Necessary Illusions in the Global Village - The birth of an imagined community - part 1

Necessary Illusions in the Global Village - The birth of an imagined community

It is true. Men is unaware of the things that totally surrounds him. It is like with our heartbeat that we notice only in rare, very quiet situations that reminds us of what we can forget about and what would still beat.

But not only our inner organs that regulate our body, also the sense organs, that expand our inner capacities, are quiet unaware when sensation hits in. It is the delight we take in our senses which are loved for their own sake that we do not feel the urge to teach our children how to hear, see, touch or smell. It is something that approaches them rather than they do something to approach it.

What is true for our selfs is true for the pictures we watch on our screens. The advent of a nation - Kosovo - last weekend is a perfect example. The pictures of the people celebrating their “independence” are quiet real. They are, as far as the air we breath or the keyboard we touch are real too. But what is not real in the same sense is the nationalist myth that we take for granted.