Ian Iracheta

School of European Languages, Culture, and Society

University College London

The Economy of Myth: Essence, Order, and Politics

In Mythologies, Roland Barthes makes use of Ferdinand de Saussures theories on linguistics to

explain how ideology is able to hijack and impose itself on the elements of signification in

language. What we are left with are two different levels of meaning, that of the first order and that

of the second order. Other terms for these are connotative and denotative meaning: the former is

more conceptual in nature and refers to ideology; the latter is more straightforward: it seeks to

represent the objective world through the conduit of language.

In this essay, I will discuss the way in which myth works according to Barthes. I am

interested in the economical process whereby it purifies concepts into essences. I will also briefly

comment on how different systems of meaning create or abolish hierarchies. For this I will draw a

brief comparison between Barthess theories on myth, and medieval hermeneutics. Finally, I will

discuss the apparent aporia whereby myth can constitute depoliticised speech, and, at the same

time, be deeply political.

The Economy of Myth

Let us begin by calling to mind one of the examples that Barthes himself gives in Mythologies, the

black soldier saluting the French tricolour. The denotative meaning at play here would be the

actual fact of a cadet saluting a flag. The connotative meaning provides us with a narrative about

the greatness of the French empire welcoming into its bosom soldiers of all creeds and races.

What is interesting, however, is that Barthes draws from this sign a somewhat

counterintuitive conclusion about the order in which we apprehend different orders of meaning.

For him, the immediate literalness of the salute is only secondary to what it signifies on an

ideological level. Myth hides its own first-order generation of meaning1 while the connotative,

1
Stafford, Andy. Dialectics of Form(s) in Roland Barthes's Mythologies. Nottingham

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 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

the more conceptual meaning of the two triumphs and becomes king of the sign. In the historical

process of its creation, it is the other way around. Myth is metalanguage and therefore relies on

previous language. Barthes, however, investigates the reception of the mythical message as

antedating its literal counterpart.

Under normal circumstances, we would expect a complex unit of meaning to take longer

to be fully assimilated, whereas literality is immediate. The only way to get around this problem

is to call into question the complexity of the higher-end meaning. If it is in fact simplified, then it

will be less intellectually onerous. We can now understand that myth is economical, in a very

pedestrian definition of the term. Myth cuts back; it is on a budget, and cannot pay for the entire

complexity of a full concept but only for a fraction of it.

We can, however, also understand the word economy in another way. In Freudian

terminology, economy refers to the creation of a balance between forces. Such a usage is obvious

on writings such as Mourning and Melancholia.2 We can apply this meaning of the term to

Mythologies if we think about the resulting balance of forces created by the opposition of

connotative and denotative meaning.

However, in the economics of myth, more factors come into play. The distinction we drew

at first: soldier = literal meaning & French imperialism = conceptual meaning is not sufficient, as

French imperialism can be both a concept and a real objective phenomenon.

Although the concept of the French Empire is much more problematic and wide-ranging

than the actual fact of a soldier saluting a flag, if the former becomes essentialised, if it turns into

French Studies, Vol. 47. No. 2. Summer 2008. p. 7.

2
Freud, S. Mourning and Melancholia. The Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916). trans. James Strachey.
London: Vintage, 2001. 237-258

2
 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

almost an archetype; paradoxically, by losing its physicality, it can be handled with some of the

immediacy we normally confer unto simple objects. While enough complexity to fill up several

tomes of Plato exists in the concept of, say, Truth with a capital T, we can still speak about it and

grapple with what it means on at least a superficial level. This is possible because, as Barthes

would say, myth abolishes its complexity.3

Following this logic, we must arrive at the identification of two completely different

processes. On the one hand, connotative meaning imposes itself over denotative meaning; the

secondary process is more interesting, because this new conceptual meaning is far from

undamaged. Barthes comments on how myth creates one pseudo-physis, but in fact it engenders

two. First, there is a new natural relationship between the signifier and its mythical signified.

Secondly, this new mythical meaning is itself not a natural concept because it has been purified.

The soldier does not evoke the French Empire in its entirety, he does not represent the colonies in

Algeria, or the systematic exploitation of the third world, only, if anything, the words libert,

galit, fraternit in a 20th-century context.

