Nation as imagined

We spend much effort in AmCon thinking about and talking about "America" and "Americans" and being a little skittish about the possibility of making sweeping generalizations that claim too much.  Reading about nationalism, Lutheranism, and nationalism in Scandinavia (and the Nordic region more generally) I'm reminded of Benedict Anderson's influential assertion that nations are imagined communities.  This paragraph from Dag Thorkildsen ("Scandinavia: Lutheranism and national identity," in The Cambridge History  of Christianity, Vol. 8, p. 342) applies beyond that region and helps to clarify both Anderson's notion and our goals.

"The nation is first of all an imagined community, but it is not an invented community.  It is based on historical raw material, which the intellectual elite shapes to form the concept of the nation.  The nation as an imagined community means that it depends on people's consciousness of belonging to a national community characterized by certain features.  These features create national identity, which becomes an important part also of individual identity. For this reason a national system of education is a central part of nation building.  Furthermore, a national identity describes that condition in which a mass of people have internalized the symbols of the nation, so that they may act as one psychological group when there is a threat to, or the possibility of enhancement of, nation and national identity."