ABSTRACT
Politics is the struggle of humans to integrate irreducible, split-off elements that are linked to the work of mourning and are expressed in mythical religious and poetic acts. An important achievement of the work of mourning is that the subject emerges and is able to think, to separate, and link internal with external reality. Politics enables humans to negotiate alliances of community, sustain participation in common culture, construct a shared reality, and allow an open-ended process of transformations to continue. With the perception of the mind as a subject of its own psychic states, the subject lives creatively – not in compliance – by differentiating and uniting past and present experiences. He integrates a present experience in the psychic history, and restores confidence to the state of the union of the self and his polis. Meaninglessness threatens the integrity of the society. Myths contain grains of untransformed reality – in need of meaning – which makes them immortal. These elements of unelaborated reality give the weight of historical truth and convincing reality to the inscription of modern written laws and the foundation of institutions. Believing in and identifying with their myths (heroes) makes citizens feel that they themselves as well as their city are immortal.