If we do not take into consideration propagandistic efforts, any discussion about the empire

would have to touch on all of these subjects to be comprehensive; there are many contradictions

of fundamental values at its very core. Myth ignores these contradictions by selecting and

discarding elements of what it is concerned with.

3
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies, trans. by Annette Lavers. New York: Noonday Press,
1991. p 143

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 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

This brings us to a problem in terminology. The word essence which Barthes himself uses

is a myth because of its cultural connotations. What is essential is pure, uncontaminated, good, and

not merely that what is irreduciblewhat the word means for Aristotle.

When it comes to myth we are not dealing with natural essences, but man-made

counterfeits. The mythological essence of the French Empire therefore is an impoverished by-

product of the actual French Empire, just as the soldier in question is an impoverished signifier of

himself.

The order of meaning

Because conceptual meaning here is reduced to its minimal expression, then it is worth thinking

about its role in a system of values in relation to more literal meaning. Normally we think concepts

are higher up the ethical ladder than objects, than literality; nevertheless, Barthes argues in this

case for a different approach. To highlight how unusual it is, I think it pertinent to briefly consider

the different levels of meaning in the medieval theory of hermeneutics. A comparison between this

tool and Barthess theories on myth is appropriate as both are concerned with the way a single

signifier can have signifieds on different orders. This comparison will likewise shed some light on

the historicity of different levels of meaning.

I will use the Latin Physiologus, a metrical translation of the original Greek text by Bishop

Theobald in the 11th century. Likewise, I will only comment on the first entry, the lion, which

beings with the words: Natures three of lions are found with a mystical meaning (mysticos

sensus).4 This means that, apart from the literal lion, there are three different meanings that flirt

with the metaphysical. Augustine of Dacia puts it succinctly: the literal teaches the facts, the

4
Physiologus: A Metrical Bestiary of Twelve Chapters by Bishop Theobald Cologne 1492,
Translated by Alan Wood Rendell. 1897. p.54

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 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

allegorical teaches what you should believe, the moral what you should do, the anagogical what

you should aim for.5

What we should notice here is the order in which these different levels are arranged. There

is a very obvious vertical movement that imposes an almost ethical hierarchy on the levels of

interpretation at play. Literal meaning comes first, but that is only because it is the basest, and

through meditation and contemplation it is possible to attain the highest cusp of religious meaning.

Both systems, the hermeneutical, and Barthess, state that meaning can be established on

different levels. Both of them speak of a literal and a conceptual order, even if the former further

subdivides it. Nevertheless, when juxtaposed against one another, this order is inverted, which

begs the question, why? Why is it that in the medieval mind the literal is the first thing to come to

mind and the conceptual something that one must almost fight for, whereas Barthes avers that

connotative meaning is more immediate than its literal counterpart?

We can begin to answer this question by thinking about where the creator of that meaning

resides. In hermeneutics, it is God who has endowed the world with metaphorical, allegorical, and

moral meaning. Only the enlightened can arrive to the top. For Barthes, mythical meaning is a

man-made, social construct, one imposed on the world by the ruling class; myth as speech belongs

to the right, and to be a suitable vehicle for ideology, it cannot be as cabalistic as religious meaning.

Another important difference between both systems of meaning is that, whereas, in hermeneutics

the hierarchy with the literal at the bottom and the conceptual at the top is very clear, the two orders

of meaning in Barthess framework do not reflect an ethical division stating which one is more

important, or which one should be rejected in favour of the other. In fact, even if one is received

5
Middle English Literature. Dunn, Charles W(ed). New York: Garland Publishing, 1990.
p. 9

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 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

first, the mythologist can never be too sure if he is reading too much into the sign at hand. There

is an element of epistemological anxiety that a faith in God resolves in the other case. With myth,

maybe that is really just a picture of a man saluting a flag; maybe it does not signify any more than

that. The fallacy of authorial intention, on the other hand, is inconsequential when God is a

fiduciary for meaning.

In Mythologies, it is interesting that neither of the two orders of meaning is considered as

being purer than the other. The literal does not carry connotations of baseness. Myth, however,

receives a more inconsistent linguistic treatment. On the one hand, it is equated with purified

concepts, with essences, etc., on the other it is parasitical6; it is a haemorrhage.7

The ethics at play here are unavoidable. In that sense, the contradiction in the way it is

described with both positive and negative terms is very fitting. Myth, after all, gives the impression

of purity.

