Mythic discourse shaped action possibilities rather than simply misrepresenting reality

Evidence

So the question of whether people did or did not believe in these ancient narratives—whether (as Fontenelle suggested) by appealing to the imagination untruths were made attractive—does not quite engage with the terrain that mythic discourse inhabited in this culture. Myth was not merely a (mis)representation of the real. It was material for shaping the possibilities and limits of action. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 127

Categorization

• DEFINE: Recasts ‘myth’ from false belief into an action-shaping discourse — a conceptual reframing worth keeping.
• XREF: connects to: Political myths mobilize action through images while utopias only mislead. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2076