Mythologies & Conspiracies: The Work of Roland Barthes - Part One

Myth and Mythology

Conspiracy theories have come to play a central role in political discourse in recent years, driving decisive sociopolitical shifts over everything from elections, to vaccines, and even genocides. The QAnon movement, a conspiratorial meta-theory that connects varying conspiracies together, has become intimately tied up with the Trump presidency; from its messianic portrayal of Trump, to the many cabinet appointees that ascribe to its philosophies. These theories, whether factual or not, are far more than the term ‘theory’ suggests; these are entire belief-systems, ideologies, and mythologies.  

This paper (divided into separate parts for ease of reading) takes a look at the works of Roland Barthes, who rigorously analyzed the development of such mythologies and mythic meaning in society; with a focus on the semiotics of mythologies (semiotics = the study of sign systems; see article on Saussure). Barthes’ works give us a starting point to consider the development of conspiracy theories into entire belief systems.  Roland Gerard Barthes was a French intellectual and Post Structuralist thinker who focused on the science of signs and signification as they related to ideological and mythological phenomena. His works continued the structuralist traditions of Ferdinand De Saussure (who influenced a new paradigm in the study of language and communication.

Barthes focused on the confluence between linguistic signs and ideological phenomena.  According to Barthes, signs were capable of going beyond denotation - where a particular signifier, like the word ‘table’, denotes a particular signified, like the object table - and were able to connote signifiers of additional meaning. For example, the word snake can denote the creature, but the word snake can also be used to describe someone who is treacherous and untrustworthy.  

In this instance, the sign (‘snake’) is connoting a greater meaning. For Barthes, this is the level of myth. Myth in this context does not mean to suggest anything false or superstitious; but rather a realm of cultural and ideological meanings associated with that particular linguistic and semiotic system.  

The first level is the level of language; the second level is the level of myth. If the original signifier is the word ‘snake’ (1), then the original signified is the creature the word represents (2); collectively, these two (1+2) form the sign (3) of a snake, which in the mythological sense, becomes a second-order signifier now representing the signified mythological qualities (treacherous, deceptive, poisonous) associated with snakes and serpents.  

Barthes identified that such signs could be ‘read’ in varying different modes and forms; their presence could be identified in speech, text, videos, images, stories, consumer goods, and even professional wrestling. These forms could be understood as one would understand and interpret language; however, while language is composed of linguistic signs used in speech or text, these forms are composed of signs in images, patterns, objects, gestures, movements and more. 

This has become an increasingly critical exercise in today’s digital media age, where images and memes have completely saturated and overwhelmed the public sphere; complete with deepfakes and generative AI developing entirely artificial images. 

In The Rhetoric of the Image, Barthes commented on the shift from traditional marketing to the new forms of advertising being harnessed following the development of the public relations industry. While attending the first World Detergent Congress in Paris, he notes that products like detergents, which are a blend of various chemicals that would ordinarily be considered potentially hazardous, were marketed with mythic language like “deep cleaning” and “luxurious” implying a level of meaning that constructs the product with qualities distinctly separate from the denoted meaning signified by the signs of the chemicals used to make the product.  

To say that Omo cleans in depth is to assume that linen is deep, which no one had previously thought, and this unquestionably results in exalting it, by establishing it as an object favourable to those obscure tendencies to enfold and caress which are found in every human body. (Barthes, 1972)

In ‘The New Citroen’, Barthes comments on how the latest motor-vehicles have come to signify “superlative” objects of “a world above that of nature”. These mythic signs are image-based; in that they signify particular imagery – images of power, of luxury, of relaxation, of status. This mythic content overrides the denoted content signified through the products blend of chemicals. The myth becomes the message; and becomes the focus of the branding and advertising. 

