imagination
______
from David Graeber‘s revolution in reverse.. – p 3: on conflict of violence and imagination… and on transcendent vs immanent imagination..
immanent: “the imagination” was considered the zone of passage between reality and reason… rather than transcendent: only after Descartes, really, that the word “imaginary” came to mean, specifically, anything that is not real: imaginary creatures, imaginary places (Middle Earth, Narnia, planets in faraway Galaxies, the Kingdom of Prester John…), imaginary friends. By this definition of course a “political ontology of the imagination” would actually a contradiction in terms.
[..]
One must be able to imagine oneself and others as integrated subjects in order to be able to produce beings that are in fact endlessly multiple, imagine some sort of coherent, bounded “society” in order to produce that chaotic open-ended network of social relations that actually exists, and so forth.
emergence ness
rev of everyday life ness
now back to that whole section:
one really thinks about it, though, the argument is much less powerful than it seems. After all, what are academic theorists saying? They are saying that the idea of a unitary subject, a whole society, a natural order, are unreal. That all these things are simply figments of our imagination. True enough. But then: what else could they be? And why is that a problem? If imagination is indeed a constituent element in the process of how we produce our social and material realities, there is every reason to believe that it proceeds through producing images of totality. That’s simply how the imagination works. One must be able to imagine oneself and others as integrated subjects in order to be able to produce beings that are in fact endlessly multiple, imagine some sort of coherent, bounded “society” in order to produce that chaotic open-ended network of social relations that actually exists, and so forth. Normally, people seem able to live with the disparity. The question, it seems to me, is why in certain times and places, the recognition of it instead tends to spark rage and despair, feelings that the social world is a hollow travesty or malicious joke. This, I would argue, is the result of that warping and shattering of the imagination that is the inevitable effect of structural violence
and from p 4: rev in reverse
“We must make our freedom by cutting holes in the fabric of this reality, by forging new realities which will, in turn, fashion us. Putting yourself in new situations constantly is the only way to ensure that you make your decisions unencumbered by the inertia of habit, custom, law, or prejudice — and it is up to you to create these situations
Freedom only exists in the moment of revolution. And those moments are not as rare as you think. Change, revolutionary change, is going on constantly and everywhere — and everyone plays a part in it, consciously or not.”
What is this but an elegant statement of the logic of direct action: the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free?
The obvious question is how it can contribute to an overall strategy, one that should lead to a cumulative movement towards a world without states and capitalism.
Here, no one is completely sure. Most assume the process could only be one of endless improvisation.
yes.. let’s do that.. rev of everyday life.. via hosting-life-bits through daily self-talk as data … ie: a nother way
Insurrectionary moments there will certainly be. Likely as not, quite a few of them. But they will most likely be one element in a far more complex and multifaceted revolutionary process whose outlines could hardly, at this point, be fully anticipated.
_______
also heavy in Yuval Noah Harari‘s tedglobal – on the thing that lets us flexibly and largely cooperate
and Muhammad Yunus‘s social fiction – on the vision that gets us there
and Mukunda Angulo ‘s – imagination as freedom
and beginnings/ongoings of a lab – imagination and play – as research
_______
@lemire
Imagining the future trumps intelligence… http://goo.gl/fb/VPulVG
I am never worried about my kids lacking intelligence, but I am often concerned when I see that they can’t imagine the future being different
_______
cool/resonating explanation (ha) of imagination on p 45-6 of Dave Elder-Vass‘ cps
p 45chart… bhaskar’s three domains: populating entities
real.. actual.. empiricalmechseventsexperiencesbhaskar ids real cps w ‘relatively enduring structure and mechs’ that are ‘nothing other than the ways of acting of things’
mech for rev of everyday life deep enough
p 46but on other hand, there is something about cps that is independent of any particular actual entity that possesses them, and it is this that bhaskar is gesturing towards when he argues that cps as such are real but not actual.. ie: bird flies.. actual if bird parts are there doing it.. but still real that birds can fly w/o parts
this is a fact about reality that is true independently of what actually exists in the world, and it is just such facts that science uncovers. these are the mechs that are real but not actual; such mechs are implicit in the nature of the universe, whether (and before) we seek to actualise them, and....it is only if such mechs are real that science makes sense…
back to first line..on the one hand, as he says, ‘the generative mechs of nature exist as the cps of things’; and if the actual is the domain of what exists, this would seems to make things, their cps and their mechs part of the actual.. in this view of causality, cps can only operate when they are properties of actual things.. (then goes into above.. on the other hand)
h u g e
on the contrary, the idea that there are real but not actual cps implies that it was always true that if an entity of a given type appeared it would have the powers that follow from its characteristic parts and structure..
