Imagination: A Manifesto (A Norton Short)

Moving forward, then, requires remembering who we are.

Like author Arundhati Roy, I believe “another world is not only possible, she is on her way. . . . On a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.”

Today, the whiteness of the curriculum in many schools continues to perpetuate, albeit more subtly and usually without the threat of physical harm, an ongoing campaign of erasure that arrests the creativity and ingenuity of young people. It not only stunts the potential of those from marginalized groups but also narrows the worldviews of those deem

consider the relationship between restiveness and repose, and how the ease of a small stratum of the global population is predicated on extracting wealth, health, and rest from the masses. It holds a mirror up to the overstimulated, sleep-deprived societies of our present day.

“It would be bold, generative, and generous to consider what it would mean to design a socioeconomic system that does not require a ‘scored society.’ ” Can you imagine an economy free of the eugenics imagination??

“To be aware of . . . the market of competing dreams is quite important, when we think about what kind of a new story . . . we should be able to tell,” says Indra Adnan, of the political platform Alternative UK. Indeed, we must urgently transition from our current provincial, chauvinistic, and hierarchical nightmare to a planetary vision of human c

imagination is the invisible substructure, the narrative code, that shapes our material and digital worlds.

Lest we forget, designing cruel, oppressive structures involves imagination too.

“Aporophobia” is what philosopher Adela Cortina calls the fear, hatred, and rejection directed at poor people. The question is, should we try to change the rules to allow for more winners? Or is it possible to subvert the game, maybe even stop playing, and imagine a social and economic system that doesn’t immiserate the masses to enrich the few?

when computer scientists rely on their own limited intuitions to design systems, rather than engage theories that show how identities are “enacted, contextual, imaginative, and infrastructural,” they are likely to perpetuate patterns of discrimination and disenfranchisement.