of available theories and secondly by advancing some suggestions as to the possible ways of overcoming them with a more refined approach to myth. By moving to the question ‘why political myth’?, we will show why, by drawing insights from the theoretical approach sketched previously, we can arrive at a better understanding of important features of the contemporary world. In particular, by looking at political myth as a process of elaboration of a common narrative that provides significance to the political conditions and actions of a social group, we can better understand how it was possible that a theory, such as that of the clash between civilizations, which has been so strongly criticized as too simplistic and naive, has nevertheless become such a powerful lens through which people see the world, act and feel about it. Finally, we will address the further question ‘why political myth and not other related concepts such as history or ideology?’, by arguing that the three concepts refer to only partially overlapping phenomena and must therefore be kept separate.

1.1 Understanding myth: a theoretical framework

Despite the recent increase of studies on political myth, there is still no consolidated framework on this topic. Indeed, while there is an ever growing number of works dealing with specific case studies – suffice it to think of the long series of studies on myth and nationalism² – there are very few theoretical works on it. Common language, which depicts myth as a purely fictitious narrative, as it emerges in expressions such as ‘the myth of welfare’ or ‘the myth of progress’, does not contribute towards a better understanding of these phenomena. It implicitly suggests that ‘myths’ are simply false and that it is from the point of view of their claim to truth that we must look at them.³ This attitude is misleading, because it originates from a positivist view of language which looks at it as if words were always aimed at describing facts or advancing claims to truth.

From a philosophical perspective, this is quite an outdated view. The philosophy of language of the last fifty years (at least) has been pointing out rather convincingly that human beings perform, with language, a number of actions which are not aimed at advancing any claim to truth. As Wittgenstein clearly argued, we do a number of things with language that are not ‘true’ or ‘false’ in any meaningful sense, because they do not aim to advance theories as to the constitution of the world. To give an example, are we mistaken when we invoke our absent love and kiss her picture (Wittgenstein 1979: 1e)? These are actions that cannot be said to be true or false: we know that she is not there and cannot hear us, but utter her name for other purposes. We simply want to do something different from describing the truth. As we will try to show, myths are also best analysed as one of these other things that we do with language.

This attitude towards myth, which is so rooted in common language, has an impact on theories of political myth as well. The few available theories, even when they recognize that not all political myths are ‘false’, treat political myth as an object, and, in particular, as one that advances a claim to truth. For instance, Lincoln defines myths as those kinds of narratives that possess credibility and authority, in which a narrative possessing authority is ‘one for which successful claims are made not only to the status of truth, but, what is more, to the status of paradigmatic truth’ (Lincoln 1989: 24; emphasis added). Similarly, Flood, who understands political myth as a synthesis of political ideology and religious myths, defines it as ‘an ideologically marked narrative which purports to give a true account of a set of past, present, or predicted political events, and which is accepted as valid in its essential by a social group’ (Flood 1996: 44; emphasis added).

In the first place, the problem with these definitions is that they tend to conflate political myth with other phenomena, such as a simple narrative (in the first definition), or with ideology and religion (in the second). Political myths such as that of the Aryan race are not simply authoritative narratives, because there can well be authoritative narratives such as the narrative of the Genesis in the Bible that are not, or, at least, not always, political myths. But they are not a synthesis of political ideology and religious myth either, because myth and religion are two quite distinct things (and ideology, as we will see, is something else again). To put it bluntly, a religion is always a matter of life and death,⁴ whereas a political myth is a matter of political action. Take the myth of proletarian general strike which has been described by Georges Sorel in his Reflections on Violence (1990).⁵ It does not tell us what the meaning of human life in general is or whether God or an afterlife exists. It simply tells that you have to act here and now in a given way if you want to achieve certain political goals.

In the second place, the more general problem with both of these theories is that they treat political myths as objects, as accounts of reality which advance a claim to truth (Lincoln 1989: 24; Flood 1996: 44). This is perhaps due to the fact that both Lincoln and Flood are political scientists who are interested more in constructing a theory that fits their single case studies than in the general philosophical framework of their theory. As a consequence, they remain linked to a view of language and truth that appears at best naive in the light of the philosophical developments of the last fifty years. Yet what is at stake here is not simply adopting an updated philosophical conception of language and meaning, but the very understanding of the phenomena we are discussing.

