Secular liberal states depend on political origin myths for their virtues

Evidence

I began this chapter with the view of radical anthropologists who criticize the modern liberal state for pretending to be secular and rational when in fact it was heavily invested in myth and violence. I then proceeded to problematize the secular as a category by investigating its transformations. I now conclude with a contemporary liberal political theorist who argues that a secular, liberal state depends crucially for its public virtues (equality, tolerance, liberty) on political myth—that is, on origin narratives that provide a foundation for its political values and a coherent framework for its public and private morality. This brings us back to secularism as a political doctrine, and its connections with “the sacred” and “the profane.” — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 279

Categorization

• XREF: Canovan’s claim that liberal public virtues rest on mythic origin narratives directly complicates the vaulted Cooper thread: secular modernity’s putatively neutral values are sustained by unacknowledged founding stories, not by reason overcoming religion.
• SEED: Possible essay angle: ‘Political myths as the secular state’s hidden theology’ — how origin narratives function structurally like the religious grounding secularism claims to have displaced.