Sublime

The idea of a sociological organism moving calendrically through homogeneous, empty time is a precise analogue of the idea of the nation, which also is conceived as a solid community moving steadily down (or up) history.39 An American will never meet, or even know the names of more than a handful of his 240,000,000-odd fellow-Americans. He has no

As narrativas populistas, nacionalistas, extremistas de direita ou tribais, inclusive as narrativas conspiratórias, atendem a essa necessidade. Elas são aceitas como propostas de sentido e identidade.

The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind. The most messianic nationalists do not dream of a day when all the members of the human race will join their

massive reorganization of capital flows and the remaking of individuals into “entrepreneurs of their human capital.”

"I am a legend," he told a group of foreign investors at a dinner speech in March 2001 shortly before his appointment to head the Economy Ministry. The power of his intellect, his incorruptibility, and the sincerity of his desire for his country's well-being were undeniable; the only question was whether he had a sense of proportion about himself.

Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to

In their analysis of contemporary capitalism, Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello have pointed to the array of forces that esteem the individual who is constantly engaged, interfacing, interacting, communicating, responding, or processing within some telematic milieu.