Running head:

A Mind for Murder

A Mind for Murder: Rethinking the Exalted Imagination

Michael Ernest Sweet

Concordia University - Department of Education

Essay

Michael Ernest Sweet

Spring, 2007

Philosophy of Imagination: Understanding Greene and Egan

“My eyes are cameras. My mind is tuned to more television channels than exist in your world. And it suffers no censorship. Through it, I have a world and the universe as my own. So, save your sympathy and know that only a body is in prison. At my will, I walk your streets and am right out there among you.” –Charles Manson (Convicted Cult Leader)

Maxine Greene and Kieran Egan, two prominent educational philosophers, have championed the importance of the imagination in education for decades. Greene (1995, 1998, 2001, 2003) essentially claims that the imagination “allows people to think of things as if they could be otherwise; it is the capacity that allows a looking through the windows of the actual towards alternative realities” (2003, p.63). Egan (personal communication, March 11, 2007) believes the imagination to be central to education because “imagination involves the capacity to be liberated from the constraints of literal and conventional thinking; it gives us the power to conceive of new possibilities”. As we can see, both Greene and Egan share a closely related understanding of why the imagination is important in education; it frees the mind.

In recognition of this shared vision I have partnered these two philosophers and will proceed to examine their thought in tandem insofar as they both project a generally similar view of the benefits of imagination. Not wishing to diminish the very real distinctions in their thought, my examination does centre on where these two scholars converge in relation to their philosophy of imagination. I will refer to their conception as the ‘exalted imagination’, borrowing the term from Maguire (2006) which denotes a modern, highly positive understanding of the faculty which has also collected various aspects of its ontology from the depths of its annals. That is, the modern exalted imagination is not a notion wholly developed in the modern period, rather a conception assembled mainly in the modern period, drawing from imagination’s far-reaching history[1]. This understanding; this exalted imagination, is shared by a number of contemporary scholars (see, for example, Warnock, 1976; White, 1990; Nussbaum, 1995) who have ushered in a modern fascination with the imagination. This, in turn, has lead to a call for more imagination and a claim that imagination is overwhelmingly a good thing. I am suspect of both of these declarations. Regardless, in light of this there seems to be the emergence of a movement for contemporary educational policy to place imagination, its development, promotion, and general celebration at the top of the heirchiy in terms of organizing themes for school curricula. Maxine Greene and Kieran Egan are two prominent scholars at the fore of such a movement.

In this article I will examine the fundamental claims of Greene and Egan in relation to the exalted imagination, and assess the philosophical foundations upon which they stand. Why should we, as educators, be concerned about Greene and Egan’s claims that modern education is neglecting this most important mental faculty? Does their concept of imagination, as essentially allowing for thought about new possibilities, harmonize with traditional philosophical understandings of the imagination?

Very shortly into an investigation of the philosophical history of imagination, one will find themselves in a quicksand of inconsistency. E.J. Furlong (1961) opens his book on imagination saying that, “A philosopher surveying the territory defined by the term ‘imagination’ finds it a dense and tangled piece of country” (p. 15). Nigel Thomas (1997) intensifies the problem suggesting our sum total of understanding in relation to imagination just doesn’t add up. This echoes Kieran Egan (1992) himself who says, “In the case of imagination, I think this sense of vagueness [in terms of understanding the imagination] is due in part to its complexity but also in part to its containing a number of elements that do not sit comfortably together” (p.9). Then there are those who suggest that we have not even made appropriate attempts towards understanding the imagination; Maguire says, “One receives the force of imagination, but often without sustained examination, like a dark energy that differentiates and expands what is, permitting life and the emergence of worlds, but whose ultimate source and powers are called upon rather than comprehended” (2006, p. 2). Maguire ends with the claim that “there is as yet no answer to the question of what imagination is…” (2006, p. 9).

I also wonder about our possibilities of uncovering an epistemological definition of imagination. Imagination would seem to be the very power we must call upon, delve into, in order to attempt to grasp at its definition. For it is in the mind’s eye that imagination resides as there are no perceptible qualities, no quantifiable elements or touchable models; like using a word in its very definition, I am suspect about how flourishing such an investigation might become. Perhaps, we must resign ourselves to the idea that imagination may be empistomologically difficult or even impossible, and that all we can strive for is the ability to reach a realm of our consciousness, the nexus of imagination and self where Egan says that “perception, memory, idea generation, emotion, metaphor, and no doubt other labeled features of our lives meet” (1992, p. 3). It is here that we may look about and depend on the false hopes of language to express what we may glimpse; to provide us with an elusive depiction of what we may come to understand as our imagination.

