Clearly, the qualities Poles admire in a secretary of state - foreign languages, diplomatic experience, even sense of humor - are emphatically not those desired in a head of state: So be it.
Anne ApplebaumRead
All nations are imagined communities, and our imagined community is based on a uniquely inspiring set of principles. Americans have proved that they can be loyal to, and will fight on behalf of, a more complex, more cerebral national ideal, one derived from ideas of democracy and justice as opposed to blood and soil.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nations exist as collective ideas shaped by shared principles rather than purely ethnic or territorial ties.
Anne Applebaum's quote highlights the notion that nations are constructs of shared beliefs and ideals, particularly emphasizing the American identity, which is founded on democratic principles and concepts of justice. This perspective challenges the traditional notions of national identity based solely on ethnicity or geography, suggesting that loyalty to a nation can stem from a commitment to its ideals rather than its bloodlines or land.
Themes
NationsCommunitiesDemocracyJusticePrinciplesLoyaltyIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a lecture on political science to illustrate the concept of national identity.
More from Anne Applebaum
All quotes →At times when people fear death, they go along with measures that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will save them - even if that means a loss of freedom. Such measures have been popular in the past.
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Birtherism surely increased Americans' distrust of politics, though in ways that are hard to pin down. By contrast, when anti-vaxxers persuade parents not to vaccinate children, the result can be sickness and even death.
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Quite a lot has been written, including by me, about the effect of social media on politics, and in particular the way in which the algorithms built into Facebook and YouTube are more likely to spread angry, extremist and deliberately provocative political language.
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As a journalist, I know what it is like to incur the self-righteous wrath of people who denounce you for things you didn't say or didn't mean.
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If we can't have a public debate because the information space is so polluted, or because people are afraid of the reactions of organized trolls, then we can't really have meaningful elections anymore, either.
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