Rules and Regulations

In reading the Anderson article, I immediately was shocked by my own confusion with the order of words chosen for his ideology. Mentally, it was like I was stuck at a circus with the same question roaming around my mind. Some questions that arouse were: are nation and community interchangeable? Is a nation a communion? Is a communion a fraternity? Are nations only separated by languages? If communication is community and community is nation, then if languages are changing through globalization in forming one solid form of communication, then will the whole world become one community and thus one nation? However, in checking the resource of the four out of five star book online, I found a comment that made me feel not as bad about my thinking toward Anderson:

I think the writing style is pretentious, ostentatious, and rambling. Anderson seems to belittle people and communities who are willing to die for their beliefs- who is he to criticize? He takes paragraphs upon paragraphs to get to the point, and uses 15 large words when 1 or 2 simpler words would suffice. Anderson seems very full of himself, and looks down upon people who do not share his beliefs on nationalism. He cares little for his audience or persuading his audience, he simply cares about trying to look as academic and snobbish as he can. Some arguments were obvious, and he tries to dress them up by adding pages of useless information and showy vocabulary. Others make no sense, and he doesn't explain them clearly or adequately. I do not recommend this book to anyone. (http://www.amazon.com/Imagined-Communities-Reflections-Origin-Nationalism/product-reviews/0860915468/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar)

While Mr. Anderson puts forth provoking theories about the rise and nature of nationalism, his style is very confusing and his examples equally as convoluted. This book could easily have been condensed into an 8 page essay and would have been far more coherent.(http://www.amazon.com/Imagined-Communities-Reflections-Origin-Nationalism/product-reviews/0860915468/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_2?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addTwoStar)

While this may seem like a load of negative aggressiveness, I completely agree with how Smith interprets Anderson’s lingo. In fact, looking back into American history, many situations of division occur because of the differences in pop and social culture of a nation. For instance, the USA is a separate nation from England, even though languages are the same and some of the diversity of the people are the same, the difference occurs in the rules and regulations of what America defines as a necessary element of being a part of the nation of America. 

Hidden Identity

Identity. More than just the 2003 movie by James Mangold about ten strangers stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rainstorm who become acquainted when they realize they are being killed off one by one, starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet – identity is a small noun with a big purpose. As described on www.merriam-webster.com 

Etymology: Middle French identité, from Late Latin identitat-, identitas, probably from Latin identidem repeatedly, contraction of idem et idem, literally, same and same. Date: 1570

1 a : sameness of essential or generic character in different instances b : sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing : oneness

2 a : the distinguishing character or personality of an individual : individuality b : the relation established by psychological identification

3 : the condition of being the same with something described or asserted identity of stolen goods>


4 : an equation that is satisfied for all values of the symbols


Oddly enough this one word has been the core of man events throughout history, with most human beings attempting to spend their whole life searching for their identity, or meaning in life. People want to discover what is different about them, or what makes them unique. We all know that we have our own identities, but the evidence of that is sometimes indescribable, thus it remains hidden.

An image of Communion

Benedict Anderson says “...yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”

 

What is an image of communion?

 

Communion can mean multiple things and has several associations with Christian traditions.

Derived from Latin communio it means to share in common, and is often translated as fellowship.

In Greek, it applies to a business partnership, comradely fellowship between friends, to community or society.

In the Bible, it applies to sharing or fellowship with God, fellow Christians, their sufferings, source of spiritual favors, evil deeds of others, bodily human nature.

 

A sharing of the same essential doctrines between a community and an individual.

Other words to describe communion are: unity, empathy, relationship, and association.

 

So to say that there is an image of communion in each person’s mind, is to say that each person mentally shares an idea or image of a relationship. In the case of America, each person has a communion with the country, so he or she has an emotional or theological relation to the idea of country.

So to ask what is a nation, one must ask to what the nation is relating to. One must know what brings the people together to know that the people are together in a partnership of theology. 

The first woman Director

As I was reading The World of Cinema book I came across some information, which I wanted to investigate further in depth. It concerns the world’s first woman director, Alice Guy-Blanché. Alice was a young girl who moved to Paris from Chile. Her father a Parisian businessman died when she was very young. She went on to work as a shorthand typist so she could support herself. Through her mother’s charities she met Léon Gaumont, a man who was expanding his marketing of film projects into a full film service. Alice worked as his secretary for a while. (McKernan) She observed the strong team of cameramen and filmmakers. She married a cameraman and she went with him when he was sent to manage the Gaumont office in New York in 1907. (McKernan) In 1910, after she’d given birth to her daughter, she founded her own production company, Solax. She directed several films from 1914-1917. She and her husband divorced in 1922 and she moved to France but was unable to find any further film work there so she wrote children’s books instead. She was almost forgotten until in 1953 the French Government awarded her the Legion d’Honneur. She returned to the United States in 1964 to live with one of her daughters. She died in a nursing home in New Jersey. Now her popularity is continuing to grow, as more and more people get interested in women filmmakers. And her importance as the first women filmmaker is phenomenal. (McKernan)

I thought this to be very empowering to women because it tells a story how a woman went against the odds in 1914 and worked in a man’s role in a day and age when men still vastly “ruled” the world. I also liked her courage to divorce her husband and move back to where she came from, living on her own. She was a very independent lady whose example as a filmmaker is a great one. Especaially considering she was the first woman director. Here’s a nice website about her and some of her projects I believe. http://www.amoeba.com/blog/2009/03/eric-s-blog/alice-guy-blach-first-female-of-film-direction.html

McKernan, Luke. "Who's Who of Victorian Cinema." 4 Sep 2009 .

Comedies, from the Greek, inventors of the catapult

Exploring the words comedy in depth was the plan for today. Comedy, from the Greek means anything humorous or amusing. It is explained differently between film and theatre. In theatre it can simply be described as a dramatic performance, which pits two groups or characters against each other in an amusing conflict. The comedies were first documented in the Greek theatre, when the performed their political satires. And even then, the voting was severely influenced by these satires. A lot of comedy has elements of surprise, conflict, repetitiveness and the effect of opposite expectations. But there are many different genres of comedy. The satire, parody, screwball comedy, black comedy, scatological humor, race humor, comedy of manners and romantic comedies to name most of the genres of comedies. One could go so much more into depth of each type of different comedy listed here. But this shows how many more elements of story there are in many different types of genres.

words

I came across an interesting word while reading, “What is a “nation”?” It was Ontological. I looked said word up and found this. That ontology originated from the Greek. It is a philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general. According to the web it was traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics. Ontology deals with questions concerning thatentities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

Nation?

The questions and theories, which Mr. Benedict Anderson came up with, are very interesting and different to say the least. The idea that a nation is an imagined community and only is a community that is socially constructed, even imagined, by people is an idea which most of us would never think about. To an extent though, I concur with his thoughts on the matter. He stated that people in this community haven’t met everyone else in this community, but they still imagine themselves as a whole though many haven’t met each other but they have similar interests and this makes up a nation. This is a good, sound theory and it makes a strange bit of sense if one puts it that way.

While reading I came upon a concept that I thought rather interesting and decadent at the same time. Mr. Anderson alluded to the fact that even though people have certain prejudices or inequalities in a nation, it is always conceived that the people in the nation are under a deep influence and obligation to comradeship. And as such, this makes is possible to willingly go to war and die for this imagined idea of nation. To me the concept is rather morbid that people in a nation are fighting and dying for an imagined concept. But it is a thing that needed to be done. Imagined or not, people need to stick together to form a civilized way of life, even if everyone in the “imagined nation” don’t know each other. If the true concept of nation, where only those who know each other personally were invited to join the nation, there would be millions of nations around the world and more than likely more fighting between the groups than ever before seen. Nations are a form of unity between many people, whether they all know each other or not. The people of the nation all have common interests and needs and most will proudly fight for their nation to keep it in tact, proving that it’s not merely an imagined thing but in fact a real idea of nation that people fight and die for.