Political myth and the generation of ontological security: The case of UK responses to terrorism

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the relationship between political myth and ontological security through an existentialist lens. It argues that political myths are primarily about not truth but rather function. They generate ontological security by offering symbolic coherence in response to existential uncertainty. Political myths are defined as a process of continuous ‘work’ on a dramatic narrative designed to provide adherents with a sense of significance ( Bedeutsamkeit ). Myths serve as filtering mechanisms against the absolutism of reality – a state of extreme anxiety in which we are overwhelmed by a world indifferent to our existence – and produce ontological security through dramatic narratives that provide frameworks of significance. The article demonstrates that the work on myth operates continuously and generatively to maintain identity stability and intensifies in crisis to prevent physical insecurity from cascading into identity destabilisation. It outlines three main features: the cognitive provides interpretive lenses, the integrative reinforces collective identity, and the mobilising provides existential certainty to act. It demonstrates this through an analysis of political and media responses to terrorist attacks in the UK in 2017, highlighting how narratives about an apparent conflict with a ‘perverted’ form of Islam became mythologised, functioning as a potent generator of ontological security.