Talk:Imagined communities
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The article states the following: Anthony Smith stands that even when nations are the product of modernity, it is possible to find ethnic elements that survive in modern nations. Ethnic groups are different to nations.
One can certanly define ethnic identity as cultural identity, as opposed to national identity that is essentially political identity. However, I am still not clear whether or not Anderson considers ethnic groups to be imagined communities as well? After all, even the smallest ethnic group will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion (to paraphrase Anderson). Using the same analogy, could one argue that religious communities are also imagined communities - after all, they are often much larger than national communities? If we go with this line of thinking further, could one argue that any kind of human community that is larger than the number of people you can personally know is in fact an imagined community?
Yes. That's what it says in his intro. "all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined. (6)" Adam crymble 23:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