In ‘The World of Professional Wrestling’ Barthes describes the wrestlers as actors on a stage playing out a drama wherein their actions constitute signs; signifying heroism, villainy, failure or triumph. The villain is not only villainous in the story portrayed, but in the actions performed, the attire worn, the nature of movements and more – these all constitute signs that the audience is capable of interpreting. Thus the audience is complicit and engaged in the constructions the wrestlers portray – they are capable of interpreting these signs as users of a language would be able to interpret linguistic signs; the members of this particular cultural group (professional wrestling fans) are able to interpret these actions as signs and understand their meaning.    

Each sign in wrestling is therefore endowed with an absolute clarity, since one must always understand everything on the spot. As soon as the adversaries are in the ring, the public is overwhelmed with the obviousness of the roles. (Barthes, 1972) 

In his later writings, Barthes would assert that unlike wrestling, most mythologies are difficult to clarify; and the belief that all mythologies could be clarified to uncover a secret hidden order was itself another mythology. Barthes initial intention to reveal the mythic and ideological structures behind the use of signs in society reflects a very Marxist zeal (Marx was of significant influence to Barthes’ earlier works) to reveal the way myth is used to veil ideology in the hope of liberating the audience through the semiotic analysis of myth.  

Myth functioned to distort history and present it within a particular ideological framework that benefited some, while it detrimentally affected others. Barthes was concerned with de-mythology; the deconstruction of cultural mythologies to revealing the ideological motivations behind them thus liberating the audience. 

In another famous piece, he critiques a French political poster which presents a mythology of France for French audiences free from the stains of its imperialist colonial nature. The poster depicted an African child from the French colonies saluting in a demonstration of patriotism and loyalty; this mythology was a far cry from the reality of African children suffering under French imperiality.

Barthes reads both a ‘literal’ level and a mythic level to this image. The literal level is the African child in French military-attire saluting. At the mythic level, we see a child of African origin faithfully representing France, an empire with colonies in Africa; the child is saluting – a gesture of patriotic zeal and loyalty to France, the so-called oppressors of his people, detracting from the narratives of cruelty of European colonialism in Africa. The image, addressed to the French magazine-reading audience, would have them believe that there is no antagonism between France and its African colonies – ranging from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Niger, Algeria and the Ivory Coast to name only a few.  

In the 1950’s, when Mythologies was published (1957), Algeria – one of the French colonies – was in the midst of the Algerian War for Independence which ended with the country’s eventual liberation in 1962. The war lasted from 1954 to 1962, and featured severe human rights violations, namely routine torture by the French colonial powers; French historian Pierre Vidal Naquet claimed that over ten thousand cases of torture was administered to the Algerian population.  

As of 2021, French military personnel in Africa represent the largest foreign military presence on the continent, a byproduct of the ‘France-Afrique’ cultural mythology – one in which France and Africa maintain relations based on mutual benefit. On a literal level (langue), the term ‘France-Afrique’ is a combination of France and Afrique (‘Africa’ in French), both signs of the First-Order; but a mythic reading would suggest close ties and an interpendent association between France and Africa.

This ironically resembles the analytical exercise performed by Barthes, commenting on the depiction of the saluting African child masking the ongiong oppression between France and its colonies. This term itself would become parodied with the term ‘Françafrique’ – a pun, as it sounds like "France à fric"; fric is French slang for ‘cash’, implying that rather than being a system of mutual benefit, these colonies were continued sources of wealth for France, even in the post-colonial world. 

For Barthes, myth impoverished the original meaning of a sign and imposes its own new meaning in its place. Robbed of its meaning, the now-vacant sign clings to life as new meaning is inserted into it.

One believes that the meaning is going to die, but it is a death with reprieve; the meaning loses its value, but keeps its life, from which the form of the myth will draw its nourishment. 

(Barthes, 1972)  

Furthermore, unlike the connection between signifier and signified at the level of langue, which Saussure identified as arbitrary; mythic signifieds are not arbitrary, but are rather determined through cultural practice and the formation and dissemination of ideological messages. According to Barthes, myth is both historical and purposive; it draws from history and communicates a particular interpretation of history often formed through particular ideological and cultural values. The image of the saluting child is driven and motivated by the concept of ‘French Imperiality’, as Barthes puts it, which is connected to France’s history and its history of colonialism, but motivated by a particular representation of that history. Myth then seeks to appropriate history; reshaping it through a particular ideological lens.    

