Truth, Justice, and the Modern Imagination: A Reflection Launched by Elizabeth Sewell's "Death of the Imagination"

Janine Langan Truth, Justice, and the Modem Imagination: A Reflection Launched by Elizabeth Sewell's "Death of the Imagination" Elizabeth Sewell, in an article ofthat name, deplores the imminent "deatii of the imagination" in our American and English worlds.And indeed our imaginations are battered by cultural forces which are making most of us imaginatively sick. That this sickness is a major challenge for contemporary Anglo-American educators, I could not agree more. Its main symptoms are, as she points out, a loss of pattern and meaning to the world around us and a concomitant loss of touch with our own selves. But Elizabeth Sewell suggests tiiat what is at stake is reconquering pride of place for die imagination in our overly analytical and rational culture. I think the problem is more challenging yet: we must re-educate imaginations which, far from marginalized in this culture, are in fact encouraged by it to take monstrous proportions. Most of us spend an ever larger part of our days consuming products of die imagination, from TV sitcoms to die ediereal "nouvelle cuisine"ofour fancy restaurants.And we worry day and night about "our image." Logos 1:1 1997 194 Logos What we face, contrary to what she suggests, is not die demise ofthe imagination under pressure from the hegemony of"Reason." We no longer Uve under die modernist reign ofanalytical thought. Halfan hour of class discussion will quickly put this illusion to rest: students today appeal in arguments to what diey "feel"; "I diink" is a formula on its way out. Telluricinsights tend to replace induction from real experience or logical deduction. The imagination is no more retreating under die onslaught of"reason" than was religion in mid-century, when Jacques EUuI so rightly pointed out diat we were instead witnessing a revival of paganism at its worst, witii magic and satanism in its train. Materialism, secularization, individualization, pragmaticism, specialization, the highly programmed nature ofthe contemporary world, where so much of our life is preorganized, are indeed shaping our imaginations.They are not killing it however, but exasperating it and driving it underground, inward, to revel in ever more perverse activities. Instead of coming to the imagination's rescue, the Church has panicked at its antics. As a result, we have let die imagination deChristianize , losing in die process the conquests of centuries of education. Yet the Judeo-Christian tradition is an expert in such matters, if tiiere ever was one. It has waged a millennial struggle for the imagination of humanity, with astonishing success. As Elizabeth Sewell points out, God is already shown battling against disorders of the imagination in Genesis. Adam and Eve launched original sin, because their imaginations were seduced by die serpent 's tempting poeticizing ofthe fruit; their senses alone had not even noticed how good it looked. Noah's contemporaries drown because "die imaginations oftheir hearts" are so sick, a phrase the Magnificat picks up: God is expert at "scattering die proud in die imagination of their heart." Cain's offsprings—artists, musicians, builders of Babels tiiat they are—will manifest imagination galore throughout history. Truth, Justice, and the Modern Imagination195 Our problem is thus not bolstering the imagination, but educatingit ,reconnecting itto its origin and end; Christians would say, baptizing a power in us all which notiiing can destroy, because it happens to be our primary mode ofinvolvement witii the world. Elizabeth Sewell's beautiful original image calls us to find a place on die mappa mundi for Eden, die natural home ofdie imagination . I personally think the issue is more fundamental: for die imagination's job is to draw the mappa mundi. Its primordial trust or mistrust ofdie world out diere decides by what rules, in what setting , we will play the game of life. The fundamental world view which directs our behavior, what Thomas Langan in Tradition and Authenticity and Being andTruth calls our natural faith, is an image, a giant metaphor. Healthy living begins with insuringdie adequacy of diat metaphor. As Pascal knew, the imaginations of the heart rule reason; the heart has its reasons which reason knows not of. And the philosopher's vision is no less slanted by die imagination ofher...