Imagined Communities
When America was founded, it was based on principles such as freedom and equality. However, when it was first founded it did not adhere to these principles. In more recent times the country has made significant improvements in terms of religious and racial pluralism. This has brought America closer to the values and ideals that it was originally founded on. Benedict Anderson argues, "A nation is an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign."(Anderson, 6). Through these advances, America has come closer to achieving Anderson 's belief of an imagined political community.
Anderson believes it to be imagined because "the members of even the smallest nation 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 communities."(Anderson, 6) This can be seen in the example of the love that Catholics have for the Vatican or that Jews have for Israel. Both are their homelands and main places of worship, however most people in America have never been there. They still claim the other members of their religion to be their brothers in that religion and to love one another despite never knowing one another. It may be compared to a college fraternity or a sorority in which everyone refers to each other as brother and sister but they might not ever know any of their brothers and sisters from other colleges throughout the nation. Anderson claims, "In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact are imagined."(Anderson, 6) just because we do not know everyone in a community does not mean we are not a part of it; we still identify ourselves as that whole community.
While we identify ourselves, as one community we are in fact limited both religiously and racially. Anderson states that "The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic,
Anderson believes it to be imagined because "the members of even the smallest nation 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 communities."(Anderson, 6) This can be seen in the example of the love that Catholics have for the Vatican or that Jews have for Israel. Both are their homelands and main places of worship, however most people in America have never been there. They still claim the other members of their religion to be their brothers in that religion and to love one another despite never knowing one another. It may be compared to a college fraternity or a sorority in which everyone refers to each other as brother and sister but they might not ever know any of their brothers and sisters from other colleges throughout the nation. Anderson claims, "In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact are imagined."(Anderson, 6) just because we do not know everyone in a community does not mean we are not a part of it; we still identify ourselves as that whole community.
While we identify ourselves, as one community we are in fact limited both religiously and racially. Anderson states that "The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic,
Cited: Jacoby, Tamar. "The Beginning of the End of Race". Racial Liberalism and the Politics of Urban America. East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University, 2003. Hutchison, William R. Religious Pluralism in America. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Anderson, Benedict. "Imagined Communities" London: VERSO, 1991. Cochran, David Carroll "Liberal Political Theory 's Multicultural Blind Spot and Race in the United States". Racial Liberalism and the Politics of Urban America. East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University, 2003.