Primary Myths
Two nationalism's primary myths are connected with beliefs in:
- community's permanence (the myth of the eternal nation), based on its national character, territory and institutions and on its continuity across many generations, and
- community's common ancestry (myth of the common ancestry).
The nationalist myths portray the nation like sleeping and waiting to be awakened, but scholarly discourse avoid such image because national identity either exists or not and can not be asleep and awakened.
Read more about this topic: National Myth
Famous quotes containing the words primary and/or myths:
“It was the feeling of a passenger on an ocean steamer whose mind will not give him rest until he has been in the engine-room and talked with the engineer. She wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to measure with her own mind the capacity of the motive power. She was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The myths have always condemned those who “looked back.” Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision.”
—Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961)