"Mythologies" by Roland Barthes (1957)

Science is a belief informed by evidence; ideology is a belief in spite of evidence; myth is a belief in the absence of evidence. Culture is a system of malleable beliefs; civilization is a system of all beliefs, malleable or not. Thus, for instance, the primitive fear of height is not a part of culture, whereas the belief that this fear can be overcome is. Roland Barthes explores myths.

Whatever M. Barthes aims to achieve with the abstract discourse at the end of the volume either fails or poses the questions that do not merit answers. Confused, but grammatically correct, the discourse is uninformative. Nearly by accident, however, the author describes the myth well by observing that "Mythical speech is made of a material which has already been worked on so as to make it suitable for communication." (The emphasis is in the original.) Indeed, the beliefs forming a myth must be infectious, and therefore altered in order to be suited for easy transmission across individuals.

M. Barthes is at his best when he is least didactic, merely a reporter. In his essay "Operation Margarine," he alerts the reader to the perils of every-day marketing: "A little 'confessed' evil saves one from acknowledging a lot of hidden evil." In "The Iconography of the Abbe Pierre," he warns that looking at the images of saints can crowd out, rather than inspire, charitable acts. The crowding-out occurs either subconsciously, when the charitable feeling is enjoyed without committing any charity (a sensation analogous to viewing pornography), or through misinformation, when the prevalence of charitable images is mistaken for the prevalence of justice in the world. In "Toys," the author points out that the children's toys that are replicas of the objects used by adults encourage a child to accept the world as it is, thereby nurturing a consumer, not a producer.

The petite bourgeoisie, whom M. Barthes both criticises and pities, are portrayed as a class who measure their worth in the consumption of objects, are vulnerable to the manipulation by the advertising industry (commercial and political), and are keen to emulate the outward symptoms of the others' perceived happiness.