Myth, Politics and Political Science

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Abstract

IF ANY LANGUAGE should prove invulnerable to mythological infiltration it would seem to be that language which is direct, literal, and used more to do something than to mean something. Such language was called by J. L. Austin "performative" language, that is, language which performs an action rather than states anything, as does our more common "constative" utterances. An example of a performative is the "verdictive" judgment: "We the jury do hereby find the defendant guilty." Another would be the "exercitive" action: "I vote 'no!' " Still another might be the "commissive" uttterance: "I pledge you my support."' Are mythical elements alien to such speech-acts? To answer this question we must ask another and try to answer it, however sketchily: what is myth? In frequent usage today "myth" is treated as a synonym for "illusion," usually to be contrasted with "reality." Consider these book titles: Scott Greer, The Emerging City: Myth and Reality; Raymond Vernon, The Myth and Reality of Our Urban Problems; Boyd Shafer, Nationalism: Myth and Reality; Delbert Snider, Economic Myths and Realities.2 Such usages are understandable, but they sadly shrink a once virile term. The Greek "mythos" was "a tale uttered by the mouth," generally associated with religious ceremony. It had a narrative and dramatic quality and pointed toward the divine, that is, the unknown. It attempted to capture in terms conceivable to humans some of the indeterminate qualities of this divine unknown. The language of these stories was consequently figurative, metaphorical, and ambiguous. Myths are poetry, but a special kind of poetry the poetry men live by. As the bearer of other meanings, larger meanings, meanings beyond, myths have the concreteness of images found in private poetry, but also a certain universality. Hence, we have often been told that myth "does not tell truths, but does tell the truth"; a myth is something that "never was, but always is."