The Uneasy Balm of Communication
The Uneasy Balm of Communication
Scholars have criticized both ethnic and civic conceptions of national belonging. Ethnic nationalism claims a shared past of quasi-kinship that, critics say, renders it hostile to newcomers. But civic nationalism, claiming a shared commitment to liberal norms and institutions, lacks the moral force of imagined bonds. This chapter draws on the arguments developed in previous chapters in conjunction with experimental work to show that people can imagine what binds them as a nation in terms of still other relationships. These include relationships in which the boundary between us and them is not especially charged, and such relationships, in turn, lead people to endorse policies advancing an inclusive national solidarity and one that does not assume antagonism with other nations. Then the chapter explores the implications of the book’s main arguments for understanding culture and solidarity. Paying attention to the relationship schemas people draw on in their everyday lives can shed light on culture’s simultaneously creative and constraining character. People solve standard challenges of cooperation by using familiar relationships as practical metaphors, but they do so in conventional ways. Rethinking the schema of egalitarian intimacy that animates contemporary civic projects, for its part, opens up possibilities for building solidarity across difference.
Keywords: nationalism, civic and ethnic nationalism, imagined community, egalitarian intimacy, political metaphor, sociology of culture, solidarity
Chicago Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
