A Critique of Benedict Andersons Imagine

8/17/2019 A Critique of Benedict Andersons Imagine

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This essay argues that Anderson’s

definition of the nation as a community

that is imagined, limited and sovereign,

while correctly identifying nations as

constructed, is insufficient. In fact,Anderson fails to give a definition at all, by

not explaining how the nation is distinct

from other ‘styles’ of community.

Consequently, his community could be

imagined in premodern times.

A critique of

Benedict

Anderson’s

“ImaginedCommunities”

Konstantin Sietzy


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Introduction

When Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities was published in 1983, it arrived right in the middle

of a large, and largely one-sided series of texts purporting modernist origins of nationalism. Neither

was Anderson the first to regard nationalism and nations as constructed, as he himself acknowledges

(Anderson, 2006: xii),1 nor is Imagined Communities still very present in contemporary modernist

writing on the subject, except as an obligatory cursory reference (cf. e.g. chapter one in Hutchinson

and Smith, 1994; Breuilly, 2006: xliv). Nevertheless, Anderson’s phrase of the imagined community

has remained resonant inside and even outside of the academic study of nationalism for over four

decades.

Thus it is more than surprising that upon careful consideration Anderson does not give an

operational definition of the nation at all. Anderson fails to define the nation as a discrete entity by

failing to describe how it is distinct from other ‘styles’ of community (Anderson’s term). In

consequence, imaging a community in Anderson’s sense is by no means possible only in modern times;

this can be illustrated by showing that his criteria apply without alteration to, for example, a medieval

city.

The Nation as an Imagined Community

Anderson’s classic definition of the nation as an imagined community is analytically convincing and

empirically observable: “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, 2006: 6). It is also minimalist. In fact, ‘imagined’ can be stretched to denote

the simple fact that the nation is a constructed idea, not (necessarily) rooted in empirically observable

qualities. Requiring the empirical-historical existence of such primordial qualities (as opposed to a

belief that they exist!) is largely discarded in contemporary literature on the subject. Two processes in

which the modern nation works as an imagined (in the sense of constructed) community relate to

collective forgetting: forgetting the very fact that the common past is invented, and forgetting that

nationalism itself exists, as a precondition for nationalist sentiments diffusing through every aspect of

society and culture.

Why would the nation not be imagined? As far back as Joseph Stalin, observers have pointed

out that “a common language is one of the characteristic features of a nation.” (Stalin, 1994: 19;

emphasis in the original). Van den Berghe (1994: 96-97) presents “a socio-biological perspective”

1 Steven T. Engel points out correctly that “the fundamental insight that nations were founded on imagination

was recognized by Rousseau 200 years before Anderson” (Engel, 2005: 537).


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when he proposes that “ethnic and race sentiments are to be understood as an extended and

attenuated form of kin selection.” Yet the empirical validity of such primordial attachments is largely

discounted by present-day scholars. Breuilly (2005: 32-33) claims that “ethnic myths or memories do

not matter. People have plenty of other ways to provide collective identity .” Furthermore, Eller and

Coughlan (1993) demonstrate that primordialists provide only unsatisfactory explanatory models.

The folly of primordial ties is illustrated vividly by the twentieth-century history of the

‘Germanic’ states of Central and Western Europe. The core countries containing linguistically German

populations, Austria, Switzerland, and the Federal Republic, have long developed into distinct

communities that are both limited and sovereign. Despite this, ethno-linguistic ties (in the passive

rather than active sense of the word) remain. Anyone claiming that Swiss-German is a distinct

language rather than a dialect (Blocher, 2013) has never travelled to the alemannisch region of

Southern Germany, comprising the strip of land between Rhine and Lake Constance, where a dialect

almost identical to that on the other side of the Swiss-German border is spoken2 (and on top of this

displays a distinct ignorance of the state-of-the-art of linguistics theory; cf. Glaser, 2013). As for

