ABSTRACT

Facing the horrors of the mid-twentieth century, a prominent modern philosopher invoked ancient Near Eastern myth. The Myth of the State was Ernst Cassirer's attempt to make sense of the collapse of liberal democracy in the face of totalitarianism. Political myth can erupt to destroy rational society – especially during times of crisis. It is, then, an irony of deep significance that Cassirer himself chose to draw on a political myth to explain this problem. If myth, however, is not merely a primordial but a persistent force holding polities together – including self-proclaimed rational ones – Cassirer's vision of combat between mythic and rational societies can lead us astray. By presenting the tension between reason and myth as a conflict between two types of societies, The Myth of the State hides the fact that all regimes order themselves through myth in some way or another.