Imagination: A Manifesto (A Norton Short)

we must consider what it takes to clear our vision and behold a bigger picture that includes incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people as protagonists in their own stories and co-builders of our collective future.

why on earth would we believe that a colonizing impulse would magically lead to universal prosperity this time around?

One way to tell if your vision of the future is new or just new-ish is whether it seriously aims to alleviate the injustice and suffering of the present.

reflected back at us in our institutions and social relationships.

As historian Robin D. G. Kelley asks, “Even if we could gather together our dreams of a new world, how do we figure them out in a culture dominated by the marketplace?”

Guided by the gospels of “radical longtermism” and “effective altruism” (EA), these newfangled storytellers are devoted to the flourishing of imaginary future people rather than the well-being of the masses right here, right now.

The fact is, “exceptional Negroes” have always been a staple of an apartheid-like educational system that separates the “gifted” from the “normal,” and both from the “naughty” or “underachieving.” Sticks and stones will only break my bones, but words can lift or crush me.

The question we face now is whether we can imagine a world in which social acceptance does not rest on these kinds of judgments. You belong without having to show proof of your fitness or superiority.

This is a good reminder that we shouldn’t shine a light only on the deadly imaginations and social orders that are killing us but experiment and play with new prescriptions, visions, and forms of social organization.