Homo Mythicus

In the turbulent period between 1870 and 1930, the contours of modernity were taking shape, especially the connections between technology, politics, and aesthetics. The trilogy The Nihilist Order traces the genealogy of the nihilist-totalitarian syndrome. Georges Sorel (1847-1922) was the first political philosopher to develop a systematic theory of political myth: one that had profound impact on radical leaders and totalitarian movements of the 20th century. While he was a highly respected by early political sociologist, his writings transcended disciplinary boundaries in their creation of a modern political mythology. Believing that ideology was too abstract, general, and ineffective to be instrumental in the political mobilization of the masses, Sorel formulated the myth of the general strike. According to his theory of social psychology, people are socialized not by means of ideology, but through a common experience of action. This idea was adopted to great effect in the following years by revolutionary syndicalism, fascism, and bolshevism. Sorel's problem was one that is well understood by the social thinkers of today: that of revitalizing a political arena and a social structure which he felt to be dominated by an inauthentic degenerate search for a tranquil bourgeois existence. The myth of violence, he believed, would reinvigorate the militancy of both socialism and nationalism and spur these on to a new and dynamic course of action. Sorelian myth should be understood in a new way, not as a means to some ideological purpose, but to a mobilization of heroic action, seen as an end in itself. This is the focus of Homo Mythicus: Volume II of The Nihilist Order.