Although there are perhaps as many ways of unfolding the philosophical beliefs of the imagination as there are beliefs and philosophers, I will focus my examination on the exalted imagination as portrayed by Greene and Egan; their seeming omission of imagination’s more neutral attributes and indeed even its darker side. Although they do not discount the darker history of the imagination entirely, accounts of its ability to cause unwanted outcomes, even evil, they do not seem to join these accounts with their proposed frameworks for employing the imagination within contemporary schooling. That is, there seems to be the belief among Greene and Egan that the imagination has evolved beyond this darker history into the purely positive mental faculty of the modern or even contemporary exalted imagination; a conception of the faculty which appears to have been cleansed to the point of delivering us into a promised land with certainty.

Egan (1992) provides what he terms A Very Short History of Imagination in the opening of his book Imagination in Teaching and Learning but only to end the history by picking and choosing what he sees as relevant to a modern conception of imagination; one which suits the educational community and all but ignores other aspects of its history. He states that “imagination is the capacity to think of things as possibly being so; it is an intentional act of mind; it is the source of invention, novelty, and generativity… a capacity that greatly enriches rational thinking” (1992, p. 43). Egan seems to have formed his own ‘tailored’ version of imagination; a version to sit comfortably with the notion of a modern exalted conception. There is no mention of dangers or evil; of fools of the imagination or murder and mayhem.

This, generally, seems to be the modus operandi of many scholars attempting to assemble a definition of imagination; terminating in what would seem a series of disconnected and fragmented definitions essentially constructed to suite the variety of situations in which they have been assembled; a more general problem of essentially contested concepts like the imagination.

Greene and Egan both draw heavily upon the contemporary end of the imaginative genealogy of thought in that they effectively believe it capable of, indeed necessary for, creative thinking and the generation of novel ideas – generativity. However, neither philosopher eliminates the acceptance of the presence and use of images, an element from its settled history, within their concept. In fact, Egan goes as far as claiming that perhaps images are always invoked in the effecting of the imagination, but that what takes place mentally is not arrested within an essence of imagery alone. Where the two break away from traditional philosophy is in the belief that the imagination can produce something new, novel, and ‘other’ than present reality, and, at least by implication, that this novel production is most often positive and desirable. This differs succinctly from Aristotle and Plato who both believed the imagination to be merely a faculty of the mind which copied what was already in the world or as Kearney (1988) puts it “reproductive rather than productive” (p.113).

Hobbes (1968) also writes extensively about the imagination and its compelling association with the senses, in Leviathian he likens the imagination to an ocean wave; as it rolls on after the wind ceases, so too does our imagination ‘roll on’ within ourselves. Thus, the images which are involved in the imagination as conceptualized by those such as Aristotle and Hobbes are images which represent objects in reality and not images of what does not yet exist. Although I am weary of granting the imagination unlimited positive powers like Greene and Egan, I am also suspect of the imagination not having been rightly understood as exceeding merely sense perception or mixing thereof. For example, as Egan (1997, p. 123) points out the imagination does lead us to an understanding of what some may call the sublime; the ability to grasp as understandings of “enticing images of infinite space, endless numbers, and eternal duration.” These concepts certainly do seem to fall beyond the realm of mere sense perception and thus open the possibility of imagination as something beyond the understandings of the classical philosophes.

