Imagination
A Manifesto
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
“Start here, and then go about the work of imagining the world anew.” —Arimeta Diop, Vanity Fair
In this revelatory work, Ruha Benjamin calls on us to take imagination seriously as a site of struggle and a place of possibility for reshaping the future.
A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn’t strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.
Imagination: A Manifesto is her proclamation that we have the power to use our imaginations to challenge systems of oppression and to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable—but all emerged from the human imagination.
The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems.
Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison’s instruction: “Dream a little before you think.”
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Benjamin (Viral Justice) posits in this wide-ranging treatise that "collective imagination" will be a key force behind the creation of an emerging new social order. Arguing that the world is "between stories" (quoting historian Thomas Berry) and thus ready to discard dead ideas of racism and nationalism and dream new social arrangements into being, Benjamin asserts that "it matters whose imaginations get to materialize as our shared future." She cautions that society is in danger of being ensnared by the quasi-utopias on offer from tech titans, where the well-off escape problems rather than solve them and technology is used to police and surveil regular people. Benjamin goes on to critique other realms of failed imagination, including America's education system ("a site of spirit murder") and prison system. She highlights projects that, in her view, direct collective imagination toward more just and humane outcomes, ranging from experiments in data sovereignty in Barcelona to a virtual reality art installation honoring Breonna Taylor's life. Throughout, Benjamin's roving narrative moves nimbly between topics to make her case (at one exemplary point she pauses her analysis of a documentary on creative writing programs for prisoners to note how it reminds her of a line from Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go: "Could a creature without a human spirit create such heart-wrenching paintings?"). It's a powerful exhortation for society to point its dreams toward the collective good.