Austrian, the differences are still more insignificant. Ethnically, that the question of a renewed

Anschluss is not even part of Austrian public discourse is admirably demonstrated by the fact that a

sweeping web search reveals not a single public opinion poll on this topic since at least the 1990s

(converse to the above, Switzerland must not be mentioned here). 3

Given the recency of this development (in the Austrian case, historical consensus is that the

1938 Anschluss referendum, polling 99.73%, required no ex post manipulation by the authorities; cf.

Verein demokratische Bildung, 2003) it becomes clear that a central part of imagining is forgetting the

very fact that the nation’s different groups’ common past is invented, or in Billig’s terms: “the nation,

which celebrates its antiquity, forgets its historical recency” (Billig, 1995: 38). Secondly, but of at least

the same importance, is a nation’s ability to forget its inherent nationalism itself. Relegating

nationalism to the collective subconscious is a vital step on a nation’s path to maturity. Whereas in

conflicted nations, open nationalism is an important tool of promoting social cohesion for elites,4 in

established societies it is at most separatist, or extreme-right groups, that openly run on an explicitly

nationalist platform. Governmental leaders, on the contrary, master the art of habitually evoking

2 Interestingly, a major distinguishing character of the dialects is the common sporadic influence of French

through pronunciation and gallicisms.3 The mass exodus of ‘ethnic Germans’ from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary post-1945 provides no

objection to this argument, but rather illustrates the instrumental nature of identity with regards to

distinguishing between ‘us’ and ‘them’: prior to 1933 (and perhaps even 1939), these identities provided littlecause for friction.4 Cf. e.g. Gregorian (1967) on constructive nationalist discourse in the media in early 20th-century Afghanistan.


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nationalistic sympathies, “daily reproduction” of the nation-state, in such a way that “this reminding

is so familiar, so continual, that it is not consciously registered as reminding” (Billig, 1995: 6).To Billig,

“the metonymic image of banal nationalism is not a flag which is being consciously waved with fervent

passion; it is the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building” (Billig, 1995: 8).

The Nation as a Distinct Style of Community

Thus, in a sense, Anderson’s factor of the community being imagined is a necessary but, as indicated

above, not a sufficient condition for it to present a nation. He is emphatic in pointing out that

"communities are to be distinguished by … the style in which they are imagined” (Anderson, 2006: 6).

Yet he does not actually explain how the nation is different in ‘style’ from other communities.

Anderson posits the nation against the ‘dynastic realm’ as well as the ‘religious community’;

but this is a historical argument, displaying the origins of nations, rather than an analytical one. One

can imagine a variety of forms of governance unit other than the nation-state that satisfy Anderson’s

conditions of being a community imagined as both limited and sovereign (and indeed in the sense that

Anderson employs these terms; this criticism is not merely semantic!). One of these possible

alternatives is the medieval European city. 5

Premodern Imagined Communities – The Medieval City

European (and perhaps non-European) cities of the Middle Ages can be shown, at minimum in the

abstract (but compatible with a plethora of historical examples), to befit Anderson’s four criteria for

constituting a nation.

They were:

a.

imagined, because "in fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face

contact (and perhaps even those) are imagined," according to his own definition (Anderson,

2006: 6);

b. limited, because a medieval town, by definition, imagined itself as "coterminous with

mankind" (again, Anderson's definition of "limited") less than a nation;

c. sovereign, because it may equally "dream of being free"; in fact, multiple were (the Swiss

city states of Geneva or Basle, for example, or the German Hansestädte); and even if under

5 The choice of this particular time-period is arbitrary; any premodern example could work. Indeed, the

academic avoidance of the question of nationality among Ancient Greek city states is instructive. Gellner(2006: 14) is the only one to make even a cursory reference to Greek city states, only to dismiss them in a

single sentence.


