Benedict Anderson Quotes

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it; Who has left the world better than he found it, Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; Whose life was an inspiration; Whose memory a benediction.

the fellow members of even the smallese 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 the communion...Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity or genuineness, but in the style in which they are imagined.

I propose the following 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.... Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.... Finally, [the nation] is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately, it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willing to die for such limited imaginings.

No more arresting emblems of the modern culture of nationalism exist than cenotaphs and tombs of Unknown Soldiers.

No one can be a true nationalist who is incapable of feeling ashamed if his or her state or government commits crimes including those against their fellow citizens

It is important to keep in mind that to learn a language is not simply to learn a linguistic means of communication. It is also to learn the way of thinking and feeling of a people who speak and write a language which is different from ours. It is to learn the history and culture underlying their thoughts and emotions and so to learn to empathize with them.

In the end, it is always the ruling classes, bourgeois certainly, but above all aristocratic, that long mourn the empires, and their grief always has a stagey quality to it.

What the eye is to the lover — that particular, ordinary eye he or she is born with - language - whatever language history has made his or her mother-tongue — is to the patriot. Through that language, encountered at mother's knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined, and futures dreamed.

I propose the following 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… The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations… It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm… Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly die for such limited imaginings. —Benedict Anderson

The ideal way to start interesting research, at least in my view, is to depart from a problem or question to which you do not know the answer.

Already in the 1550s, 10% of Lisbon’s population were slaves; by 1800 there were close to a million slaves among the 2,500,000 or so inhabitants of Portugal’s Brazil.

It is nice that what eventually became the late British Empire has not been ruled by an 'English' dynasty since the early eleventh century: since then a motley parade of Normans (Plantagenets), Welsh (Tudors), Scots (Stuarts), Dutch (House of Orange) and Germans (Hanoverians) have squatted on the imperial throne. No one much cared until the philological revolution and a paroxysm of English nationalism in World War I. House of Windsor rhymes with House of Schönbrunn or House of Versailes.

All profound changes in consciousness, by their very nature, bring with them characteristic amnesias. Out of such oblivions, in specific historical circumstances, spring narratives… The photograph… is only the most peremptory of a huge modern accumulation of documentary evidence… which simultaneously records a certain apparent continuity and emphasizes its loss from memory. Out of this estrangement comes a conception of personhood, identity… which, because it cannot be “remembered”, must be narrated.

In an age when it is so common for progressive, cosmopolitan intellectuals to insist on the near-pathological character of nationalism, its roots in fear and hatred of the Other, and its affinities with racism, it is useful to remind ourselves that nations inspire love, and often profoundly self-sacrificing love.

It is the magic of nationalism to turn chance into destiny. With Debray we might say, 'Yes, it is quite accidental that I am born French; but after all, France is eternal.

Hegel observed that newspapers serve modern man as a substitute for morning prayers

English, like any other language, is always open to new speakers, listeners, and readers.

The nation is imagined as a community because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.

One can thus trace this lexicographic revolution as one might the ascending roar in an arsenal alight, as each small explosion ignites others, till the final blaze turns night into day.

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men, and the love of little children, who has filled his niche and accomplished his task, who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul, who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it, who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had, whose life was an inspiration, whose memory a benediction. —BESSIE ANDERSON STANLEY

Even European languages like the French language became standardized into the Parisian version—derived from a hodgepodge of dialects—only after the emergence of the French Republic and the rise of mass media (newspapers). Political scientist Benedict Anderson called this phenomenon of unification “imagined communities.” People who would never expect to meet in person or to know each other’s name come to think of themselves as part of a group through the shared consumption of mass media like newspapers and via common national institutions and agendas.3

I began to realize something fundamental about field-work: that it is useless to concentrate exclusively on one's 'research project.' One has to be endlessly curious about everything, sharpen one's eyes and ears, and take notes about everything. The experience of strangeness makes all your senses more sensitive than normal, and your attachment to comparison grows deeper. This is why fieldwork is also so useful when you return home. You will have developed habits of observation and comparison that encourage or force you to start noticing that your own culture is just as strange.

