Tag: Ernest Renan
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What is a Nation
The existence of a nation is a daily plebiscite. ~ Ernest Renan In 1882, the one-time seminarian turned positivist historian, Ernest Renan, delivered his influential lecture “What is a nation”. That the question even arises is a sign of modernity and Renan’s ultimate answer seems far from the answer of Western ruling elite today. In…
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Independence Day
Man is neither the slave of his race nor his language, neither of his religion nor of the course of rivers, not yet of the direction of mountain ranges. A great aggregation of men, healthy in mind and warm in heart, creates that moral consciousness that we call a nation. As long as this moral…