Greene and Egan acknowledge some aspects of a more classical imagination, such as these links with images and sense perception, although they attempt to transcend this somewhat reserved notion by employing open-ended and often outstandingly positive language. For example, when referring to images within her conception of imagination, Greene enhances the usage of image saying:

Imagination is not only the power to form mental images, although it is partly that. It is also the power to mold experience into something new… a capacity to see new possibilities in things, to perceive alternate realities, to open windows in the actual and discover what might be… Young people, for all their restless searches for new sensations, are constantly pulled back (once they go to school, once they come home) to what might be called ‘the plain sense of things’. (2001, p. 30)

The language posits a completely positive imagination nearly without flaw. Greene and Egan both seem to ‘set aside’ a lengthy and thriving history of thought which depicts a very subtle, and almost mundane role for the imagination, not to mention a parallel line of thought which convincingly outlines very plausible dangerous attributes of imagination; an imagination which displays a very possible link to experiences of violence, psychological disorder, and the delusions of self. These aspects are especially inescapable in French thought from Pascal to Tocqueville. For example, elements of imagination are tied to such concepts as pride and arrogance in the work of Blaise Pascal who elucidates the imagination as connected with “a kind of violence in relation to others, engaged in ‘control,’ ‘domination,’ ‘haughtiness,’ and ‘daring’ (McGuire, 2006, p. 19). In political terms McGuire tells us of Pascal’s work as speaking of the imagination as that which “makes it possible for the tyrant to desire the dominion he wants and to legitimate his desire in the world of others” (p. 21). Lamothe (1995) clarifies how this can lead someone to negative constructions and maligned histories and identities of the ‘other’, and at the same time construct idealized or glorified identities and histories of themselves; this process offering groundwork for violence and aggression. In other words, it is the imagined inferiority of others combined with an imagined personal grandeur that often leads one into violent and aggressive situations.

Charles Manson comes to mind as a useful example of the dangers of imagination. Surely when Greene speaks of Releasing the Imagination, as is the title of her 1995 book, she does not mean the kind of imagination we witness in the psychopathic mind of this dangerous cult leader; a man who brainwashed a number of teenagers into murdering innocent people? Manson has been quoted over and over again making references to the use of his imagination. He has clearly constructed imaginary, if not delusory, understandings of others and himself, as Lamothe suggests. Manson, in prison since 1969, once stated that he was free because “prison’s in your mind”. Additionally, he has stated that in his “minds eye” his “thoughts light fires in your [our] cities”. Manson has also claimed to live in a world of his own constituted, seemingly, by his imagination. He has stated, “I live in my world, and I am my own king in my world… I have one world government that’s in my mind” (Forbidden Truth Cult, 1989-2007).

Although Egan and Greene most likely do not suggest the releasing of this kind of imagination within our classrooms, they do not adequately address how we might prevent its emergence. They do not balance their widespread calls for imagination in schooling against such real negative attributes of the imagination as exemplified by Charles Manson. That is, if the imagination does in fact open opportunities for this form of mental delusion, how do we harness the imagination for purposes of good; how do we promote, foster, and indeed ensure the emergence of a benevolent imagination?

Greene (2001) speaks of imagination’s dangers only once in 240 pages in her book Variations on a Blue Guitar saying that “the imagination is not always benevolent… [Greene provides examples such as the Columbine killers] we cannot deny the fact that they too have been and are in search of some alternative reality” (p. 123). In Releasing the Imagination Greene (1995) again addresses the potential dangers of the imagination stating:

Works of art [imagination] cannot be counted on to have beneficent, consoling, or illuminating effects. Soul-chilling instances are multiple: Oedipus Rex, the Japanese film Ran… paintings by Zurbaran, Velazquez, Goya… instances of heartless violence in the Iliad… Richard III… the arts have not centered on depicting solely what is right and good. (p. 28)

Yet again Greene somewhat dismisses the dangers of the imagination she so carefully enumerates by merely claiming that “the role of imagination is not to resolve, not to point the way, not to improve. It is to awaken, to disclose the ordinarily unseen, unheard, and unexpected” (p. 28). The essential difficulty I have with this dismissive claim, although perhaps quite valid within an ontological understanding of imagination, is that is does not provide enough of a framework for a practical understanding, especially an educational one. Time and again, we are reminded in education that what may be ‘ok’ in one setting (namely within a more mature adult realm) is not ‘ok’ when we are dealing with young children; when we are dealing with those who are in their formative years and who, without proper context, may misinterpret what is being seen, heard, or disclosed.