No French citizen knows whether he is a Burgund, an Alain, a Taifala, or a Visigoth,” he said, referencing the tribes that once flourished on the geographical boundaries of modern France. We think we are citizens of a nation because we have “forgotten many things.” Since Renan, others have tried and failed to establish a good definition of a nation. There really aren’t any objective criteria that can explain the diverse origins, functions and commonalities of different nations. Perhaps the most accurate definition of a nation was put forward by the political scientist Benedict Anderson. His conclusion was that we believe ourselves to be Greek or Syrian or Nigerian simply because we believe ourselves to be Greek or Syrian or Nigerian. A nation, he wrote, is a social construction—an “imagined community.

On his coronation in 1802, Gia-long wished to call his realm ‘Nam Viêt’ and sent envoys to gain Peking’s assent. The Manchu Son of Heaven, however, insisted that it be ‘Viêt Nam.’ The reason for this inversion is as follows: ‘Viêt Nam’ (or in Chinese Yüeh-nan) means, roughly, ‘to the south of Viêt (Yüeh),’ a realm conquered by the Han seventeen centuries earlier and reputed to cover today’s Chinese provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, as well as the Red River valley. Gia-long’s ‘Nam Viêt,’ however, meant ‘Southern Viêt/Yüeh,’ in effect a claim to the old realm. In the words of Alexander Woodside, ‘the name “Vietnam” as a whole was hardly so well esteemed by Vietnamese rulers a century ago, emanating as it had from Peking, as it is in this century. An artificial appellation then, it was used extensively neither by the Chinese nor by the Vietnamese. The Chinese clung to the offensive T’ang word “Annam” . . . The Vietnamese court, on the other hand, privately invented another name for its kingdom in 1838–39 and did not bother to inform the Chinese. Its new name, Dai Nam, the “Great South” or “Imperial South,” appeared with regularity on court documents and official historical compilations. But it has not survived to the present.’3 This new name is interesting in two respects. First, it contains no ‘Viet’-namese element. Second, its territorial reference seems purely relational – ‘south’ (of the Middle Kingdom).4 That today’s Vietnamese proudly defend a Viêet Nam scornfully invented by a nineteenth-century Manchu dynast reminds us of Renan’s dictum that nations must have ‘oublié bien des choses,’ but also, paradoxically, of the imaginative power of nationalism. If

The path-breaking writer and thinker on nationalism, Benedict Anderson, has convincingly pointed out that identities uniting large numbers of people could arise only after a certain technological level had been attained.

Many people have complained that Imagined Communities is a difficult book and especially difficult to translate. The accusation is partly true. But a great deal of the difficulty lies not in the realm of ideas, but in its original polemical stance and its intended audience: the UK intelligentsia. This is why the book contains so many quotations from and allusions to, English poetry, essays, histories, legends, etc., that do not have to be explained to English readers, but which are likely to be unfamiliar to others.

I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.

The fact of the matter is that nationalism thinks in terms of historical destinies, while racism dreams of eternal contaminations, transmitted from the origins of time through an endless sequence of loathsome copulations: outside history. -Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

There’s a writer called Benedict Anderson, Farouq said, who wrote against the … what is this term, les Lumières? The Enlightenment? I said. That’s it, Farouq said, the Enlightenment. Anderson talked about how it enthrones rationality but does not fill the gap left by religious faith. My view is that this gap should be filled by the Divine, by the teachings of Islam. And I hold this as absolute and central even if I am not a good Muslim at the moment. And

