Myths revisited: myths production and morality

Abstract

This work casts an anthropological view over the field of morality in today’s society. I base myself on the Malinowskian conception, disagreeing with those theses that consider mythic production to belong only to “primitive” people. I state that today’s “moral” crisis -as defined by common sense- is a sign of a change in the whole social order, where morality has its own shaping role, which in no way is overdetermined by the real-material level.

To inquire about some of the meanings of this change, I examine three of Sophocles' tragedies: Oedipus of Thebes, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. My hypothesis states that the main “hard mythical knots” of our civilization are suffering an important transformation process, evident in the sociopolitical order.