Depoliticised Politics

To finish our discussion, I will now address a perceived aporia in the politics of myth. On the one

hand, the agenda behind it is that of the bourgeoisie, and yet, Barthes argues that myth is

depoliticised speech. Now we must answer the question: how can it be depoliticised speech if it

imposes a bourgeois ideology on everything it touches? Let us remember that here political has

what Barthes calls a deeper meaning, describing the whole of human relations in their real,

social structure, in their power of making the world (my emphasis).8 What we must note here is

the fundamentally pragmatic element of this definition of politics. Its function is to make the world.

6 From this point onwards, all citations are of Mythologies.

116
7 137
8
142

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 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

Depoliticised speech, on the other hand, seeks to elevate whatever it touches, to remove it from

the world and its historical circumstances and to raise it to the status of an essence, something

which is immutable and cannot be remade or transformed. In that sense, this definition of politics

is the opposite we have of politicians. Politicians are all talk and no action, but politics is only talk

insofar as it is action.

Myth therefore is conservative. Statistically, Barthes tells us, myth is on the right. 9 It

seeks to perpetuate the structures of power already in play. Furthermore,

The oppressed makes the world, he has only an active, transitive language; the oppressor
conserves it, his language is plenary intransitive, gestural, theatrical: it is Myth. The
language of the former aims at transforming, of the latter at eternalising.10

If we follow this reasoning, we can understand how, because of its economic nature, myth is both

depoliticised speech, and a political act. Barthes does not consider the choice of perpetuating an

existent order an example of an action, but this is, I believe, a mistake.

Two definitions of politics are at play here. The first one is the one that Barthes himself

gives us and it focuses on the ability to make the world. The second one is almost a negation of

the former, for it is all about eternalising the structures of power that are already in play. The only

difference is which class has hegemonic power at any given point. Let us remember that myth is

not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message.11

If indeed as Barthes says everything can be a myth, we can conclude that the politics of it

are therefore not a result of content but of form. Regardless of ideology, the ruling class will always

be the right, (cf. with Barthess comments on Stalin), because it will seek to stay in power; its

9
150
10
150
11
107

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 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

metalanguage will consist of the tools to celebrate things, and no longer to act them.12

Perpetuating something is opposed to the making something else, and for Barthes, only the latter

is political, as political language is that which acts the object13 instead of merely what describes

it.

Conclusion: the Economy of Mythologies

In the first part of this essay I talked about the economy of myth in two terms. First of all,

I understood myths economy as the way in which it essentialises and diminishes conceptual

meaning. I then took the word in its Freudian sense relating to the balance of forces between

connotative and denotative meaning. I elaborated on the distinction between the literal and the

conceptual by showing how both terms are hierarchised in medieval hermeneutics and how Barthes

does not allow for this hierarchy to dominate his system as completely. I analysed the ethical

quality of his language when he speaks about myth and concluded it to be contradictory. Finally,

I commented on the aporia of political, depoliticised speech. To conclude this paper, now I think

it necessary to elaborate on how all of these apparently unconnected themes tie in together.

I tried to concentrate on the way binaries operate in Barthes thought. The concept vs the

object, the literal vs the metaphoric, the political vs the depoliticised, and indeed it would appear

that all of these terms act economically in the Freudian sense of the word, not in myth but in

Mythologies. The balance of forces between them create a synthesis which partakes of both

premises albeit in different orders. The sign in all of these terms is multiple in its dimensions.

When it comes to myth in itself, we can say that it constitutes a unit of both literal and connotative

12
143
13
146

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 Ian Iracheta
School of European Languages, Culture, and Society
University College London

meaning; it is both political and depoliticised, and all of this is achieved through the economic

process that surrounds it.

References:

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies, trans. by Annette Lavers. New York: Noonday Press,
1991.
Freud, S. Mourning and Melancholia. The Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916). trans. James Strachey.
London: Vintage, 2001. 237-258
Middle English Literature. Dunn, Charles W. & Byrnes, Edward T. (eds). New York:
Garland Publishing, 1990.
Physiologus: A Metrical Bestiary of Twelve Chapters by Bishop Theobald Cologne 1492,
Translated by Alan Wood Rendell. 1897.
Stafford, Andy. Dialectics of Form(s) in Roland Barthes's Mythologies. Nottingham
French Studies, Vol. 47. No. 2. Summer 2008. 6-18.