Reimagined Communities

Last week in class we discussed how the United States’ self-identity may be more fluid and dynamic than we originally thought. The way in which we think of our nation reflects our conscious or even subconscious imaging of groups of people and places. In other words, moral geographies essentially shape our country’s borders.

This imagining is not limited solely to one person, but everybody seems to be entitled with the responsibility of devising some perception of nationhood and nationality. T.J. Jackson Lears would argue along with Antonio Gramsci that the United States constitutes a cultural hegemony – the idea that the citizens are “human creators of culture”, and by this culture that we all voluntarily offer up our consent to this image of our nation.

Benedict Anderson would also emphasize the way in which a nation is not some geographical place with borders set in stone. He argues, “…nation-ness, as well as nationalism, are cultural artifacts of a particular kind,” (4). In this sense, our nation is a true democracy in the fact that we all participate in brewing up some conception of America and contribute this conception as our token of solidarity, a sign of our consent, to the nation at large. “The idea that less powerful folk may be unwitting accomplices in the maintenance of existing inequalities runs counter to…the autonomy and vitality of subordinate cultures,” (573) explains Lears. Therefore, this hegemony in which the elite have power over subgroups is a result of everyone’s consenting imagining of American culture. In other words, this idea of a nation is unique because “the line between dominant and subordinate cultures is a permeable membrane, not an impenetrable barrier,” (574).

So, really, we have no one to blame but ourselves. And people do blame themselves. Lears continues to explain, “…working-class people tend to embrace dominant values as abstract propositions but often grow skeptical as the values are applied to everyday lives,” (577). Sure, everyone has an equal go at success in America, so the failure of millions to achieve this widely-accepted value must imply something of the individual and not of the nation – so they we think.
How remarkable that Americans willingly accept responsibility for faults that are not their own. Yet if these Americans were to pick up on the façade and cast blame where it is due then the foundations for their conceptualized country would come tumbling down.

In this sense, the consent that Gramsci describes is perhaps more stagnant and not as fluid and dynamic as he imagined. If citizens are so afraid to re-conceptualize their community that they willingly live in denial of those virtues supposedly promised them by their nation then that consent is so entirely self-voluntary that it is almost blinding. This consent hinders these community members from achieving their full potential, and, in which case, this consent acts more like a self-applied ball and chain. And there certainly is nothing dynamic about shackles.

Anderson makes many insightful points about his conception and research as it pertains to nationalism. For instance I found it interesting when Anderson wrote, “Every successful revolution has defined itself in national terms” (pg. 2). Evidently the sentiment associated with a national identity seem to be successful in superceding a citizen or subject’s loyalty to its government by appealing to one’s sense of shared identity in an imagined community. I think this is an excellent example of a movement exploiting the often romanticized concept of nationalism and a shared identity. One perhaps can easily be manipulated into admitting they love their country but don’t trust their government.

Further more, Anderson proposes a definition of a nation, calling it “an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” The interesting part of this that has perhaps not been represented elsewhere is that it is a political community, one that engages in a unified political process of decision making or representing common views. This doesn’t seem to mesh with his later emphasis on cultural roots; roots which I think seem to be more convincing as shared identities. Even though it makes sense that those who share a common cultural identity to join in one political community, I don’t think this is actually true. First of all, if this is true, most nations don’t have the ability to articulate their political needs within the broader scale of the political state. Local governments may be able to represent some communities or nations, but many groups do not have a share in a political process in a small nation that has distinguished itself from society. Even within America, there could be many nations within our country, or sub-nations, depending on how you look at it. I don’t think we can really be called one nation, certainly not since our inception. History, for example the civil war, seems to indicate that there are many nations in America from Native Americans to Jewish communities to Christian communes and monasteries, there is no end to the diverse communities, and I would argue nations, within America. So I don’t know if I agree that a nation is an imagined political community, I think of it more as an imagined cultural or spiritual community.

Finally, I wasn’t convinced by Anderson’s arguments about the decline of the “sacred languages” towards the development of nations. Under the assumption that a nation is inherently political, this makes some sense because there were larger empires then, yet there were so many more colloquial languages and traditions. As much as some tribes and communities had much in common with their neighbors, there were far more distinguishing traits that separated them from their neighbors, perhaps only a mile away, then you would be able to distinguish between neighboring towns in Maryland, such as Rockville and Bethesda. Our lives are far more conformed to national standards today than in the past, so I would argue that there are far fewer nations today than there were prior to 1800. Even under his definition as a political nation, this can hardly be true as tribes had their own governance and justice systems distinct from their neighbors.