Treating political myths as if they were advancing a claim to truth means bringing them to a terrain (that of science) that is not their own. Only when there is a theory can there be, properly speaking, a claim to truth that can be ‘falsified’. Both Flood and Lincoln fail to understand this and as a consequence they misunderstand the nature of political myth. Political myths are not theories as to the constitution of the world, but the expressions of a determination to act within it.⁶ They do not aim to describe the truth, they tend to create it, precisely because they are oriented towards action. Take the example of myth of the Aryan race on which the Nazi regime largely drew. The narrative consisted here in the idea that there has been a glorious past of a purported Aryan race and that this race was in danger of disappearance as a consequence of marriages with other ‘inferior races’. There may not exist an Aryan race here and now and it may not even have existed in the past (we would deny that it did). But the point is that, as the example of Nazism shows, once you have created a huge scientific and state apparatus to ‘select’ such a race, you can easily create one – or at least the impression of its existence.

If political scientists work with an impoverished view of language and truth, the problem with more philosophical theories, such as Cassirer’s The Myth of the State (1973) or Wingo’s Veil Politics (2003), is that they treat political myth under a category that is too general – in these cases that of the ‘mythical consciousness’ and that of ‘veil politics’. The problem, here, is that conflating myth with other forms of political symbolism can be both misleading and problematic. It is misleading because it hides the fact that myths are symbols, but not all symbols are myths. Symbols are an a priori condition of all forms of communication, but myths are not. Even a mathematical proportion is a set of symbols, but nobody, or at least only very few (and certainly not Cassirer), would argue that it is a myth.

This conflation is also pernicious because, by treating political myths together with other forms of political symbolism, one risks ending up in a generalized refusal of all forms of primitive consciousness (Cassirer 1973) or in an equally dangerous defence of all sorts of ‘veils’ (Wingo 2003). The first move is problematic, because this may be true for the Nazi myth of the Aryan race upon which Cassirer constructs his theory, but does not hold for other non-totalitarian political myths. As Wingo argues, even liberal democracies have their own political myths, such as that of the American Founding Fathers (Wingo 2003). And they may be compatible with the principle of individual autonomy. At the same time, to treat ‘political myth’ under the general category of ‘veil politics’, as Wingo does, is equally problematic because, for instance, it is disputable whether the cult of national heroes, which Wingo mentions among the possible forms of veils, is compatible with the principle of individual autonomy. Even if such a cult meets the criterion of consensus from all sectors of a nation, which is Wingo’s condition for admiting it in democratic liberal democracies, promoting the cult of heroes can still be highly harmful depending on the way in which the consensus itself is reached.

A philosophical approach to political myth can contribute to clarifying both the concept of political myth and the more general philosophical framework that sustains such a concept. Furthermore, it can also help address the normative questions that arise with political myth. By reconstructing the more general theoretical framework for the use of the concept, it could address both the questions ‘what are political myths?’ and ‘how should we evaluate them?’ The link between these two is the question of whether politics without myths would be possible at all. It could indeed be the case that we should not resort to mythical discourses, but cannot avoid them, because they are rooted in our nature. Here, as we will try to show, philosophy meets sociology and anthropology.

On the other hand, there seems to be something in our topic which renders it recalcitrant vis-à-vis a theoretical treatment. Perhaps it is not by chance that classical theories of political myth are mostly the result of a reflection on a specific example. This holds true, for instance, for both Cassier’s The Myth of the State and Sorel’s Reflections on Violence. The result is that both of their theories remain too linked to their models and do not allow for generalization: are political myths a means for oppression, as Cassirer argues by analysing the Nazi myth of the Aryan race, or for liberation, as Sorel suggests for the proletarian general strike?

It seems that even the same political myth can be a source for both oppression and liberation – depending on the context. For instance, Sorel’s myth of the class struggle has not always been a means for liberation. One has only to think of how this myth has been utilized by certain totalitarian regimes. This example points to what we can call the ‘particularistic’ nature of political myth, to the fact that the same myth can have very different meanings according to the particular circumstances in which it operates. Political myth, like myth in general, expresses itself through variants: properly speaking, we never see a political myth at work, but always variants of it. Furthermore, what is political myth for a certain group of people may well not be for another, and, even for the same group, the same narrative can work as a political myth in certain circumstances but not in others.

