Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The making of the theory
- 1 Thoughts about change: Ernest Gellner and the history of nationalism
- 2 Ernest Gellner's diagnoses of nationalism: a critical overview, or, what is living and what is dead in Ernest Gellner's philosophy of nationalism?
- Part II The classical criticisms
- Part III Bringing politics back in
- Part IV Wider implications
- Bibliography of Ernest Gellner's writings on nationalism
- Index
2 - Ernest Gellner's diagnoses of nationalism: a critical overview, or, what is living and what is dead in Ernest Gellner's philosophy of nationalism?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The making of the theory
- 1 Thoughts about change: Ernest Gellner and the history of nationalism
- 2 Ernest Gellner's diagnoses of nationalism: a critical overview, or, what is living and what is dead in Ernest Gellner's philosophy of nationalism?
- Part II The classical criticisms
- Part III Bringing politics back in
- Part IV Wider implications
- Bibliography of Ernest Gellner's writings on nationalism
- Index
Summary
The theoretical problem is to separate the quite spurious ‘national’ and ‘natural’ justifications and explanations of nationalism, from the genuine, time- and context-bound roots of it.
(Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change)Nationalism, so far the most potent principle of political legitimacy in the modern world, holds that the nation should be collectively and freely institutionally expressed, and ruled by its conationals. In numerous essays and four books, Ernest Gellner, an exceptionally brilliant, fluent, prolific and witty philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist and multilingual polymath provided lucid and persuasive accounts of why nationalism is a necessary component of modernity, and why it is its typical and major principle of political legitimacy. This chapter seeks to provide a preliminary posthumous analysis of Gellner's legacy. It needs little justification since all worthwhile subsequent writing and research on nationalism will benefit from Gellner's work, whether they build on his presumptions or dissent from them.
Gellner's arguments about nationalism disturbed both conservatives and secular rationalists. The reasons are not hard to find. Nationalism relegates religion to a secondary, and even inessential, principle of a stable and legitimate political order and thus challenges traditionalist conservatism. Nationalism also suggests that law, reason, utility, material prosperity and social justice are secondary principles in establishing a stable and legitimate political order, and has therefore provoked persistent condemnation from rationalist liberals and socialists for some two hundred years. Gellner's writings on nationalism were a sustained criticism of one very pious Oakeshottian conservative, the late Elie Kedourie; but they were also intended to reassure rationalist liberals (including social democrats). One question is whether he provided the right reassurances.
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- Information
- The State of the NationErnest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism, pp. 40 - 88Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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