In this sense, we can say that the fundamental character of the mythical concept is to be appropriated…French imperiality must appeal to such and such group of readers and not another. 

(Barthes, 1972)

Barthes further adds that these concepts can have broad range of signifiers – the scope of the form is richer than the scope of the concept. However, the concept is rich qualitatively; it is open to the reach of history to appropriate and build representations with. That is to say that the range of forms that can signify the concept of French Imperiality to us is broad; images, stories, texts, and terms like ‘Françafrique’. However, the concept of French Imperiality is rich in depth and history.  

Similarly, QAnon’s meta-mythology has an incredibly broad range of forms (mythic signifiers), from terms like adrenochrome, to phrases like ‘save the children’, ‘the storm is coming’, or ‘where we go one we go all’. This broad range of forms signifies concepts with astounding depth. 

For example, adrenochrome not only signifies a concept about the kidnapping of children in order to extract adrenochrome from their blood; but also signifies a long history of such beliefs going back to the Blood Libel of the Middle Ages. It signifies concepts of ‘elite’ members of the ruling class who are responsible for these unthinkable crimes; this concept of complicit elites also has depth, connecting with theories like the White Genocide, Eurabia, and the Great Replacement. Each of these identify ‘Jewish elites’, ‘Replacement elites’, and European and Arabian elites as complicit in a conspiracy against the people (ironically, Renaud Camus, the architect of the Great Replacement Theory, was a colleague of Barthes).  

This myth-building enterprise is so powerful at robbing the initial sign of its meaning that the ‘save the children’ hashtag of QAnon actually disrupted anti-child trafficking operations conducted by the Save The Children foundation in the UK which became inundated with calls and tips from QAnon adherents. 

This repetition of the concept through different forms is precious to the mythologist, it allows him to decipher the myth: it is the insistence of a kind of behaviour which reveals its intention. (Barthes, 1972)

In language, the ratio between signifier and signified is proportionate; conversely, in myth, the concept can be hailed by a broad range of forms. 

For instance, a whole book may be the signifier of a single concept; and conversely, a minute form (a word, a gesture, even incidental, so long as it is noticed) can serve as signifier to a concept filled with a very rich history. (Barthes, 1972)

In this act of appropriation, myth intends to construct the history it signifies as part of the natural order. It is not meant to hide anything but instead meant to represent a particular construction, whether distorted or manipulated; it does not conceal or make disappear. Thus, myth-making is a central element in the dissemination of cultural ideology; with the intention and motivation to present these ideologies and natural and eternal. The mythic signifier, the form, has a natural sensible connection to the mythic signified, the concept. The audience of myth is meant to be guided towards a particular and intentional construction.  

We reach here the very principle of myth: it transforms history into nature.

(Barthes, 1972) 

For the audience ignorant of the atrocities committed as acts of Empire over their colonies, the image of the saluting boy is read in a particular way: of loyalty and military-commitment to France from across its Empire, a concept that presents a particular construction of France’s imperial history. However for the audience equipped with that particular historical knowledge, the illusion is shattered as the motivation behind the image is revealed, discrediting its attempts to appear as parts of the natural order. 

But for the myth-reader, the outcome is quite different: everything happens as if the picture naturally conjured up the concept, as if the signifier gave a foundation to the signified: the myth exists from the precise moment when French imperiality achieves the natural state: myth is speech justified in excess. (Barthes, 1972)

Thus, according to Barthes, myth is not history; instead, myth appropriates and distorts history. It engages with particular historical facts which it uses to construct a particular mythology. It robs the initial signs of their meaning; and inserts its own meaning in its place. This new mythic meaning then comes to dominate and subjugate the sign. We can see this within conspiratorial mythologies from QAnon to the Great Replacement Theory which appropriate particular histories which have relevance for particular audiences and communities. These conspiracies construct mythologies out of those narratives, designed for the semiotic systems of those audiences and communities.  

