Horizontal comradeship lets millions die willingly for limited national imaginings

Evidence

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 to die for such limited imaginings. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 42

Categorization

• XREF: The fraternity-that-enables-self-sacrifice insight resonates with the sacrifice/ritual themes in ‘On Sacrifice’ and with Weber’s legitimacy ideas.
• QUESTION: The mechanism by which imagined fraternity overrides actual inequality and exploitation deserves deeper digging — what makes people die for comrades they never meet, not kill.