Imagination: The Gods We Make

In the previous post I posed a lot of questions about imagination, but didn’t provide much in the way of answers.  My hope is that by way of writing I might be able to begin some formulation of my own thinking about the role and the purpose of the imagination.  To begin that process, I would like to explore some of the ways we tend to get imagination wrong.  There seem to be a handful of common mistakes we make in relation to the role and function of the imagination, and interestingly enough, most of these errors emerge from pitting reason against imagination.  The following are simply three of the more common mistakes among many that could be listed.

Mistake 1: Imagination as Escape

Here the imagination is trivialized, cast as mere amusement or distraction meant to provide us with an escape from the humdrum of the everyday.  We might escape by way of our own daydreams or so-called “creative hobbies,” or by way of entertainment produced by creative types, probably in the form of TV or movies, or possibly even in the form of a novel, as long as it’s a page-turner. In this understanding imagination has no expansive qualities or positive social benefit.  It’s simply white noise meant to mask the din of the everyday.  Imagination might in some sense “take us out of ourselves,” but not for the purpose of expansion or improvement, but merely for the feeling of escape.  We emerge from our imaginative experiences, whether by way of consumption or production, like we emerge from a carnival full of spinning lights and clatter.  We stumble home at once light-headed and heavy, left woozy from the spinning rides and lethargic from sugar spikes and crashes. We might be satisfied in some sense, but imagination has made no demands of us.

Mistake 2:  Imagination as Madness

Here the imagination is feared. The fear recognizes imagination’s ability to take us out of ourselves, but dreads where that path might end.  We have seen enough greasy and wild haired geniuses to know that unrestrained imagination is nothing but a path to madness. And so we demand that imagination bend its knee to sovereign reason.  Once muzzled and tamed, imagination might serve reason the king but the Mad Hatter must never wear the crown. Artistic masterpieces serve as backdrop to political and social galas, or worse still as decoration for mouse-pads and coffee mugs.  Songs, some heart wrenching, some subversive, are invoked to sell cars, insurance, clothes, lifestyles, pills, ad nauseam. Fear is overcome by domestication. Imagination is neutered and declawed.

Mistake 3: Imagination as True Freedom

Here the imagination is exalted.  And here again imagination is pitted against reason.  In this understanding reason is something like a staid and unyielding governess, interested simply in rules and order. In a more extreme form, reason is a something like a sadistic nun bent on humiliation.  Only in rebellion against the rule of reason is there freedom. The Dionysian, the Romantic, and the myriad forms of the Bohemian all drink deeply from this wine skin.  And so the carnival becomes not a distraction from life in general, but the center of life itself.  There is no end to the revelry, and imagination becomes an end in itself, so that reason is not domesticated, but dismissed.  Reason is in exile while the Mad Hatter rules the kingdom. And this is the madness those who make the second mistake so fear.

Though each mistake is distinct, in each mistake, a god is made.  Escape becomes a god in the first mistake, reason in the second, and imagination in the third.   They all exalt the wrong thing because all three mistakes fail to consider how imagination and creativity might be used to serve our Creator.  Moreover, in these reflections, another question emerges.  What is the proper relation between imagination and reason?  Is there no reconciliation between the two?  To be sure there are real tensions between imagination and reason.  They are tumultuous brothers.  Like Jacob and Esau they battle for the birthright.  But can peace be negotiated?