Anderson's "Imagined Communities"

In the essay "Imagined Communities: Reflections, on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism", author Benedict Anderson explores the nature of nationalism. Anderson argues that the idea of a nation is purely a created image. He says, “[The nation] is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson, 6). Anderson believes the nation is thus a created idea: one where one’s ‘nation’ has defined limits and whose concept of sovereignty is merely an ancient scheme.

Anderson further argues the ties and bonds we feel to our nation are in fact just as imagined and just as superficial. He writes, “…nation-ness is assimilated to skin-colour, gender, parentage and birth-era – all those things one cannot help. And in these ‘natural ties’ one sense what one might call ‘the beauty of gemeinschaft’. To put it another way, precisely because such ties are not chosen, they have about them a halo of disinterestedness” (Anderson, 143). In this thought-provoking statement, Anderson argues that the very reasons that we feel ‘naturally’ bonded to our fellow countrymen have nothing natural about them. Like our nation itself, the bonds that we feel to the larger community are purely imagined: a created tie that we thus feel draws us closer to each other.