From Imagination to Well-Controlled Images

Abstract

Imagination is one of the basic mental capacities that define humans as a species. Throughout history, the capacities of imagination and of liberated thought have always constituted threats to political and religious powers. Using the example of two dictatorships in the 20th century, Nazism and Stalinism, this chapter shows that these regimes used the capacity to imagine by enforcing the development of images that served their totalitarian purposes. Negative features of social imaginaries, like technicization and bureaucratization, also infiltrated nontotalitarian systems and modern democracies. Imagination is intertwined with other features of the dialogical mind and, therefore, can be understood only if explored in a holistic manner as a feature of thinking, in relation to language and other symbolic capacities and in their sociocultural contexts.

Imagination in people and societies on the move: A sociocultural psychology perspective

“…Conversely, some nation-states control the cultural elements people have access to, and with it, attempt to refrain their imagination of alternative lives; these would also usually control or forbid the outcomes of imagination, if these are statements, writings or art pieces that question the setting (Zittoun, 2018). Of course, things are not so linear, as people may engage in personal or even underground imagining escaping political control; and also, in apparently free national environments, administrative governance may actually subtly limit and channel imagination (Markova´, 2018). Finally, the outcomes of imagination can be very personal -it can lead to new action or change one's life trajectory, or can be social -if, as mentioned, these are shared, carried on by others, etc., and lead to revolution, major innovation (Zittoun & Gillespie, 2018), or massive flows of migration and mobility.…”

“I Have Been Born, Raised and Lived My Whole Life Here” – Perpetually on the Move While Remaining Still

“…People can also be very geographically mobile yet symbolically immobile and be immobilized but explore distant places and futures symbolically – as might be the case during a global pandemic. People’s capacities to be symbolically mobile depend on access to symbolic and economic resources as well as existing power structures (Marková, 2017 ). Symbolic mobility is connected to other forms of mobilities; very often, imagination is a central part of and develops with geographical movement.…”

“…Centralisation represents the gravitational pull in a given horizon; it can be due to salient features of the socio-material landscape or to strong normative forces that steers people’s sense of possibility. Centralisation typically occurs when some institutions or authorities control access to resources for imagining, or control people’s modes of imagining (Hawlina, 2019 ; Marková, 2017 ; Zittoun & Gillespie, 2018 ). Expansion, in contrast, denotes the non-linear or non-teleological transformation of the imaginative horizon.…”

Project Earthrise: Inspiring Creativity, Kindness and Imagination in Planetary Health

“…The fruits of creativity, especially when they surprising to others, may be useful in solving problems, assisting in communicating with others, and may possess broad social value [54][55][56] (Figure 6). Indeed, the trajectories of notable social movements, those involving civil rights or social justice for example, can be tied to imagination and creativity [57,58]. Recall, Martin Luther King's galvanizing oration, certainly one of the most famous speeches in human history, which involved "having a dream" [59].…”