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CIAO DATE: 03/02
Critical Review
The Modern Religion?
By Liah Greenfeld
Abstract
Nationalism is an essentially secular form of consciousness, one that, indeed, sacralizes the secular. This renders the tempation to treat it as a religion preblematic. The framewok of individual and collective identities in modern societies, nationalism both obscures the importance of the transcental concerns that lie at te core of great religions and undermines their authority. Though instrumental in the devlopment of nationalism, religion now exists on its sufferance, and serves mainly as a tool for the promotion of nationalist ends, not vice versa.