e makes his choice is irrelevant. It is only when he consented to participate in the community will he readily conform to the community norms and values.Society cultural consciousness would then play an important role in dictating the speed of his consent. According to Herder, people become aware of their heritage when they read or listen to myths, legends and even songs. By doing so, the community captures the Volgeist or the spirit of the people. Language is thus seen as an important medium in spreading a community’s culture as it contains people traditions and historical memories. Therefore a nation is defined as the unification of people through the sharing of the same cultural heritage (Heywood, 1997: 105).This approach has been met with several criticisms. Firstly, according to Gellner the definition used is too wide (Gellner, 1983: 53). By adopting the above criteria, any social network with the same cultural norms and values are entitled to call themselves as a nation. This would include clubs or any other associations. Another problem encountered by this definition is the impossibility of limiting cultural boundaries. In addition to that Herder’s claim of the unification of the people through a common language could be dismissed as most nations have several national languages due to its multicultural population. Switzerland, for example, has three national languages and a multicultural population and yet she is still defined as a single nation. Hence, Gellner argued that in reality nations are not naturally formed through the cultural histories of the people but instead are formed by the will of the people who manipulates the cultural histories to suit their motives (Gellner, ibid: 53). In other words, cultures are just the by-product of people’s will and might not even reflect the community real histories. Language for example changes with every generation as people adapt the language to suit their changing ...
