Industrialisation created nations

Ernest Gellner emphasises the movement from a feudal agrarian society to a modern industrial one as the driving force behind the emergence of nations.^[1] In pre-modern societies, elites sought to differentiate themselves culturally from those they ruled as a way to emphasise their social status. They had little interest in imposing any uniform culture on the various localities they ruled over. People in agricultural societies lived mainly in small, relatively isolated communities and learned necessary skills from immediate kin. Industrial societies create new social circumstances. Workers are far more mobile, more likely to meet strangers, and are adaptable. Navigating these new demands requires a single widespread language that encompasses all aspects of life. This eases communication between strangers. It also provides a common idiom by which specialist information can be transmitted. While some of groups assimilate, others resist cultural homogenisation and in doing so create their own standardised literate culture. The result is the conceptualisation of various separate nations where new cultural groups are disadvantaged by the new system and seek to secede to form their own political body.

[P1] The transition from agricultural to industrial economies transforms society by increasing mobility and specialisation. [P2] New standardised forms of culture develop to cope with these changes by easing communication. [P3] These new means of communications reshape popular mentalities creating communities that identify themselves based on newly constructed linguistic and cultural homogeneity. [P4] Assimilation into these communities or resistance to assimilation by building rival cultures fuels the rise of nations.