Even though Greene admits that not all alternate realities released by the imagination are desirable she decidedly falls short of offering a sound framework for tempering this form of imaginative activity, especially within a schooling environment. She simply says that perhaps these youth are in search of some form of aesthetic experience and that we should:

Open up spaces for shared dialogue, for shared reflection… At least we can try to open discussions on what the young seek as possibilities for themselves… the dialogue may deepen and diversify, and the participants may think more attentively about their own thinking, their own desires, what they yearn for in the world. (p. 124)

With the greatest of respect, this seems to be a blunt glossing over of a crucial philosophical problem of the imagination; a problem which has been documented throughout its history. If the imagination does in fact stir us to action, as Hobbes (1968) suggests, then how do we determine what kind of action it stirs us towards? Why might the imagination not move us to act immorally? Hume or Smith might suggest because the imagination allows us to feel into the lives of others and activates our human sentiment to feel sympathy and empathy towards the pain and suffering of others (Hyslop-Margison, 2006). I agree that such a theory; that a common human reaction to pain and suffering; is an attractive idea and most likely substantive. Where I worry is when a particular person’s moral compass, as it were, is not aligned. Where will the imagination lead an individual lacking innate morality? Perhaps Charles Manson is the answer. Thus, there needs to be closer attention to the unfolding of the imagination; its use within our consciousness to open windows to the positive, the benevolent, indeed the desirable. We cannot rely on non-cognitive moral theories of humanity alone to requisition the imagination, especially in amplified abundance as called for by Greene and Egan.

It does seem a bit terse to merely dismiss all accounts of the modern exalted imagination; to work to illustrate that Egan and Greene are mistaken in their calls for contemporary education to give prominence to the fostering and development of the imaginative lives of our children, it does seem fitting, however, to call into question the epistemology of this popular mantra. In this article I do not aim to discredit any of the work of Egan and Greene. I could not agree more passionately with Greene’s call for the need to “open spaces for shared dialogue” or Egan’s “conceiv[ing] of new possibilities”. The world, indeed humanity, is facing many problems which may be ameliorated by opening dialogue and seeing alternate ways of being; by imagining that peace is possible, for example. Rather, I aim to merely open vistas which prompt an examination of the philosophy underlying the modern imagination and the possibility of it being inflated, incomplete and decontextualized. The rolling stone of the contemporary imagination has undeniably gathered mass at once shedding chapters of its past; perhaps unjustly. The cumulative definition of the imagination seems to have collected selective aspects of its past; positive ones being enshrined and more neutral or negative aspects cast aside. Furthermore, it seems to have gained a breadth so vast as to distort any concrete understanding of what is intended by the concept of imagination. Aristotle, Plato, Hobbes and other classical philosophers may have construed imagination too narrowly; likewise it may well be that contemporary scholars such as Greene and Egan have expanded the concept much too considerably.

Imagination can be linked to good, but also to evil, to self-confidence but self-delusion, it can be linked to reason, but also to fallacy and irrationality. Where there is a heaven, there must be a hell. Greene and Egan seem to have insulated the modern imagination, to a great extent, from such binaries. Their philosophy, generally, suggests delivery to a heaven; a heaven of novel, creative, and positive possibilities for society, indeed humanity. Their work sets the stage for education as a space to create innovative ways of thinking, new ways of seeing, and believing; a place where windows open to alternate realities but not with evil or undesirable intents.

That is, their concept of the exalted imagination is one is which there is little account of the negative. Much of the sober scholarship on imagination accounts the need to have imagination tempered, chained or guided. Guroian (2005) writes:

Some may think that the important question is whether imagination is waxing or waning in society. But this is not the issue. Wherever there are human beings imagination exists and is exercised, much as wherever there are spiders, webs are spun. The important question is what kinds of imagination our contemporary culture encourages.” (p. 53)

Guroian’s point supports the idea that the imagination is so intertwined with our self that we cannot sequester it or merely ‘turn it off and on’, or that some people have ‘it’ and others do not. William Blake, for example, believed that the imagination constituted human existence itself (Maguire, p. 3). Philosopher George Santayana elucidates the idea of the imagination as a gestalt in précis when he suggests that the distinctions we make between reason and imagination are ideal, and, in the end not sustainable (Guroian, 2005, p. 53). That is, we are rational in that we combine reason with our imagination to make sense of things; we cannot understand abstract reason alone; it is unintelligible. Rationality must be situated within a contextualized imaginary. Egan makes this point abundantly clear in his work saying “imagination is not something we gain at the expense of rationality. Imagination must dwell within rationality if rationality is to serve human life and enrich our experience” (1992, p. 166).

