El Islam En Europa

Ernest Gellner (1981) Nationalism , Theory and Society

Teacher: Ms Antje Grebner

Student: Jose Luis Civera Pineda nº 12059072

For Gellner, "nationalism is primarily a political principle which holds that the political unity and national unit should be congruent ". Gellner argues that nationalism only appeared and became a sociological necessity in the modern world. In earlier times, the rulers had little incentive to impose cultural homogeneity on those over whom they ruled. But in modern society's rulers see it as a necessary tool.

In modern industrial society, with its homogenizing tendencies, that don´t allow the development of different cultures nor ethnic pluralism. In his opinion, the modern, industrial society has a tendency to cultural homogenization, as a result of literacy among the population, which at the same time is required by the needs of knowledge to develop the work. The work becomes technical, in which the worker needs to operate machines and acquire new knowledge.

However, Gellner reaffirms that some cultures are not blessed with the success of their efforts in becoming nationalistic cultures with political coverage. Moreover, he went further and even said that the weakness of nationalism is far greater than it might seem at the first moment. Gellner establishes the existence of nations as real entities whose inevitable tendency is to seek a separate state form. Nationalism, according to this view, is an activity based on the nation and seeks a state.

Some theorists, such as Gellner, have argued that the necessary conditions for nationalism include media development and capitalism. The concepts of nation and nationalism are a phenomena constructed in society. Ernest Gellner suggests that "nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness, it invents nations where they do not exist."

It should be noted, that nations, like states, are a contingency, not a universal need. Neither nations nor states exist at all times and in all circumstances. Moreover, nations and states are not the same contingency. Nationalism holds that both of them have to be linked, and therefore the one without the other would be an incomplete form and end in a rupture. But despite being closely linked, each of them appeared on its own, as there are states that have emerged without the help of the nation, and many nations, (the majority) who are born without the help of their states.

Two men are of the same nation only if they share the same culture, where culture in turn means a sharing of ideas and signs and have the same ways of behaving and communicating. Two men are of the same nation if they recognize each other as belonging to the same nation.

Two men are of the same nation only if they share the same culture, where the culture in turn

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