A nation sustains itself through shared memory plus present-day will to live together
Evidence
Ernest Renan has observed that “the nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form” (Renan 1996: 52). The Mahavamsa helps link past and present and enables the Sinhalese Buddhist nation to coalesce as a spiritual principle. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 65
Categorization
- XREF: Renan’s memory-plus-consent duality bears on whether the nation-solidarity is manufactured rather than primordial — consent can be elicited and engineered, memory curated. — connects to: Nationalist memory retroactively invents the very nations it claims to remember — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 118; The present realizes what was essential in the past; A conquered and subject nation can crystallize as a single imagined unity. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2259 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Nationalist memory retroactively invents the very nations it claims to remember
#complicates(0.85) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 118 - The present realizes what was essential in the past
#expands(0.80) - National identity is constructed through stories, memories, and images
#corroborates(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 123 - A nation is held together by consent, not by blood or geography
#expands(0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2189 - A conquered and subject nation can crystallize as a single imagined unity.
#exemplifies(0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2259 - Collective memory and accurate record-keeping are as vital to groups as to individuals
#corroborates(0.75) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1821