It is generally agreed upon nowadays that twentieth-century politics was, at crucial moments, driven by mythologization: both Nazism and Communism were for example, in spite of their claims to scientific truth, essentially products of mythological thinking.

According to the British political philosopher John Gray, a less widespread view is that the role of mythmaking in politics is not confined to totalitarian regimes. Even liberal democracies are driven by myths. Indeed, many of the difficulties that liberal democracies today have to contend with stem from a reliance on unsubstantiated myths.

The belief that nation states and national cultures have lost their central role in modern life was the intellectual foundation of the project of European political unification. That conviction was, says Gray, not based on empirical data, but only on the ideal of a universal history. A similar myth, according to Gray, is the belief that the liberal democracy would be the natural endpoint of political development: a conviction that western policy has substantiated in crucial contexts. Think of the Western policy towards post-communist Russia, or the regime change in Iraq. The fact that this policy, based on secular myths rather than realistic thinking, has often failed should come as no surprise.

Gray argues that mythical thinking can never be eliminated from politics and ethics. For him, the question is how this thinking can be made less harmful. Can we distinguish between good and bad myths? And if the political and ethical ideals of progress are examples of such myths, are their effects innocent, or maybe more serious than we think? We must distinguish between myths and fictions? And if the idea of ​​universal human rights is a fiction, is this a useful or harmful fiction?

During the sixth SPUI25 Lecture, Gray will address these questions. In this way, he will try to expose the elements of myth and fiction in contemporary thought and reflect on how politics and ethics can change so they are able to recognise their own myths and fictitious ideas as such.

Register

Admission to the activities at SPUI25 is free. You need to register well in advance via the link below.

Note: this program will take place in the Aula of the University of Amsterdam, Singel 411.

• Spui 25 website

• Aula - Oude Lutherse kerk

  Singel 411 | 1012 XM Amsterdam
  

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