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a federal system, it may be highly contentious to assign the status of the (most) relevant

"governance unit" to the federal government (cf. Hechter, 2000: 10);

d. a community, because the existence of "deep, horizontal comradeship" is dubious at the

least for modern nations themselves; under Anderson's qualification that it may exist

"regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each," (Anderson,

2006: 7) it is possible just as much in a township; and similarly because Anderson joins in

the standard academic conception6 of how this community is realised, namely, that

"millions of people … willingly … die for such limited imaginings" – which of course may also

be equally true for the medieval town (again, refer to the examples of the Swiss towns - e.g.

the Second Kappeler War of 1531, costing the lives of hundreds of citizens in defence of

their cities; cf. Meyer, 1977).

Thus, ‘imagining’ in Anderson’s sense is clearly possible in premodern times.

At the same time, without falling into the trap of equating the "nation" with "nation-state", it

can be safely claimed that the medieval city or village did not constitute a ‘nation’ in any conventional,

modern usage.7 Anderson himself would presumably instinctively deny this usage when asked; in fact,

he uses the two as distinct entities in multiple instances throughout the text (e.g. Anderson, 2006: 42).

ConclusionAnderson’s concept of the nation as imagined proves to be a necessary but insufficient component of

its profitable definitions. Nations are imagined because they construct a common identity bonding

together a number of individuals far larger than the practical benefits of grouping together warrant

(except, perhaps, in wartime). Primordial attachments are not a relevant criterion as empirical

examples show. Furthermore, a crucial component of such imagining is an implicit agreement to

forget, both the very constructedness of a nation’s collective history itself, and the artificiality of its

constant ‘flagging’.

Yet nations form only one of a multiplicity of possible ‘imagined communities’, even if one

remains close to all of Anderson’s own definitional criteria. As such, it is very possible to construct

such an imagined community in premodern times, and historical examples supporting this view

abound, for example amongst Europe’s medieval cities.

6 Cf. e.g. Billig (1995: 1).7 Gellner (1964: 152): "What are the political units for most of human history? Small tribal or village units; city

states; feudal segments loosely associated with each other or higher authority; dynastic empires; the loosemoral communities of a shared religion. How often do these political units coincide with those of 'nations', i.e.

linguistic and cultural boundaries? Seldom."


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Ultimately, Anderson makes a valuable contribution through enriching the academic

vocabulary by a catchy phrase (in a non-ironic way; this mere fact has helped to popularise Anderson’s

book and thus open up the academic study of nationalism one further bit beyond the ivory tower),

and through a certain extent through his novel ideas on print capitalism (Anderson, 2006: chapter 2).

Yet the disproportion between, when Anderson is cited in contemporary debates, the focus on these

two ideas and the almost complete ignorance of the remaining pages of Imagined Communities, gives

testimony to the extent to which his ideas have been assimilated into the mainstream of modernist

writing on the subject.


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BibliographyAnderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.

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Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994. 96-103.

Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1995.

Blocher, Silvia. “Unsere Sprache ist Schweizerdeutsch!” 2013. Silvia Blocher Website.

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Breuilly, John. “Dating the Nation: How Old Is an Nation?” Ichijo, Atsuko and Gordana Uzelac. When

Is the Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism. London: Routledge,

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Breuilly, John. “Introduction.” Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. xiii-

Iiii.

Eller, Jack D. and Reed M. Coughlan. “The Poverty of Primordialism: The Demystification of Ethnic

Attachments.” Ethnic and Racial Studies (1993): 181-202.

Engel, Steven T. “Rousseau and Imagined Communities.” The Review of Politics (2005): 515-537.

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Afghanistan.” Middle East Journal (1967): 345 -368.

Hechter, Michael. Containing Nationalism. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.

Meyer, Helmut. “Krisenmanagement in Zürich nach dem Zweiten Kappeler Krieg.” Zwingliana (1977):

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Stalin, Joseph. “The Nation.” Hutchinson, John and Anthony D. Smith. Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford

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A Critique of Benedict Andersons Imagine

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