National identity penetrates populations only through a concept transmitted by institutions, not direct experience

Evidence

But Znaniecki has observed, for example, that the vast majority of peasants in 19th-century Tsarist Russia was “utterly unconscious that they were supposed to belong to a Russian society united by a common culture.” Again he reports that a 1934–1935 study in the Pripet marshes showed that nearly half of those inhabitants who were ethnically White Ruthenian had no idea that such a nationality existed and regarded themselves as belonging at most to local communities. The nation as a bounded, integral group object is difficult to experience in any direct way, and its psychological existence for the individual depends upon the social transmission of certain kinds of information. What is deceptive here, as elsewhere, is that decades or even centuries after the literati have come to take a nation concept for granted, there may be substantial proportions of the member population who have never heard of such a thing. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1930 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: National identity is built on manufactured ancestral myth, not primordial history. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 74; National identity is not naturally experienced but requires social transmission to ordinary people — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1930; Nations produce identity through cultural representation, not mere legal citizenship — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 122 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• National identity is not naturally experienced but requires social transmission to ordinary people #corroborates (0.98) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1930