Old and New Gods : the Myths of Modernity in Pareto's Treatise

Abstract

This essay examines Pareto’s critique of the modern utopia of a completely rationalized social life, showing how the process of secularization and desacralization of collective life has occurred through myths, beliefs and ideologies rooted in the same profound forces (residues) that nourished the religions and numerous cults of the classical ancient times for centuries. Pareto claimed that if it’s true that no society can exist without morality and religion, it’s also true that not all expressions of morality and religiosity produce the same beneficial social effects. Modernity’s ideologies, in their apparent rational superiority, were as a matter of fact despotic, arbitrary and not always useful to collectivity. It’s considering these themes that Pareto’s legacy deserves to be examined in depths and reevaluated.