Man
is all information ... applied in imagination.
The study of social imagination is the study of the collective mentality - the social imagination.
The study of social imagination is the study of the collective mentality - the social imagination.
Essentially, there two
functions of the social imagination. The first function has three main
fundamental aspects: a definite original source (of information), components and limits. This
first function directly enables the second which is the filtering process of
the concept creative. This second function has no need of its own fundamental
aspects as it is grounded by the first. The first function is ‘basic’ everyday
routine whereby bodily movement in time and space are observed and serves an
elementary plane of attention to life, paramount reality.
The first function is
for simple performance as in simple bodily movement that enables getting from
here to there without, let us say, much thought. It could be seen as the
default mode program; whereas, the second function is the concept/ creative is
for the purpose of escaping that routine, beginning with bodily movement
incorporating gesture that has meaning other than just getting from one point
in space to another.
The second function,
the concept/ creative is enabled by the first function. It is where language
and communication are occupied. The second function is relies on language in a
specific way, it does not need to repeat generalities; it needs to articulate
greater expectation, and creative performance, it is the place in human
consciousness where social imagination exists and in saying that the two
expressions are one and the same.
There is an interconnected
participatory feature of the first function and second function, experienced
through bodily moments which cause tensions of consciousness between the first
function and the second function. The second function reacts to such
tensions from the first function and is able to respond in a concept/ creative
mode so that that relation with the first function acting as a background, a
default program and the second function create social imagination.
In some respect, the
second function allows the collective conscious, the collective mentality, the
group as having shared interest, to imagine and focus on the things that it
creates out of its shared imagining. Through tensions between the first function and
second function social imagination as having a concept / creative function
transcends what is and is able to postulate what ought to be; thus, social
consciousness moves onto another plane of accent to reality, another attention
to life, a higher order of human consciousness.
In theory, social
imagination can be conceived as the collective mentality of a group of people.
For some social scientists this presents an observational and testable as
sociology generally looks at human actions to explain society. Thus, they are
measured and quantified and thus predictable.
However, what
is left of an observation but an image or residue of what was real. The
collective mentality of a group is the forerunner to an observable action.
Those on the inside have inside information and or knowledge as to why they did
this or that and for what reasons. Anyone on the outside of that group will
only see the residues of that information... traces left over.
The meaning of
human action directly stems from or out of the collective mentality. The
residues of that action has little meaning for outside observers and even for
those inside all that is left is meaning and that alone is retained in the
collective mentality - the social imagination.
You see, action
alone does not contain meaning but is the vehicle of it, only the drivers know
the direction and what for. Action is
only a pattern of physical movement; this is the purpose of the first function
of social imagination.
As stated
above, essentially the social imagination exists has three aspects and two
functions. The three aspects (composing the first function) are: source of
information (presuming that all social reality is information that has a
source), components which are social actors as Durkheim might call them... all
minds or 'singular' imaginations that compose a definable group 'collective
mentality' and perimeters/boundaries as in limitations due to the source and combined
components.
The two
functions are: action/ physical, and the second function also has aspects. The
first aspect is also physical 'mechanical'
as we might think of a processor which processes of information shared through
the first function - which is the only means as in way for 'human' processors
to interact. The meaning that arises from that interaction which we can call social
action is the direct activity or interaction of those functions. From the point
of view of phenomenology, social imagination is that which gives meaning to
action - shared information in a place over a period of time.
The second
aspect of the second function is the concept/ creative function of the
collective mentality, of social imagination, uses imagining and imagery in its
creative mode of function. And, it is there that the social imagination can
expand but not necessarily for it is still linked in to its first function
with its source of information which though enables also grounds. It keeps human beings 'human' and it keeps
us intact, in place and fully functioning in the place where we are. In a nutshell, we are only what we imagine within
the framework of a 'social' quantum program!
*Source - PhD dissertation on the Social Imagination - "Imagining Ideal Society: Exploring the concept/Creative Function in the Occident Social Imagination".... Dr. E.F. Gallion
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