Capitalism’s rupture with older social forms makes their myths undecipherable to us

Evidence

I have suggested elsewhere that ideology leaves its mark on myth criticism insofar as the latter proposes an unbroken continuity between the social relations and narrative forms of primitive society and the cultural objects of our own. For Marxism, on the contrary, it is the radical break between the two social formations which must be stressed, if we are to begin to grasp the degree to which capitalism has effectively dissolved all the older forms of collective relations, leaving their cultural expressions and their myths as incomprehensible to us as so many dead languages or undecipherable codices. — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1674

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts Frye’s continuity thesis against the reader’s own frameworks of historical rupture — echoes the radical-break logic in sacrifice theories and social-formation change. — connects to: Capitalism failed to strip social life of historical consciousness embedded in culture; Capitalism emerged from feudalism, not as its negation — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 18; Postindustrial capitalism severs the continuity with the past that genetic criticism relied on — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 24 (+7 more)
• SEED: The ‘dead languages or undecipherable codices’ image is a strong opening figure for an essay on why pre-capitalist cultural forms resist modern interpretation.

Broader Connections

• Capitalism failed to strip social life of historical consciousness embedded in culture #complicates (0.80)
• Capitalism emerged from feudalism, not as its negation #corroborates (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 18