Michael Billig > Quotes

“If the future remains uncertain, we know the past history of nationalism. And that should be sufficient to encourage a habit of watchful suspicion.”
― Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism

“A banal mysticism, which is so banal that all the mysticism seems to have evaporated long ago, binds 'us' to the homeland - that special place which is more than a place, more than a geophysical area.”
― Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism

“All societies that maintain armies maintain the belief that some things are more valuable than life itself.”
― Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism

“Whatever the issue, there is always something else to be said, another voice to be heard.”
― Michael Billig, Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology

“The sports pages are men's pages, although they are not presented as such. /.../ On foreign fields, the men win their trophies, or lose their honour, doing battle on the nation's behalf. The readers, mainly men, are invited to see these male exploits in terms of the whole homeland, and, thus, men's concerns are presented as if defining the whole national honour.
The parallel between sport and warfare seems obvious...”
― Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism

“Only by being alone – by resisting the blandishments to become part of the crowd – can the young thinker develop to think independently.”
― Michael Billig, Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences

“The works of the past don't have to be right to be great works.”
― Michael Billig

“Metonimijska slika banalnog nacionalizma nije zastava kojom se svesno maše u trenucima raspaljenih strasti; to je zastava koja visi nezapaženo na javnoj zgradi.”
― Michael Billig