A Nation Is A Social Concept With No Uncontroversial Definition

I’m currently enrolled in African American history. I’ve noticed there aren’t any people outside of the African American race in the class. The teacher has noticed out of all 9 years he’s been teaching the class, he’s had maybe 8 people that weren’t African American. I feel there is no imagined community within this learning space. In Pratt’s essay she tells how Benedict Anderson refers to an imagined community. Anderson’s idea of an imagined community is “communities exist as imagined entities in which people will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each other lives the image of their communication”(327). All classes are expected to be diverse and full of divergence. But yet, we’re all in some way in which most think is by race, already in deep relation. The absence of nonconformity leaves a toll on the class, whereas we are interested in how people from different races feel

Summary: In this article Walzer discusses what it means to be American and how that differs from other national identities. In most countries, identity is tied to the land and ethnicity. In America however, is different because the ethnicities within this country are diverse. Ethnicity is not tied to American national identity because of this. The national identity of “American” is constructed in a sense, and tied to the territory. Even the Sons and Daughters of the revolution, who were English, had to break away from their ethnic ties. The oligarchy and power system in England is what they fought against. The English Americans had to break away from this and those who refused to had to move. Loyalists were treated harshly for their beliefs regardless of their ethnicity.

Human beings naturally are social creatures. In order to survive, humans have since been working together. People rely to each other in order to remain alive, whether it be with finding food, building houses, or with finding jobs. There is one famous quote by John Donne that says “No man is an island”. Humans have this need to belong in a group. This need for co-existing is what lead people into forming nations. Nations are groups of people who have a very strong bond of identity; may it be with having the same ethnicity or with having the same interests. One known description of a nation is Benedict Anderson’s (1983) conception of nations as imagined communities. They are 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” (Anderson, 1983, p. 15). By belonging in a certain nation or growing up in a certain environment, one develops their own national identity. There are a lot of factors as to how you can identify to a certain nation. Certain factors would be your language, ethnicity, culture, relationship to your land, your religion, spirituality, views with politics, or your land’s geography. As social beings, having a group you identify with has a very great effect on you. However, there also are

In his book, Citizens and Nation, Gerald Friesen first mentions the concept of “imagined communities” as he states, “Space had been restructured because the communication media had eliminated so many of the inherited constraints of physical existence” (Friesen 177). Thus, for Friesen, an imagined community is constructed as communication technologies connect individuals across geographical boundaries, therefore releasing the limitations of space. While Friesen’s definition implies that a technological intermediary is needed for the formation of imagined relations, his work, Citizens and Nation works to prove that communities that are based on something other than face-to-face communication, can, without technology, also be considered imagined”. Moreover, using, Oral-Traditional and Screen-Capitalist societies, two distinct time space-configurations, this essay will demonstrate how throughout history, the concept of “Imagined Communities” differed in its effect and prevalence in Canadian life.

The debate between how society is formed and how it should be formed has always been a point of contention among people. When a society is formed, there is a constant struggle between the proletariat, the working class population, and the bourgeoisie, the upper class of society with significant capital. One of the better known ideologies is Marxism, which explains how a nation should form itself to develop a communist society. Karl Marx illustrates his ideas of Marxism in The Communist Manifesto. A point of controversy within the Communist Manifesto addresses how nationalism does not help form the communist state but rather rhetorically seeks to deny the sense of nationality. The writings of Benedict Anderson are about how the nation state manifests itself through the spread of nationalism in his book, Imagined Communities. In Anderson’s book, nationalism helps create a community and a sense of unique identity for the population within that community. Marxism shares a common ground with Anderson’s imagined political community, despite denying the existence of nationalism within the emergence of communist communities.

a union of people of different cultures. We have problems, but regardless of everything else, we are still one nation, a combined group of people with different beliefs. In the article, "Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism", Martha C. Nussbaum states, “emphasis on patriotic pride is both morally dangerous and, ultimately, subversive of some of the worthy goals patriotism sets out to serve.” Nussbaum agrees with Rabindranath Tagores novel, "The Home and the World,” being patriotic can be dangerous and even may go against the goals of patriotism of national unity and moral ideals. A lot of countries like the United States are very patriotic and it may interfere with the relationship they have with the rest of the world. Americans that are having a hard time with the diverse cultures that surrounds them should lean more towards a cosmopolitan ideal whose devotion is on as association of human beings in the whole world.

“Individual” and “community” are two words whose meanings contrast each other. An individual is one who is not reliant on others and exists as its own entity. A community however, is a group of individuals, whose efforts are combined and improved with help from others, therefore becoming reliant on each other. Both Rebekah Nathan and Kwame Anthony Appiah speak a great deal on what makes or breaks a community, what brings individuals together and what separates them. I argue that communities are successful when individuals are made to feel like their identity is maintained, and their voice carries weight.

The world appears to be wrapped in a web of diplomatic deception and intrigue. Communities are developed to uncloak the clutter of empty phrases. A community is a social unit of any size that shares common values. In every community, there are conditions present that affect the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. Communities are a major determinant of an individual’s attitude, characters and interpersonal relationships. This paper seeks to discuss my community which is Rosslyn community, my role in the community and the challenges and benefits of belonging

Community will only exist when relationships exist based off the concept of shared fate. The following phase, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” is the unselfish act of sharing, looking out for each other children

Speaking of the nation, state and government function are completely different from a nation or country. Bourne believes that “nation” or “country” is the collection of many unique components that purpell American life in a forward and positive motion. Some of these components are characteristics, religious beliefs, attitudes, literature, a common background,

The communities in which we are a part of, are not merely the one within our immediate surroundings, but rather an association of the factors that are common to a group of individuals. There is a variation in the communities in which I am a part of. Some of these communities include a school community, a church community, a recreation community, a tourist community and a homeless community.

A nation is a group of people who share common history, culture, language and ethnic origin often possessing or seeking its own government. National identity refers to the distinguish features of group and to the individual’ sense of belonging to it. In some case even a little difference in pronunciation is enough to categorize a person as a member of different nation but in some cases two people may be separated by language, culture, geographical location etc categorized in

This approach has been met with several criticisms. Firstly, according to Gellner the definition used is too wide (Gellner, 1983: 53). By adopting the above criteria, any social network with the same cultural norms and values are entitled to call themselves as a nation. This would include clubs or any other associations. Another problem encountered by this definition is the impossibility of limiting cultural boundaries. In addition to that Herder's claim of the unification of the people through a common language could be dismissed as most nations have several national languages due to its multicultural population. Switzerland, for example, has three

According to Rourke (2008) the most important way people have identified themselves politically for five centuries is through nationalism (p. 102). Nations are formed when people who “share demographic and cultural similarities [who identify themselves] as a group distinct from other groups and want to control themselves politically” (p. 103) band together in a national political identity which has “a soul, a spiritual quality” (Rourke, 2008, p. 103). Feelings of nationalism can be very intense and difficult to put aside because of this. For the concept of globalization to continue to spread and grow nationalistic feelings must be tempered with cosmopolitan ideals.

A national character is defined as an expression that gives a description of all forms of collective self-perception, conduct as well as collective self-perception that are shared by the various individuals inhabiting a modern nation-state1. It demonstrates the issues of psychosocial and cultural homogeneity with the citizens of each nation