The Myth of Alignment

摘要

Colloquially, myth denotes a widely held belief that is fictional or erroneous. Its anthropological usage, however, does not carry the same pejorative charge: myths are simply conceptual schemata, embodying core metaphysical concepts and moral wisdom. It is in this latter sense that I dub alignment as a myth; not to question its factuality (a nonsensical property in the case of a belief) but to highlight and interrogate the cultural work that it does (Stillman, 1985). Barthes (1973) defines myth as a type of speech, a “second order semiological system” of signs drawn from the medium of language in which their original meanings are modified to suit the myth-building role. Any elementary linguistic object (the definition is broad, encompassing visual imagery as well as language) can be symbolically coopted as raw material by the mythical system. Barthes uses a cover page of Paris Match depicting a French negro soldier saluting the tricolour as an exemplar. Beyond the naive meaning, the second-order mythical signification is easily read: “France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag...” (Barthes 1973, p. 116). Other symbols conveying the same underlying idea may readily be imagined. Through a matrix of such varied forms, the myth of French colonialism as a beneficent force is constituted.