Our need to understand the form of mythical thinking is, before anything else, an epistemological necessity for comprehending the modern mind — not merely an exploration of humanity’s past.
Kabul 24: Just as Ernst Cassirer began his analysis of the philosophy of the Enlightenment by examining the form of thought in that era, we too must recognize the structure of mythical thinking if we are to achieve a deep understanding of modern thought.
This is precisely the task undertaken by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl in works such as Primitive Mentality and How Natives Think, and by Cassirer in the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.
Yadollah Moghaddam has also sought to explain and summarize these discussions for Persian-speaking readers in books such as Language, Thought, and Culture and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and the Problem of Mentalities.From this perspective, the Enlightenment, in its most fundamental sense, represents a critical stance against this very form of mythical thinking.
Therefore, recognizing and analyzing mythical, pre-modern, and pre-logical thought itself counts as part of the enlightened act.The essential point is that the form of mythical thinking is not confined to ancient or so-called “primitive” societies.
It is also present in various layers of the mentality of contemporary societies. In societies like Afghanistan, where the experience of modernity has been discontinuous, stratified, and incomplete, this form of thinking still exerts significant influence on many mental, social, and cultural structures.
Moreover, mythical thought powerfully persists even in modern ideologies that emerged in the West after modernity, playing a decisive role in shaping the mentality of their adherents.In this sense, understanding the form of mythical thinking not only helps us comprehend pre-modern societies but also reveals the hidden mythical patterns within modern ideologies.
It is therefore possible for individuals with master’s or doctoral degrees to still possess a mythical mental structure — whether they remain loyal to traditional, pre-modern worldviews or consider themselves to have transcended tradition and adhere to one of the modern ideologies.
The greatest deception in confronting the modern world is the assumption that anyone who uses modern concepts such as the free market, democracy, feminism, or empirical science necessarily also possesses a modern structure of thought.
This situation can be called the “fallacy of modern content in a mythical form.” When the critical rationality of the Enlightenment is absent, modern concepts and ideologies are simply poured into the vessel of mythical thinking.In such a state, the myth of good and evil — the mythical duality — is reconstructed. In this mental structure, the place of pure and impure spirits, or Ahura and Ahriman, is taken by modern concepts or all-encompassing conspiracies.
The result is that complex social reality is reduced to an absolute binary.Within this context, the principle of participation — as Lévy-Bruhl explains in primitive mentality — becomes active. In primitive mentality, there is no clear analytical distance between human and object, between the individual and the totem, or between name and essence.
For example, damage to the totem may be perceived as damage to the person himself.In the modern ideological mind, too, an abstract concept sometimes merges so completely with personal and existential identity that criticizing that concept is experienced as an attack on the person’s very essence.
The individual uses modern terminology but establishes a religious, emotional, and totemic relationship with it. Here, ideological language is no longer a tool for analysis but a means of belonging, faith, and existential boundary-drawing.
Another layer of this phenomenon is the awakening of myth in the depths of the modern mind. In the later years of his life, observing the rise of Nazism in Germany — a country that was among the most advanced in science, philosophy, and technology — Cassirer realized that myth is not merely a historical stage that has been left behind.
In his book The Myth of the State, he showed that myth survives like volcanic lava beneath the thin crust of modern rationality and can erupt again in times of crisis.
According to Cassirer, myth is never completely destroyed.As long as rationality maintains control over social order and the management of reality, myth is held in check.
But as soon as deep social crises, fear, insecurity, economic despair, or political collapse appear, modern rationality weakens and mythical thinking reawakens.
In such situations, modern ideologies mesmerize the masses through the magic of words — something Lévy-Bruhl highlighted in his analysis of primitive mentality. Ideological slogans cease to be propositions for scientific and critical analysis; they become magical incantations — phrases that, through repetition, are supposed to imaginarily order a chaotic, unjust, or incomprehensible world.
Here, language no longer serves to understand reality but becomes a tool for conquering the collective psyche. Words no longer explain meaning; they generate power — power for mobilization, hatred, faith, obedience, or the exclusion of the other.
The importance of understanding the form of mythical thinking becomes clear in societies like Afghanistan. These societies live in a condition of layered pseudo-modernity: modern technological tools, modern administrative structures, and even modern academic texts have entered, but the deep cognitive processing methods, the mental system of causality, and many social bonds are still largely shaped by pre-logical and mythical forms.
Therefore, recognizing this form of thinking frees us from superficial critiques. As long as we do not realize that the issue is not merely the presence or absence of modern knowledge, but how that knowledge is processed and understood, our discussions about backwardness, development, politics, science, and culture will not yield serious results.
When a physician with an excellent degree analyzes a virus not within the framework of biology and epidemiology but through the lens of nature’s intentionality or supernatural punishment, or when an engineer explains an earthquake not on the basis of geology and structural engineering but through metaphysical thinking, it becomes clear that science has become for him merely a technical means of livelihood, not an epistemological attitude for understanding the world.
Such a person may use modern tools but still interprets the world through mythical logic. This is precisely the gap between “modern knowing” and “modern thinking.”Another benefit of understanding mythical thinking is exposing ideological totalitarianism.
Once we recognize the form of mythical thought, we can better identify those who claim enlightenment but hide their dogmatic certainties behind fashionable and polished words.
In such cases, thinking does not revolve around the principle of non-contradiction, criticizability, and rational dialogue, but around magical faith in a leader, party, doctrine, ethnicity, nation, class, or any other absolute.
The outward language may appear modern, but its inner structure remains mythical and sacred.Enlightenment, therefore, is first and foremost a change in how we think, not merely in what we read.
As long as the pre-logical and mythical structure of thought — whether in its traditional form in the deep layers of society or in its ideological form in some modern schools — is not subjected to epistemological critique, we will remain merely consumers of modern vocabulary; words that, in pre-modern minds, acquire a magical, emotional, and totemic function.
Familiarity with Lévy-Bruhl, Cassirer, and their reinterpretation in the works of Moghaddam is, in truth, access to a cognitive tool — a tool for unraveling the hidden knots of our own mentality and that of our society, so that we may more precisely identify the root causes of many of our epistemological, cultural, and political afflictions.
Jamshid Mehrpour
Kabul
