Ernest Gellner: Culture

Ernest Gellner was Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist. Explore interesting quotes on culture.

Ernest Gellner: 64 quotes 0 likes

“Knowledge which … transcends the bounds, the prejudices and prejudgements of any one society and culture is not an illusion but, on the contrary, a glorious and luminous reality. Just how it was achieved remains subject to debate.”

Ernest Gellner

Reason and Culture (1992)

Knowledge , Reality

“Just as every girl should have a husband, preferably her own, so every culture must have its state, preferably its own.”

Ernest Gellner

The Coming of Nationalism and Its Interpretation: The Myths of Nation and Class in Mapping the Nation

Girl

“This is indeed one of the most important general traits of a modern society: cultural homogeneity, the capacity for context-free communication, the standardization of expression and comprehension.”

Ernest Gellner

Conditions of Liberty (1994)

Communication

“It is this which explains nationalism: the principle — so strange and eccentric in the age of agrarian cultural diversity and the 'ethnic' division of labour — that homogeneity of culture is the political bond, that mastery of (and, one should add, acceptability in) a given high culture … is the precondition of political, economic and social citizenship.”

Ernest Gellner

Nationalism (1997)

Age