If this particularistic nature of myth can help in explaining the reluctance of political philosophy to analyse them, nevertheless, it should be emphasized that there is nothing a priori that prevents the development of a philosophical approach to political myth. On the contrary, there are good reasons to suspect that this topic would greatly benefit from the contribution of philosophy. By drawing insights from the philosophical remark that human beings perform a number of things with language, one may try to explain the particularistic nature of myth by looking at it as a process rather than as an object.

Indeed, a myth does not consist in a story that is given once and for ever in a definitive form. Take the myth of Ulysses. Which of the many variants of this myth is the true one – the one that sees him happily coming back home or that which sees him swallowed up by the sea?⁷ It is implicit in the concept of myth that there can be variants of it. Properly speaking, a myth consists of the process of elaboration of the possible variants of a story. This is what Hans Blumenberg tried to convey with his concept of Arbeit am Mythos, or ‘work on myth’ (Blumenberg 1985).

By ‘work on myth’ we mean here a process of elaboration of a single narrative core which stems from a need for significance that changes over time. This is the reason why myth necessarily expresses itself through variants: in each single context the same narrative pattern is reappropriated by different needs and exigencies and it is to them that it has to respond. Either a narrative core produces a variant that fulfils this task in the new context or it simply ceases to be a myth and becomes a simple narrative.

What is such a ‘need for significance’? The term ‘significance’ denotes a space between a ‘simple meaning’ and what we can call an ‘ultimate meaning’. Something can indeed have a meaning and be still completely indifferent to us – even though that which is significant must also have a meaning in order to be named in the first place. Therefore, significance is something more than mere meaning. As we will see in more detail in Chapter 2 when dealing with the concepts of icons, significance operates in between what is consciously said about the world and what is unconsciously felt about it. At the same time, what is significant is not necessarily something that answers the ultimate questions about the sense of life and the existence of an afterlife.

The need for significance is not the mere need for a meaningful world because the world depicted by natural science is, for instance, a world that has a meaning, but, as one can easily experience, such a world of mathematical formulae may still remain completely insignificant to us. At the same time, the need for significance is not the need for religion either, because something can be significant for a group without answering the ultimate questions of life and death, as religion does. Precisely because of its ‘ultimate’ character, religion tends to produce a sacred history, and therefore crystallize into a canon. The latter can certainly be interpreted, but not changed. In other words, religion has a different attitude towards truth that does not allow a plurality of stories to simply coexist one next to the other.

Indeed, it is implicit in the concept of faith that one believes in that particular story, which is said to be sacred precisely because of its character of revealed truth. This is the reason why there cannot be substantially differing variants of the sacred history, let us say, for example, the one which says that Jesus was resurrected after death and another which says that he was not. Any substantially differing narrative will immediately be stigmatized as ‘heresy’ so that it can at best generate another faith.⁸ In contrast, many differing variants of a myth can simply coexist one next to the other, without it being possible to identify the ‘true’ version of it. Not by chance, then, a myth does not have martyrs as religion does. The myths that have generated martyrs are precisely those myths that we define as ‘religious myths’. Still, a myth has something to offer to human beings, something which is qualitatively different from what both science and religion provide but yet equally powerful.

The human need for significance is ultimately derived from the particular position of human beings within the world. By using a famous Nietzschean expression, Gehlen defined human beings as the ‘always not yet determined animals’ (Gehlen 1988). As he argues, human beings in contrast to other animals are not adapted to a specific environment and are therefore always not yet adapted. Whereas other animals have a fixed relationship with their environment in the sense that they are adapted to it, human beings change the environment in which they live. This puts them in a very peculiar relationship with their living conditions.

In the first place, this fact generates culture. As Blumenberg observed, when prehuman creature was induced to avail itself of a bipedal posture and to leave the protection of a hidden way of life in the rain forest for the savannah, it exposed itself for the first time to the risks of a...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge Advances in Middle East and Islamic Studies
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Political myths
• 2 Icons
• 3 Myth and theory
• 4 The politics of myth
• 5 The struggle for people’s imagination
• Notes
• References
• Index