Anarşizmin Türkiye'deki gecikmesinin tarihsel olduğu kadar "yapısal" nedenleri de vardı. Bu konudaki düşüncelerini aldığım Benedict Anderson, siyasal düşüncelerin de pek çok şey gibi eşitsiz geliştiğini hatırlatıyor ve anarşizmin coğrafi yayılımını alkollü içkilerle karşılaştırıyor. Anderson, tıpkı alkolde olduğu gibi anarşizmde de, Avrupa' da birkaç "ulus-üstü" kuşağın görülebileceğini söylüyor: Doğu'da votka; Iskoçya ve Irlanda'da viski; Bati Akdeniz ve Renanya'da şarap ve Isveç ile Belcika arasındaki bölgede ise bira hatları... Tıpkı şarapta olduğu gibi, anarşizmde de coğrafi merkez Italya, Ispanya ve Fransa'nin Akdeniz kıyılarıydı. Marksist hat, sanayileşmiş Kuzey Avrupa'da Almanya, Belçika, Kuzeydogu Fransa ve Ingiltere' nin bazı bölgeleri boyunca uzanıyordu. Doğu Avrupa'da ise halkçılık kuşağı etkiliydi.

当你开始在一个你只懂一点点或者完全不懂其语言的国家生活的时候，你显然没有能力去比较地思考，因为你几乎无法接触当地文化。你感觉到语言上被剥夺了，孤独甚至孤立，因此你四处寻找一些同胞伙伴来保持联系。你不可避免要作比较，但它们很可能是表面的、幼稚的。不过，倘若你走运，你会越过语言之墙，发现自己置身于另外的世界。你就像一个探险家那样，试图以一种你在家的时候绝对不会采用的方式，观察和思考一切，因为你在家里很多东西都是理所当然的。你无法再认为你的阶级立场、你的教育，甚至你的性别理所当然。假如你竖起你的耳朵睁开你的眼睛，你会开始注意到你无法看到或者听到的东西。换言之，你会开始同时注意到那里有的和那里没有的东西，就像你会同时意识到被写下的和没有被写下的东西那样。无论是对你现在生活于其间的国家，还是对你出生于期间的国家，这一点都是起作用的。

What the eye is to the lover – that particular, ordinary eye he or she is born with – language – whatever language history has made his or her mother-tongue – is to the patriot. Through that language, encountered at mother’s knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined, and futures dreamed.

As noted earlier, the great wars of this century are extraordinary not so much in the unprecedented scale on which they permitted people to kill, as in the colossal numbers persuaded to lay down their lives. Is it not certain that the numbers of those killed vastly exceeded those who killed? The idea of the ultimate sacrifice comes only with an idea of purity, through fatality. Dying for one’s country, which usually one does not choose, assumes a moral grandeur which dying for the Labour Party, the American Medical Association, or perhaps even Amnesty International can not rival, for these are all bodies one can join or leave at easy will. Dying for the revolution also draws its grandeur from the degree to which it is felt to be something fundamentally pure.

es inútil concentrarse en exclusivamente en nuestro propio "proyecto de investigación". Es preciso tener una curiosidad incesante por todo, aguzar ojos y oídos y tomar notas sin excluir nada. Esa es la gran bendición de este tipo de trabajo. La experiencia de extrañeza hace que todos nuestros sentidos sean mucho más sensibles que lo habitual, y nuestra afición a la comparación se profundiza. Por eso, el trabajo de campo es también tan útil cuando volvemos a casa. En el ínterin, hemos desarrollado hábitos de observación y comparación que nos instan u obligan a comenzar a advertir que nuestra propia cultura es igualmente extraña, siempre que observemos con cuidado, comparemos sin cesar y mantengamos nuestra distancia antropológica.

el azar no golpea a nuestra puerta sino hacemos otra cosa que esperar pacientemente en la tienda. A menudo, llega a nosotros bajo la forma de oportunidades inesperadas, que debemos ser lo bastante valientes o intrépidos para aprovechar cuando pasan como una flecha. Este espíritu de aventura es, creo, decisivo para una vida académica realmente productiva.

