Myths and Ideologies

We need myths and even ideologies to make sense of the world and be active in it. When I say this, I employ these two terms in a positive way.

Modern consciousness has devalued myths, reducing them to false stories. Yet, since the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment, artists, poets and scholars have begun to see that human consciousness is shaped by deep “mythemes,” namely mythological kernels in which the lived experienceof humanity is contained, and which are the basis for the development of specific myths. C.G. Jung introduced the notion of archetypes and the collective unconscious as a development of such Romantic intuition. Any deep resistance to the current disastrous effects of neoliberalism is in some way drawing from this well.

The term “ideology” was popularized by Marx and Marxist thinkers to mean a false narrative which keeps people oppressed. While it is largely true that ideologies can be effective tools in the hands of the oppressors, the original meaning of the term itself is devoid of such aspects, meaning simply “a rational system of ideas.” No more — but also no less — than an organized togetherness of notions which are not contradictory to each other. It is not always clear to those who resist the neoliberal onslaught that we need ideologies — as we are still reeling from ideological clashes and we don’t like any imposition — but I believe we do.

As an ideology of sorts, Creation Spirituality shares the public space with other ideologies. The big difference with the neoliberal ideology, however, is that the latter works precisely as Marx taught: as a tool for domination, whose major trick is that of pretending not to be an ideology at all. Creation Spirituality instead is a way of life as well as a rational system of ideas – in this sense it is an ideology — which however is not ethically neutral and can never become a tool for domination.

I am at war with neoliberalism. I don’t say this because I like war metaphors, but because the opposition between what I believe and what neoliberalism preaches is huge, and the clash is very audible in my own soul like that of a war. Neoliberalism in its essence embodies the worst of religion, that is, dogmatism, which any spiritual person should try to avoid or leave behind. Neoliberalism is dogmatic because it presents itself as a matter-of-fact description of the world, an inescapable one.

The definition of human being that Matthew Fox gives in his book The Reinvention of Work is essentially Homo faber – something like an artisan. For Fox “work” means answering to one’s deeper vocation until one’s everyday activity tunes in with the Great Work of the Universe. Neoliberalism instead adopts an upgraded version of the late capitalist definition of the human being as homo economicus. Not being told anymore that they must accept the degradation and nonsense of “work” in factories, individuals in neoliberal societies are told that they can enjoy life and choose whatever they want, as long as they become the producers of themselves as goods.

Fortunately, more and more people understand that the unending and ever-growing cycle of production/consumption — in which everything can be sold and bought including art, moral values, and people — is unsustainable. More and more people are becoming aware that the social media system forces people to produce and reproduce themselves as goods for consumption, and that the dominant ways of communicating are vacuous.

But the dogmas of neoliberalism are all the more dangerous to the extent that they remain hidden. How many of us are aware that the expression “lifelong formation” hides a neoliberal construct? As philosopher Byung-Chul Han explains, not only formation becomes a commodity to be sold at all times, but lifelong formation does not allow for any completion, it is nothing more than a lifelong production.

In other words, in neoliberalism one cannot grow old and give back to the new generations the wisdom one has — hopefully — acquired. There is never any “closure” of any phase, only a continuous consumption, leaving behind a wasteland. Interestingly, when the architects of neoliberalism understood that enough people did not accept anymore the denial of old age, they came up with the concept of “grey hair economy” to keep the monster going. It is not such a smart monster perhaps, but a protean one for sure.

Proteus itself is a mythological sea-god and an archetype. Thinking mythologically enables me to see that neoliberalism is an embodiment of this archetype, to the detriment of all other archetypes. A balanced presence in the collective psyche of many archetypes is instead necessary.

Creation Spirituality draws deeply into the collective unconscious and mythological thinking, and must prepare itself for a deeper and deeper fight against neoliberal dogmas. It has some hope of prevailing because it values self-reflection and self-critique, while recognizing that community and compassion are the inescapable foundations of the human enterprise.

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Byung-Chul Han, The Disappearance of Rituals (Italian edition), p. 42

Banner image: The Thinker and a motor scooter. Photo on Wikimedia Commons.

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Queries for Contemplation

How do you understand the spiritual fight against neoliberalism? 

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Related Reading by Matthew Fox

Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation