Column: Imaginary community

An old lady from Sydney asked where I was from. I was in Sydney for the weekend, but was a study-abroad student in Townsville. She laughed and then apologized, asking if I had learned any choice words from the rough and tumble North Queenslanders. She was, along with all of her neighbors, according to the filthy-mouthed ruffians I live with, a pretentious, "cultured" Sydneyite. While these people never met, they knew enough about each other to pass judgment.

To an extent, their stereotypes hold merit. Most people in Townsville swear a lot and are a tougher breed; it takes a special mentality to ranch or harvest sugar cane in the tropics. It's the only place I've caught a right hook in the jaw for walking down a street. Sydney, too, has its charms, or as North Queenslanders say, "snooty culture," which includes opera, museums, classical music concerts and a decent fashion sense. North Queenslanders prefer to catch fish; Sydneyites prefer to buy fish. Sydney-dwellers eliminate pesky viruses on their computers. North Queenslanders use shotguns or clubs when they encounter vermin such as snakes or cane toads on their farms. However, when these surface differences subside, the people maintain a fierce national identity as Australians.

It's a natural human instinct to seek security in commonalties. It isn't natural to seek conflict. Nationalism serves as the manifestation of the imaginary community, the unification of human regional coalitions under one flag to pursue mutual interests and ensure personal security. Individual regions allied to an emblem often belittle fellow national partners. By pointing out weaknesses in other structures, superiority is emphasized.

The campus debate about the South and its cultural history illustrates this scenario perfectly. Basing a person's entire identity around regional heritage seems silly to me. The characteristics of supposed Southerners and Northerners are so easily applied to anyone that they lose their significance through homogenization. I've been called a "Southern gentleman" many times for holding open doors or getting beverages from coolers. Clearly I'm not one: my geographic upbringing eliminates "southern" and my headshot rules out "gentleman."

The outrage expressed emphasized minority oppression and personal identity on every side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Heritage is an intricate part of cultural and personal identity and should be celebrated, while seeking to mend the historical wrongs visited by that culture.

In idle times when the United States is, as George Carlin said, "not putting holes in other people's countries," the opportunity arises to debate our differences and drive a wedge between geographic regions based on current and past cultural aspects. National crisis reinforces damaged bonds, ensuring the structural stability of the imagined community. The disputes cease for a while, and we look outward at a new opponent, part of an entirely alien culture and not one a few states away.

The unfamiliar scares people. Yet, fear and distrust subside with acclimation. Nations wouldn't be possible without common faith and understanding. For nearly 300 years, nations have served as the primary governmental unit. Within each nation, peoples from diverse cultural backgrounds live in relative harmony because of nationalism and the imaginary community. Misperceptions and distrust of foreigners help maintain national borders.

Stereotypes, no matter how insane, quickly "educate" people on how others behave based on nationality, ensuring cultural divides. I need never meet a Frenchman. I have no time for their anti-American attitudes that pervade every single citizen. Even their babies loot McDonald's and protest our foreign policy before learning to walk. Thankfully, such attitudes are subsiding. With the European Union and the African Union, the opportunity arises to deconstruct the invisible community and transfer those sentiments causing personal allegiance from a nation to an encompassing body. The difficulties in creating a conciliatory international community are essentially the same faced by fiefdoms across Europe uniting to form nations many centuries ago.