_______
a nother way ness
________
________
via Maria on wallace stevens and imagination
https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/06/12/wallace-stevens-the-necessary-angel-imagination-reality/
It is not that there is a new imagination but that there is a new reality.
[..]
[The artist] must be able to abstract himself and also to abstract reality, which he does by placing it in his imagination… It imperative for him to make a choice, to come to a decision regarding the imagination and reality; and he will find that it is not a choice of one over the other and not a decision that divides them, but something subtler, a recognition that here, too, as between these poles, the universal interdependence exists, and hence his choice and his decision must be that they are equal and inseparable.
[..]
it is not a social obligation.. No politician can command the imagination, directing it to do this or that.
[..]
he (the artist) gives to life the supreme fictions without which we are unable to conceive of it.
a nother way – faciling the imagination of 7 bn people.. everyday.. as the day
[..]
As a wave is a force and not the water of which it is composed, which is never the same, so nobility is a force and not the manifestations of which it is composed, which are never the same… It is not an artifice that the mind has added to human nature. The mind has added nothing to human nature. It is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without. It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality. It seems, in the last analysis, to have something to do with our self-preservation; and that, no doubt, is why the expression of it, the sound of its words, helps us to live our lives.
_________
@RitaJKing
We need applied imagination now, more than ever.
@jhagel
I was recently captivated by the term “The Imagination Age” – I should have known that it came from @RitaJKingbit.ly/2zeDJEF
Imagination sounds fluffy, but in this context, it isn’t. It’s how our brains create a path from where we are to where we want to be, despite roadblocks, nebulous areas and unexpected events.
While I love to daydream and let my mind wander, that’s not what the Imagination Age is about. It’s about pragmatic ways to have a real impact and to stick with it even when it’s hard
We have a long, hard road ahead, now that we have the technology and power to shape reality in ways that were not possible before. The only thing we can do is take one step at a time, over and over and over, and with each step go further, together.
and/or.. we can leap..
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
_________
mar 2018 interview
Human imagination derives from something other than repeated experience..t
imagination ness
That real creativity, and real imagination, provides less answers than it provokes questions. It initiates a process that most people today can’t tolerate because they want conclusion. They want answers. They want endings. Imagination doesn’t do that. Imagination opens things. It creates questions. Imagination is not death. It’s life. Most people don’t like life. They want the security of death.
because they/we’re intoxicated.. not natural.. not really us.. ie: black science of people/whales law
_________
__________
John Hagel (@jhagel) tweeted at 5:48 AM – 8 May 2019 :
The imagination doesn’t measure, devise, or instrumentalize. Its nature is to open, to mystify, to delight, shock, inspire https://t.co/7Ak4pZTAUo (http://twitter.com/jhagel/status/1126091471810170880?s=17)with this absurd and unprecedented event, this sudden and gratuitous evocation of an alternative reality, the spell is broken. .t
all imaginative productions rise up from the unconscious to expand the soul, to help us feel who we really are and what the world really is. Imagination isn’t an escape from reality. Imagination deepens and enriches reality, adding texture, depth, dimension, feeling, and possibility..t
I am convinced that the world could be, and actually is, otherwise — that its possibilities aren’t limited to the tangible, the knowable, the negotiable, to the data we are constantly collecting about practically everything measurable..t
Data gives us the illusion that we know the world. But the world is more than we know. The imagination doesn’t measure, devise, or instrumentalize. It doesn’t define or manipulate.
any form of measuring/accounting
Spiritual practice is one of the key sites of imagination. I don’t see a big distinction between spirituality and religion, as many do these days. To me, spiritual practice is simply authentic religion, connected to observance and experience, beyond ideology and belief.
__________
Zen Moments (@Zen_Moments) tweeted at 4:42 AM – 30 Dec 2019 :
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young. ~ Paul McCartney (http://twitter.com/Zen_Moments/status/1211613443813453825?s=17)
__________
be you. 