This month, our imaginations took flight after a sneak preview of Ruha Benjamin’s latest book project, Imagination: A Manifesto. Professor Benjamin invited students to think with her about the ideas buried in social imaginaries today—how might we move beyond the “eugenics imagination” that animates cultural categories, and what might a transition imaginary look like instead? The comments flew thick and fast from students beguiled by her calls for rule-breaking and change-making (an opening example about cutting school emphasized the continuity between the two). Questions clustered around imaginary structures, such as the nation state, which seem desperately intractable in the world today. Is it possible to move beyond the abstraction of the nation-state whilst also recognizing its power and hold over us, and over history—even its value as a tool in the fight against colonialism?
I was particularly struck, as I have been before, by Professor Benjamin’s ability to think through and beyond scholarly debates. Although her work brings the heft of the social sciences to bear in understanding the world, she seems much less interested in disciplinary debates than in the big problems that define our times, and how we might solve them. To this end, she stitches together ideas from academia, literature, community workers, family and friends in her books; as an educator, she emphasizes the messiness of real problems, for example through her work with the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, of which she is the founding director. In fact, Professor Benjamin told BUSF this month that she is not wedded to particular words or turns of phrase—you can call it this, or that, but the point is, what effect does it have in the world? To illustrate this message, she described a research paper, ‘The Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves,’ which showed the counterintuitive way that ideas can operate in the world. In this particular paper, researchers Jennifer L. Eberhardt and Rebecca C. Hetey showed that statistical knowledge about racial disparities in the criminal justice system counterintuitively reinforces stereotypic assumptions that link Black people with crime. In other words, knowing that the policing and incarceration systems in the US target Black people makes Americans more supportive of those very systems. Clearly, the eugenics imagination works through deeply-entrenched patterns of cognition; reprogramming them will require, perhaps, real acts of imagination.
2 replies on “Imagine”
Professor Benjamin’s manifesto on imagination highlighted the surprisingly flexible nature of our world. Eugenics imaginaries currently govern many systems of oppression in such a way that feels totalizing and difficult to undermine. These eugenics imaginaries have established themselves in government, policing, education, the justice system, and nearly every aspect of our lives. However, they are exactly what they sound like—imaginaries. This means that the rules that govern imaginaries and the worlds created by them can be reimagined, shifted, and destroyed. I felt that the word “imaginary” changed the ways in which I relate to the systems of oppression around me. Thinking about institutions with histories, legacies, and bureaucracies that perpetuate inequity makes the world feel rigid and unchanging. However, Professor Benjamin’s writing captured the flexible and immaterial aspects of inequity that affects us all. Underlying the concrete pieces of legislation, for example, there’s a story about reality that informs decision-making. And this underlying quality is mutable. It is ungovernable by the harsh rules and restrictions that normally govern our world, thereby making it a powerful tool to create a better, fairer world. Imagination also empowers individual agency; it asks individuals to examine their own imaginations and exercise their imaginations as responsible, ethical adults. Eugenics imaginaries suggest that a group is choosing to opt into a version of reality. While opting in provides benefits for many people, there are also many people who embrace the task of abandoning antiquated and inequitable imaginaries. The discussion that followed Professor Benjamin’s presentation provided me with great optimism about the “imaginary” framework in compelling people to change and accept new, more beautiful imaginations.
After this month’s meeting with Professor Benjamin, I’m continuing to think about the relationship between imagination and learning. In most academic contexts I’ve been a part of at Princeton, professors model learning as sometime that happens “one-step-away” from our actual interests, feelings, and concerns. Unlike this kind of learning, imagination necessarily relies on grounded knowledge in our bodies and minds. When I’m really learning something, I feel like my curiosity compels me forward. The deeper I go into a given project, the more pleasure I find in gaining something that I didn’t realize I was seeking. There’s a real aesthetic pleasure in learning something new, and I find that as I get older, I’m more aware of its necessity in my life and yet I get less of it.
I think this pleasure is related to the wide gap between talking about reinventing one’s imagination and actually doing it. Aliya touches on this in her response, and I’d like to echo it: what does it really mean to heal your imagination? How can we teach and model a kind of learning that’s born out of our imaginations? For me, I have always found children to be a balm when my curiosity feels stunted. I find that children teach me how to experience the pleasure of discovering something new without judgement or expectation. Instead of me, the adult, holding a knowledge that they lack, I find myself learning more from children than they ever could learn from me. For teachers and scholars, I’m left wondering how it’s possible to connect the experiential pleasure of learning with the discussion around rejuvenating our imaginations. I’m really grateful for Professor Benjamin for modeling this thought in her discussion, and it’s something I’m hoping to realize in the coming months of my life.