Natural

I am interested in the seemingly contradictory elements of Nationalism. As previously mentioned, Anderson credits, in large part, the rise of Nationalism to the human creation, or tool, of language. To Anderson, Nationalism is even further cemented into existence by use of mass print media, or text.

In Chapter 8, Anderson describes the Nationalist urge in terms of its relation to notions of kinship and 'home'.

As we gave seen earlier, in everything 'natural' there is something unchosen. In this way, nation-ness is assimilated to skin-colour, gender, parentage and birth-era (143).

Can Nationalism be as a mimetic reversal in which the infinitely degraded copy of a copy, in this case written language (as opposed to the privileged Speech), via mass printed media, influences that which is natural and pure?

Does the 'uncurable' success of Nationalism lie in its nearly religious way (or, perhaps more appropriate, the way it doesn't) answer ontological questions of origin and identity. Whereas progressive styles of thought answer such questions with "impatient silence" (10), does Nationalism's mere attempt at answering these questions, even if simply deferring them to a notion history which gives the Nation a false, yet transcendent notion an "immemorial past" (11). In other words, is the success of Nationalism as opposed to more progressive styles of thought (i.e. Marxism) due to its answer of patient or enduring silence compared to the anxiety inducing "impatient silence"?