I was extremely excited to receive a copy of Eric Holthaus’ new book, The Future Earth, recently. Last year, Eric interviewed me about my work and we discussed a range of ideas including the social imaginary, liminal space, imagination, and why what we do – and the perspectives we expose ourselves to – matters.
What really impresses me about Eric’s approach is his commitment to justice, and deep understanding that real change requires doing all we can to immerse ourselves in the insights and ideas of those who are not standard authority figures of our Western Entitlement imaginary. In my view, this is not just morally required, but necessary for the radical imagination, and toppling the prevailing ‘keystone concept’ of entitlement.
Below is a selection of quotes from our conversation:
“Talking with her was the most transformative conversation I had while putting this book together.” (p.32)
“The major problem with society is that we don’t even recognise that we have a particular imaginary, that this is not how things have to be.” (p. 33)
“Liminal space is a time of radical uncertainty where the foundational concepts of the way in which we’ve been living, and around which society is organised, no longer make sense. (p.33)
“When we finally see people who are so different from this Western model challenging it, then finally there is some hope…” (p.55)
“All of us can change the imaginary, all of us. In fact, we do it all the time, or at least we don’t change it, but reproduce it. But every moment we are faced with the opportunity either of reproducing it or challenging it and rebuilding….it’s radically empowering” (p.55)
You can read an excerpt from The Future Earth here. The book is released in the UK in August 2020.
Social Imaginaries Project 