Even if we are contemplating what the senses are experiencing at present, we process the situation mentally within a gestalt of empirical data, reasoned judgment, image, memory, narrative, morality etc.; culminating as one under an umbrella of what can perhaps be called the imagination. Kant used the German word Einbildungskraft for imagination defining it as the power of In-eins-bildung or the power of forming into one (Llewelyn, 2000). This might serve well as a clue to understanding the imagination as a governing mental faculty, one which works within the labeled features of our lives and not in isolation from them; a giant canvas upon which the self unfolds; where image, emotion, metaphor, memory, perception and reason are merely the paint.

If the imagination does emerge as a positive force, as Greene and to an extent Egan insist, it is likely due to its coherence with these other factors, the paint, and not some inherent trait of its own. For a blank canvas would be just that – blank. In other words, without operating in proper synchronization with these other mental characteristics the imagination may lead the self astray; to states of delusion or unwarranted grandeur; to the deeds of Charles Manson. Egan makes the point clearly, as outlined above, that rationality is in need of imagination to be at all valuable, he shares this idea with Greene. I cannot disagree with this premise, but, wonder what imagination would be without rationality? That is, we understand from their work that rationality, for example, is enhanced by the imagination, but what enhances the imagination? What adds to or detracts from the possibility of the imagination as benevolent? This is perhaps where we should focus our attention and place our calls for understanding.

We need to strive to appreciate the imagination in a context of overall mental consciousness; we need to construct curricula which promote the imaginative lives of children through a framework which also seeks to strengthen and train their reason, sense of morality and their emotions, the other labeled features of their lives. We need curricula which will provide them with not only a canvas, but also the paint- a seeming necessity.

In conclusion, a holistic approach to fostering imagination within these various elements of consciousness is what needs to ensue. We must approach the promotion of imagination within schools with a caution to the nuanced features of the concept, to the varied aspects of its history rather than merely running with assumptions of an exalted imagination; an imagination which can do no wrong. Clearly Charles Manson, with his canvas and seemingly noting but red paint, has cast such a claim into the shadows of doubt.

References

Egan, K. (1992). Imagination in teaching and learning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Forbidden Truth Cult. (1989-2007). Tribute To and Analysis of some of Charles Manson′s Brilliant Insights of Forbidden Truth. In Forbidden Truth Manifesto (The Website is a Cult Website Which Promotes the Philosophy of Charles Manson). Retrieved 25/03/07, from The Seer of Truth: http://forbiddentruth.8k.com/manson_nietzsche.html.

Furlong, E. (1961). Imagination. London: Allen & Unwin.

Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Greene, M. (2001). Variations on a blue guitar. New York: Teachers College Press.

Greene, M. (2003). Teaching as possibility: A light in dark times. In Jossey-Bass Reader on Teaching (pp. 62-73). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Guroian, V. (2005). Rallying the really human things: The moral imagination in politics, literature, and everyday life. Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books.

Hobbes, T. (1968). Leviathan (1651). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Hyslop-Margison, E. J. (2006). Smith, Hume and the moral imagination: Sympathy and social justice. Pastoral Care in Education, 24(4), 26-30.

Kearney, R. (1988). The wake of imagination. London: Hutchinson.

Lamothe, R. (1995). Responsibility and evil imagination. Journal of Religion and Health, 34(3), 207-217.

Llewelyn, J. (2000). The HypoCritical imagination: Between Kant and Levinas. New York, NY: Routledge.

Maguire, M., W. (2006). The conversion of imagination: From Pascal through Rousseau to Tocqueville. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nussbaum, M. (1995). Poetic justice: The literary imagination and public life. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Thomas, N. J. (1997). Imagery and the coherence of imagination: A critique of White. The Journal of Philosophical Research, 22, 95-127.

Warnock, M. (1976). Imagination. London: Faber and Faber.

White, A. R. (1990). The language of imagination. Oxford: B. Blackwell.

[1] Mcguire, 2006, traces the emergence of the exalted imagination back to the work of French philosopher Blaise Pascal, although notes that the concept became most visible beginning in the work of Rousseau in the middle 17^th century.