LTEA 142 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Sui Generis, Neurosis, Imagined Communities
Final Readings: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict
Anderson
● Concepts and definitions
○ Nation:
■ Theorists of nationalism:
● The ojetie oderit of atios to the historias ee s. their
subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists
● The formal universality of nationality as a sociocultural concept - in the
oder orld eeroe a, should, ill hae a atioalist, as he or
she has a geder - vs. the irremediable particularity of its concrete
aifestatios, suh that, defiitio, Greek atioalit is sui geeris
● The politial poer of atioaliss s. their philosophial poert ad
even incoherence.
○ In other words, unlike most other isms, nationalism has never produced its own grand
thinkers
■ This eptiess easil gies rise to a ertai odesesio
○ Nationalism: the pathology of modern developmental history, as inescapable as
eurosis i the idiidual, with much the same essential ambiguity attaching to it, a
similar built-in capacity for descent into dementia, rooted in the dilemmas of
helplessness thrust upon most of the world (the equivalent of infantilism for societies
and large incurable)
○ Author proposes definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community - and
imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign
○ It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of
their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives
the image of their communion
○ Gellner: nationalism is not the awakening of nations of self-consciousness: it invents
nations where they do not exist
■ Gellner is anxious to show that nationalism masquerades under false pretences
that he assiilates ietio to fariatio ad falsit, rather tha to
iagiig ad reatio.
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Document Summary
Final readings: imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, benedict. The o(cid:271)je(cid:272)ti(cid:448)e (cid:373)oder(cid:374)it(cid:455) of (cid:374)atio(cid:374)s to the historia(cid:374)(cid:859)s e(cid:455)e (cid:448)s. their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists. The (cid:858)politi(cid:272)al(cid:859) po(cid:449)er of (cid:374)atio(cid:374)alis(cid:373)s (cid:448)s. their philosophi(cid:272)al po(cid:448)ert(cid:455) a(cid:374)d even incoherence. In other words, unlike most other isms, nationalism has never produced its own grand thinkers. This (cid:858)e(cid:373)pti(cid:374)ess(cid:859) easil(cid:455) gi(cid:448)es rise to a (cid:272)ertai(cid:374) (cid:272)o(cid:374)des(cid:272)e(cid:374)sio(cid:374) Author proposes definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. Gellner: nationalism is not the awakening of nations of self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist.
