№ 4 - 2006
Fishman L.G.
Political Myth and Ideology: "Dangerous Rapprochement"?

The article seeks to substantiate the thesis according to which it is only at first glance that the modern notion of political myth presents an alternative to the equally modern notions of ideology and utopia. Retracing the evolution of these notions, the author demonstrates that however disparate at the moment of their appearance, these notions are at the present time practically indistinguishable by their internal content because they have gone through similar evolution under the influence of in each case the same factors. As a result, both ideology and myth were being interpreted as systems of ideas and symbols necessary for the functioning and reproduction of social institutions, and the question of falsity or truth of political myth, just as the problem of ideology as "false consciousness", found themselves removed from the agenda. According to the author's conclusion, the consequence of the said process has become the loss of criteria that would allow to understand why one social arrangement and the ideologies and myths legitimizing it, are changed by other ones.