Nation-states fabricate founding myths to legitimate class rule

Evidence

It is by now generally understood that the formation of nation-states and political reigns precipitate the development of founding myths—myths of origin, in the language of anthropologists. Though the process may have been obscured by time in more distant eras, the emergences of the bourgeoisies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made it explicit. Their use of print and press, their appeals to and seductions of the classes they wished to dominate, made the fabrication of national myths quite evident. These myths were to be recognized in the official instruments of class hegemony: national creeds, social ideologies, philosophical tenets, constitutions, and the like, their function was to legitimate the social orders that had come into being. These myths made the new order a necessary one, an inevitable and benevolent event. They indicated to the national populace that the strains of historical novelty, the insecurities and anxieties accompanying the break with established forms were temporary, that change was natural, organic, and right. Founding myths were substituted for history, providing the appearance of historical narrative to what was in actuality part fact and part class-serving rationales. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 872

Categorization

• XREF: This connects to the Frankfurt School material on ideology critique and the fabrication of legitimating social narratives. — connects to: Patriarchal societies deploy myths deliberately to impose their laws — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 666; National unity is a falsehood masking class division within states — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 339; Invented sacred territorial traditions serve elites while ruining the nation — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1568 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Defines ‘founding myths’ and their function in legitimating new bourgeois social orders.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 872