The nation is imagined as a sociological organism moving through homogeneous, empty time.

Evidence

The idea of a sociological organism moving calendrically through homogeneous, empty time is a precise analogue of the idea of the nation, which also is conceived as a solid community moving steadily down (or up) history. An American will never meet, or even know the names of more than a handful of his 240,000,000-odd fellow-Americans. He has no idea of what they are up to at any one time. But he has complete confidence in their steady, anonymous, simultaneous activity. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 90

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is the core concept — the ‘sociological organism’ moving through ‘homogeneous, empty time’ is the foundational scaffold term.
• XREF: Feeds forward to the Islamophobia readings on the imagined community of the nation; also connects to Walter Benjamin’s ‘homogeneous, empty time’ that Anderson draws on. — connects to: The newspaper’s dated format imagines the world as moving through homogeneous empty time. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 110; The nation is an imagined, limited, sovereign political community — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 37; National identity rests on an unstable blend of law and likeness
• DEEPTHINKING: This single paragraph carries the entire load-bearing concept of the chapter — simultaneity without contact as the basis of national solidarity.

Related

• The newspaper’s dated format imagines the world as moving through homogeneous empty time. (similarity 0.84)
• The nation is an imagined, limited, sovereign political community (similarity 0.80)
• ‘Homogeneous empty time’ replaced mediaeval simultaneity as the modern mode of apprehension (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The newspaper’s dated format imagines the world as moving through homogeneous empty time. #exemplifies (0.97) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 110
• The nation is an imagined, limited, sovereign political community #expands (0.92) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 37
• National identity rests on an unstable blend of law and likeness #complicates (0.75)