Barthes’ Jet-Man
In Mythologies (1957), Roland Barthes included a short essay on the jet pilot as a new mythological figure. The essay is brief — barely three pages — and ruthless.
Barthes argues that the jet pilot has been emptied of the old heroism. Traditional pilots — the barnstormers, the aces of WWI, Lindbergh — were mythologized through effort, risk, physical endurance, the romance of mechanical struggle. The jet pilot has none of this. He is defined by speed that exceeds human sensation. He does not fight the air; he is simply delivered by it.
The jet-man is defined by his coenaesthesia, not by his courage… his gestures are reduced to an almost motionless pressure on the levers. — Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957)
A New Kind of Myth
Barthes was writing in the early jet age, but his analysis anticipates today’s drone pilots, autonomous aircraft, and perhaps even the contemporary figure of the tech worker, whose labor is invisible and whose power is total. The Jet-Man is the first step toward the pilot who doesn’t need to be present at all.