National Identity Must Be A Melodrama

From a Google Books result done around the phrase “community of meaning” which I thought I coined, but which is actually part of symbolic interactionism:

National identity is not a theory but a leisure time practice… We owe everything to the melodrama. Its massive catharsis and emotional discharge suitable for the general public organizes their experience of reality. In the melodrama, the powerless and the heroic aspiration of a collectivity which has no public outlets are combined.

It’s from a Mexican writer, Carlos Monsivais.

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1 Reader Responses

1. Best Palin-Biden Debate Quote - [tmbchr]™ Says:
   October 2nd, 2008 at 9:09 pm

   […] Posted this recently, but worth doing it again in light of the nonsense being spewed from the television set: National identity is not a theory but a leisure time practice… We owe everything to the melodrama. Its massive catharsis and emotional discharge suitable for the general public organizes their experience of reality. In the melodrama, the powerless and the heroic aspiration of a collectivity which has no public outlets are combined. […]