aprender una lengua no es simplemente aprender un medio lingüístico de comunicación. Es también aprender la manera de pensar y sentir de un pueblo que habla y escribe en un idioma diferente del nuestro. Es aprender la historia y la cultura subyacentes a sus pensamientos y sus emociones, y, así, aprender a empatizar con ellos.

es inútil concentrarse en exclusivamente en nuestro propio "proyecto de investigación". Es preciso tener una curiosidad incesante por todo, aguzar ojos y oídos y tomar notas sin excluir nada. Esa es la gran bendición de este tipo de trabajo. La experiencia de extrañeza hace que todos nuestros sentidos sean mucho más sensibles que lo habitual, y nuestra afición a la comparación se profundiza. Por eso, el trabajo de campo es también tan útil cuando volvemos a casa. En el ínterin, hemos desarrollado hábitos de observación y comparación que nos instan u obligan a comenzar a advertir que nuestra propia cultura es igualmente extraña, siempre que observemos con cuidado, comparemos sin cesar y mantengamos nuestra distancia antropolóogica.

No more arresting emblems of the modern culture of nationalism exist than cenotaphs and tombs of Unknown Soldiers. The public ceremonial reverence accorded these monuments precisely because they are either deliberately empty or no one knows who lies inside them, has no true precedents in earlier times. To feel the force of this modernity one has only to imagine the general reaction to the busy-body who ‘discovered’ the Unknown Soldier’s name or insisted on filling the cenotaph with some real bones. Sacrilege of a strange, contemporary kind! Yet void as these tombs are of identifiable mortal remains or immortal souls, they are nonetheless saturated with ghostly national imaginings. (This is why so many different nations have such tombs without feeling any need to specify the nationality of their absent occupants. What else could they be but Germans, Americans, Argentinians . . .?) The cultural significance of such monuments becomes even clearer if one tries to imagine, say, a Tomb of the Unknown Marxist or a cenotaph for fallen Liberals. Is a sense of absurdity avoidable? The reason is that neither Marxism nor Liberalism is much concerned with death and immortality. If the nationalist imagining is so concerned, this suggests a strong affinity with religious imaginings. As this affinity is by no means fortuitous, it may be useful to begin a consideration of the cultural roots of nationalism with death, as the last of a whole gamut of fatalities.

That Hamilton adhered to a code of gentlemanly honor was confirmed in yet another sideshow of the Benedict Arnold affair: the arrest of Major John André, adjutant general of the British Army and Arnold’s contact, traveling under the nom de guerre John Anderson. As he awaited a hearing to decide his fate, he was confined at a tavern in Tappan, New York. Though seven years younger than André, Hamilton developed a sympathy for the prisoner born of admiration and visited him several times. A letter that Hamilton later wrote to Laurens reveals his nearly worshipful attitude toward the elegant, cultured André, who was conversant with poetry, music, and painting. Hamilton identified with André’s misfortune in a personal manner, as if he saw his own worst nightmare embodied in his fate: To an excellent understanding, well improved by education and travel, [André] united a peculiar elegance of mind and manners and the advantage of a pleasing person. . . . By his merit, he had acquired the unlimited confidence of his general and was making a rapid progress in military rank and reputation. But in the height of his career, flushed with new hopes from the execution of a project the most beneficial to his party that could be devised, he was at once precipitated from the summit of prosperity and saw all the expectations of his ambition blasted and himself ruined.55

That Hamilton adhered to a code of gentlemanly honor was confirmed in yet another sideshow of the Benedict Arnold affair: the arrest of Major John André, adjutant general of the British Army and Arnold’s contact, traveling under the nom de guerre John Anderson. As he awaited a hearing to decide his fate, he was confined at a tavern in Tappan, New York. Though seven years younger than André, Hamilton developed a sympathy for the prisoner

What I am proposing is that Nationalism has to be understood, by aligning it not with self-consciously held political ideologies, but with large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which — as well as against which — it came into being.