Nationalism must be read against prior cultural systems, not political ideologies

Evidence

I am not claiming that the appearance of nationalism towards the end of the eighteenth century was ‘produced’ by the erosion of religious certainties, or that this erosion does not itself require a complex explanation. Nor am I suggesting that somehow nationalism historically ‘supersedes’ religion. What I am proposing is that nationalism has to be understood by aligning it, not with self-consciously held political ideologies, but with the large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which – as well as against which – it came into being. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 58

Categorization

• DEFINE: Methodological positioning: nationalism as emerging from religious and dynastic cultural systems rather than from liberal/Marxist ideology — a foundational move against the ‘invention of nationalism as ideology’ reading.
• XREF: This anti-ideological framing of nationalism scaffolds later readings of how Muslim identity is or is not ‘national’ in the Islamophobia literature — the imagined community frame meeting religious identity. — connects to: Nationalism is modern in fact but ancient in claim, universal and particular — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 35; A cultural tradition can substitute for a weak tradition of national political unity; Marxism’s dismissal of culture left it unequipped for nationalism (+4 more)

Related

• Nationalism can only be judged through its particular instances, not abstraction (similarity 0.86)
• Material interests and Enlightenment ideas alone could not shape nationalist imagined communities. (similarity 0.84)
• Nationalism is an ideology while national identity is a shared cultural base (similarity 0.84)
• Cultural nationalism can smuggle in obscurantism merely by inverting the traditionmodernity binary (similarity 0.82)
• Nationalism is modern in fact but ancient in claim, universal and particular (similarity 0.82)
• Marxist theory could not theorize nationalism and so evaded it (similarity 0.81)
• Once a national-state model exists, even reactionary nationalisms must adopt populist standards (similarity 0.81)
• Official nationalism is a reactive response to earlier popular national movements (similarity 0.81)
• Official nationalism is a copyable state-serving policy with a Janus-headed legacy (similarity 0.81)
• The nation’s sacred aura lets patriotism capture and tame universalist religions. (similarity 0.81)
• Nationalism is the most legitimate value in modern politics (similarity 0.81)
• Nationalism could be consciously modeled and pirated once visible predecessors existed. (similarity 0.81)
• Nationalism was invented in colonial Creole societies, not Europe. (similarity 0.80)
• Nationalism’s borrowings from religion do not make religion its source (similarity 0.80)
• Cultural nationalism remains the constitutive ideology of Third World literary theory. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• A cultural tradition can substitute for a weak tradition of national political unity #expands (0.85)
• Marxism’s dismissal of culture left it unequipped for nationalism #expands (0.75)