Political Myth: On the Use and Abuse of Biblical Themes

New Slant: Religion, Politics, Ontology

by Roland Boer, Creston Davis (Series Editor), Philip Goodchild (Series Editor)

In this provocative and necessary work, Roland Boer, a leading biblical scholar and cultural theorist, develops a political myth for the a powerful narrative to be harnessed in support of progressive policy. Boer focuses on foundational stories in the Hexateuch, the first six books of the Bible, from Genesis through Joshua. He contends that the “primal story” that runs from Creation, through the Exodus, and to the Promised Land is a complex political myth, one that has been appropriated recently by the Right to advance reactionary political agendas. To reclaim it in support of progressive political ends, Boer maintains, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of political myth. Boer elaborates a theory of political myth in dialogue with Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Alain Badiou, Jacques Lacan, and Slavoj Žižek. Through close readings of well-known biblical stories he then scrutinizes the nature of political myth in light of feminism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. Turning to contemporary politics, he examines the statements of prominent American and Australian politicians to show how the stories of Creation, conquest, Paradise, and the Promised Land have been distorted into a fantasy of Israel as a perpetual state in the making and a land in need of protection. Boer explains how this fantasy of Israel shapes U.S. and Australian foreign and domestic policies, and he highlights the links between it and the fantasy of unfettered global capitalism. Contending that political myths have repressed dimensions which if exposed undermine the myths’ authority, Boer urges the Left to expose the weakness in the Right’s mythos. He suggests that the Left make clear what the world would look like were the dream of unconstrained capitalism to be realized.

Genres: Religion

266 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2008

About the author

Roland Theodore Boer is a Marxist philosopher based in China. His research concerns the many dimensions of the construction of socialism, especially in China but also elsewhere.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange mix of a book, but worth a look if the title appeals to you. The early chapters on biblical themes were very different from the examinations of mythmaking in current Australia, USA, and Israel. The closing chapter on mythmaking for the Left was excellent. There, Boer takes the neoliberal/neoconservative/capitalist dream at its word and imagines our perfectly globalized and perfectly laissez faire future. Rather terrifying and bleak, as you might expect.

[Eilif Verney-elliott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trite and poorly written.