This is a diary about the social imaginary — those aspects of our everyday practice that depend upon our imagining the existence of social institutions. As our social institutions are increasingly inappropriate to our physical survival on planet Earth, we should be in the business of imagining new institutions which will give us a fighting chance. I will investigate the case of global warming to discuss why this is so, and end with a series of photographic reflections.
The concept of “social imaginary” was developed as a tool of social critique by Cornelius Castoriadis, a philosopher whose pessimistic assessment of the present-day “social imaginary” will be examined in detail here.
(crossposted at Big Orange)