Ben Anderson dealt with the definition of nations. But somewhere in his notion of a nation being an imagined community, I found myself nodding my head in agreement. Mostly to the idea of how people need to belong, and how they identify themselves with communities. Like go up to a hardcore Victorian (from VJC or VS) and he will definitely profess a fair bit of loyalty and probably even space out for a few microseconds reminiscing about the awesome times he had at that school. Clearly, from my tone, I'm not he.
I don't identify myself with many groups, even though, in my experience, identification with a particular group can definitely break the ice. I remember two incidents, previously, where I was forced into proximity to people and there was clearly nothing to talk about. And then miraculously something came up (once it was soccer, and once it was a computer game) and suddenly that broke the ice.
But clearly identifying myself as a "soccer fan/player" or "fan of that computer game" does not suffice. I mean, where are these people now?
And identifying myself as an engineer (or a business student) is soo far from the truth. I need a smaller group that i can truly identify myself with, cos curently, i can't.
And everybody needs to belong right?
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