Don’t tell me about “economic anxiety.” That’s not what happened in Poland, which grew steadily through the financial crisis and its aftermath. And it’s not what happened here in 2016: Study after study has found that racial resentment, not economic distress, drove Trump voters.
– Paul Krugman from Why It Can Happen Here
American elites are monopolizing progress, and monopolies can be broken. Aggressive policies to protect workers, redistribute income, and make education and health affordable would bring real change. But such measures could also prove expensive for the winners. Which gives them a strong interest in convincing the public that they can help out within the system that so benefits the winners.
– Anand Giridharadas from Beware Rich People Who Say They Want to Change the World
It’s true that Denmark doesn’t at all fit the classic definition of socialism, which involves government ownership of the means of production. It is, instead, social-democratic: a market economy where the downsides of capitalism are mitigated by government action, including a very strong social safety net.
What if one of the make-or-break achievements in life is learning how to grapple with the following challenge:
Live in the present, but imagine in the future.
What if that is much easier said than done? What does it take to really imagine in the future? How does one really assess the “present”?
What if the desire to align one’s actions/behaviors to an imagined future is really counterproductive? What if I could be undertaking much more productive projects if I committed more fully to a near-term agenda? (Is diversifying one’s actions a matter of hedging against an unknown future?)
And what if, instead of trying to imagine my way out of the present, I let me imagination wander more freely? What if I made grander assumptions about the future? Would that in fact help me choose better projects in the present? (Isn’t this really what I already do—but not really with much self-awareness?)
What’s a better direction to push in? Connect the present with the imagined? Or disentangle them further?
Isn’t it also a bit of a paradox to live without imagining the future? Where does the absurdity kick in? When I try to align my actions to things that haven’t yet taken place but could transpire in 10, 20, 30 or 100 years? And can one align one’s actions to things that seem unlikely to ever transpire? Would this be considered rational behavior?
It’s the economy.
A simple example that inspires this meditation is how financial markets allow investors to place bets on the future, thereby enabling businesses to use capital to make that future more likely to come transpire. Or money itself, really—an invention of human imagination that enables humans to align their actions in innovative and world-changing ways. We are able to use imagination to change the future—literally building the living conditions and constraints of not-yet-even-born humans.
This is both very banal (we determine the future!) and operationally unsettling (the quality of our imagination can determine every aspect of human livelihood!) in this matter. Particularly: how much can any one human really contribute to this reality-bending? And in a deeply pro-capitalist, anti-humanist society, how is the scale and scope of one’s contribution directly tied to their wealth?
We’re doomed?
What if we humans are just not that good at imagining complex things? (Or just not that good of thinking in general?) Or what if the humans that are good at imagining are systematically selected against (to lean on evolutionary terminology) when capital is distributed? Or what if the selection process that would eventually promote “good imaginers” (obviously a loaded notion) is just too slow?
Talk of racism in the U.S. has grown tremendously this year. I feel a key underlying issue of racism itself is a lack of imagination, or effort to use one’s imagination in such a context.
Why are some people racist? Do they feel superior to others? Or rather, do they fail to understand the struggles of others? These are some preliminary questions that come to mind. Sometimes we focus on a failure of empathy to understand racism, but the broader concept of imagination is also interesting to consider.
An exploration of an “imagination deficit” could be defined by at least a few different moments:
The latter aspect of an imagination deficit—an unwillingness to accept or embrace change—is particularly bothersome in a world full of institutionalized racism. For it’s from the vantage of acceptance that one can enact behavioral change (not espousing racist views, for example). And alas, it’s the hard work of taking the final step of championing change that makes real change possible.
We can also understand an imagination deficit by coming at this the other way around: a resistance to change. Why, after all, do some people resist change? Are they so comfortable? Are they so worried about losing power or control?
Either way, the ability to imagine a future that is more fair and just for everyone would seem to be a key motivation.
I wonder if an argument from imagination could be useful in conversations with racists. (Did Maxine Green think so?)
I suspect that an inability to imagine a different future isn’t only manifested in racism, but sexism and discrimination of all sorts as well.
I would love to expand this into a longer reflection on the liberal ideal of progressivism.
Like creativity, innovation is a diffuse concept that requires a significant amount of rehabilitation to be used in an effective, precise way. The two concepts are indeed often intertwined. But I would want to argue that “innovation” is analogous to corporate personhood—and deserving of the same liberal ire.
OK, let me unpack this a bit. First, it appears as if organizations more often (are said to) seek innovation whereas individuals seek creativity. To wit: “innovation will lead us to the next big product.” Creativity seems to align better with masterpieces and experiments.
Innovation is “new;” creativity is “original.”
Both these statements drive me a bit bonkers (insofar as they are often unsubstantiated) , but can of course be meaningful and profound. But are these perhaps two sides of the same coin? Or should they be understood entirely differently?
Shouldn’t they be viewed analogously to persons and corporate persons —one aspirational, and the other antagonistic to the aspiration?
Yet at every turn both concepts will resist definition. Is innovation about technological change? Well, not exactly. Is creativity about imagination? Well, again, not exactly. An essay would have to focus on a broad-yet-common conceptualization of each term, and locate historical uses that exemplified their similarities and contrasts.
Could pitting them against each other be instrumental in expressing value for humanity over technology-fo-technologies-sake? Maybe!
It seems worth trying.
It clashes with surrounding buildings with a modern defiance. It serves the community in deeply important and practical ways. And its cold, metallic surfaces reflect orange sunsets with a surprising warmness. What is it?
A coffee trailer in New York City, of course. But also: it’s Columbia University’s new $200 million interdisciplinary science building at the intersection of Broadway and West 120th Street.
When the freshly-poured sidewalk opened yesterday, the local coffee trailer (or is it a stand? or cart?) rolled back into place. As I approached the intersection, it was plainly clear to me: the starchitech José Rafael Moneo has created a monumental tribute to the community’s humble source of caffeine.
Over the course of its construction, and before the comparison to the coffee trailer could be made definitively, the building appeared as a large air conditioning unit (a feeble response to climate change?). But with the trailer back in place, the building’s stark, patterned, mechanical form struck this new, friendlier note.
The building likely mirrors the coffee trailer that historically made its home on the corner. I imagine Moneo visiting the site for the first time: after travelling to campus, he walks north up Broadway. It’s a cold, rainy November day, and he arrives at “his” intersection for the first time. It’s a little before 9am (the subway was pleasantly on time), and he has a moment to himself before his team arrives. There’s a coffee trailer parked on the sidewalk – no bigger than a large refrigerator – with two men inside, back to back, serving coffee and preparing hot breakfast sandwiches on a small grill. “That’s it,” he says to himself, with all the determination and confidence of an experienced architect. “That’s my building.”
According to The New York Times, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger asked Moneo to:
… support, and make a statement about, Columbia’s commitment to interdisciplinary science; to open the university to its neighborhood and animate its backyard… although the building also needed to get along with its immediate neighbors…
Moneo clearly followed Bollinger’s “complex set of mandates” very closely, as it certainly doesn’t get any more interdisciplinary than caffeine. Aesthetically, the result is glorious. And the neighbors? Now back in place after a nearly two-year-long displacement (to a mid-block location), the coffee trailer has assumed its new role.