For example, the discourse of Muslim terrorism within American media constructs historical events like 911 into a mythology that is completely divorced from US activity in the Middle East prior to 911 (like the mythology of French imperiality that Barthes critiqued). This mythology, and the terms like ‘terrorist’ or ‘Muslim’ which signify it, represent a threat to US democracy wielded by radicals who are incompatible with Western values. Furthermore, the confluence of mythologies sharing meaning strengthen and support each other; the mythology of Muslim terrorists supports the anti-immigrant mythology of the Great Replacement. The crusades has become another mythologized historical era which has been appropriated by the Great Replacement, Eurabia, and similar anti-Muslim mythologies. 

Magazines used by Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch killer. Written are the names of other killers, and historical incidents, as well as "for Rotherham", the city in which the grooming gangs scandal occurred, featuring British Pakistani men.

The Christchurch killer (and other white nationalist shooters like him) represents such a union of conspiratorial confluences. His manifesto was loaded with memes and references containing mythic content. His weaponry was painted and emblazoned with names and symbols, each representing mythologies and mythological appropriations of history – from the name of Charles Martell, who fought off the Muslims in the 8th century, ending their spread through Europe; to the name of the UK town Rotherham, where the Muslim ‘grooming gangs’ scandal occurred.

Tarrant's gun, similarly emblazoned with names and historical incidents. Reflecting the role of these histories in the development of their extremist mythology. Image credit: TRT World

The Buffalo shooter also similarly emblazoned his weaponry, which included references to the aforementioned Tarrant (the Christchurch killer) who had become a mythologized hero amongst these far-right extremists; as well as references to the Black Lives Matter movement, and other racialized historical elements - like "buck breaker", which referenced the sodomizing of black male slaves by their white masters.

image credit: r/masskillers

image credit: r/masskillers

Today’s political landscape is marred by the culture war of clashing mythologies. The United States’ actions against TikTok and South Africa were retaliatory attacks owing to the threat they represented to the mythology of Israel and Palestine being perpetuated in the West. TikTok’s content on Palestine disrupted the constructed myth of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East, surrounded by nations of terrorists. South Africa’s charges against Israel represent a further exchange in this clash of mythologies. 

Furthermore, Donald Trump’s actions against South Africa, to the deportations of immigrants, and the actions against DEI initiatives across the US, collectively signal a white nationalist mythology. This mythology is collectively sustained by its own mythic appropriations of facts and history; from the threat of Muslim immigration which draws on the discourse and mythology of the Muslim terrorist; to the alleged erasure of the white race, which draws on the conspiratorial discourses of Eurabia and the Great Replacement Theory; to the alleged white genocide in South Africa, which represents the realization of these previous mythologies and conspiracies – where the white population has become the minority, and is vulnerable to acts of savagery and genocide. 

Once again, like Barthes’ critique of the mythology of French patriotism clashing with the reality of French imperiality; the mythology of white genocide clashes with the reality of the genocide of brown-skinned Muslims in Palestine – conducted by white European members of the IDF and funded by the United States. These mythologies are so loaded with mythic signification that they guide the audience’s interpretation of these phenomena. Barthes’ piece on wrestling demonstrates the use of hyperbolic signs in guiding the audience to particular and obvious interpretations of the scene being constructed. Today, complex discourse is reduced to viral hashtags, saturated with signification capable of inspiring passions strong enough to incite violence, influence politics and foster cultures of radicalism. These discourses are similar in nature to the hyperbolic semiotics of professional wrestling, with exaggeratedly villainous villains and Biblical-like heroes.  

References

Barthes, R. 1972. Mythologies: The Complete Edition in a New Translation. Translated by Lavers, A. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (Original work published in 1957) 

Barthes, R. 1977. Image, Music, Text. Translated from French by Heath, S. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.