How do we define ‘imagination’? Or, more importantly, should we even try to define imagination? A definition seems to defeat the purpose; it attempts to tie down something (A ‘quality’? An ‘attribute’?) which seems to be part of the definition of what it is to be a human person. Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, claimed that what distinguishes human persons from other animals is the ability to tell stories that feature themselves as characters – in other words, the ability to use our imagination. The standard ‘reading’ of imagination connects it to creativity, in the sense that we use our imaginations to create fictional narratives – in music, film, literature – that enable us to place others (characters) and ourselves in situations which do not – in some cases cannot – exist.
When we look at the way imagination is regarded, and treated, in our educational system, it quickly becomes clear that imagination is seen as a threat to what we can call the established order. In schools, art, music, ‘creative’ writing are embraced in primary, seen as allowing children to develop their ‘personalities’. However, this changes abruptly when the transition to secondary is made. The “imaginative subjects”, so desirable in primary school, are ‘ghettoised’, seen as ‘soft’; in traditional patriarchal terms, they’re seen as subjects that ‘girls’ take. Boys, on the other hand, are encouraged to focus on the sciences, maths and computing. Imagination becomes a threat to the “serious business” of employment and profit. Imagination is gradually categorised as something ‘childish’, a self-indulgence.
With the advent of the TUs and their focus on employment and graduates who are “ready for work”, plus the consequent pressure on the more traditional universities to follow suit, areas which emphasise the development of imagination are consigned to the periphery and, eventually, the scrapyard. In an environment led by profit and “what business wants”, imagination has no part to play – unless we allow its defintion to become “new and more sophisticated ways of exploiting others”. Which is, essentially, the only use that business has for imagination.
So, we might ask, what is business trying to exclude in relegating imagination to the sidelines? Thought. Imagination necessarily involves thought as a primary factor. Imagination involves a consideration of what it means to be a human person, and the positions which human persons find themselves in. What we might call “imaginative thought” focuses on what constitutes ‘good’ for both self and others. It examines exsisting ways of being and evaluates these, identifying injustices and, on occasion, suggesting solutions – how can situation X be made better (= fairer, more just). Imaginative thought refuses to accept that this is “just the way things are” or that ‘tradition’ should followed because it’s tradition.
Artefacts become meditations on Being. Imaginative thought consists of both conscious and unconscious ‘influences’. The work of the academic or the critic is to ‘discover’ these influences, to identify where the artefact has come from, what kinds of analyses it offers, and where it suggests that we might be ‘going’. The imaginative thought of the academic combines with that of the makar, as the imaginative thought of the philosopher interacts with the apparent ‘realities’ of being-in-the-world, to produce something greater than the sum of its parts.
It is this ‘something’ that creates apprehension, fear, in those who see their ‘function’ as “servicing the system”, hence, their attempts to minimise the opportunities students have to study A&H. They attempt to achieve this by introducing “business metrics”, and that simplistic notion of profit, into education. By continuing the marginalisation of A&H that begins in secondary school, they hope to “preserve the system”.
What terrifies the servants of the system is the unpredictability and critical acumen of imaginative thought. The values on which imaginative thought operates are those of the human person, what it means to live in the world, not those of the balance sheet.
Murmurs from the Forest 