{"id":411,"date":"2014-01-27T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T11:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=411"},"modified":"2014-08-12T23:10:11","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T23:10:11","slug":"taylor-modern-social-imaginaries-things-you-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/taylor-modern-social-imaginaries-things-you-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries – Things you do without thinking about why you do them; or, things you do and why you think the way you do about why you do them"},"content":{"rendered":"

What \u201cmakes\u201d you think the way that you do?\u00a0 What orientations do you typically adhere to without even considering that you do so?\u00a0 What subconsciously drives your thinking and your actions?\u00a0 Charles Taylor in Modern Social Imaginaries<\/em> explores facets of these very questions.<\/p>\n

Taylor, suggests that ideas drive actions which lead to the creation of forms (the amalgamation of the combination of multiple and related ideas and actions combined over time) which produce further related (read \u201cconstrained\u201d as well here) ideas and actions until the beginning notion that one\u2019s way of life originated from a particular perspective is all but lost and it becomes \u201cjust the way it is\u201d and\/or \u201cthat\u2019s just how we\u2019ve always done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the beginning of Taylor\u2019s text it\u2019s interesting to me that he chooses to focus on Hugo Grotius while leaving out reflection on a rather less affirming figure of human soiciability \u2013 namely, Thomas Hobbes.\u00a0 Like Taylor, I lean toward a Grotian perspective overall.\u00a0 However, in a text taking its departing point for theory and dialogue based on affirmative socio-political communal interaction arising from Grotius (and Locke), I think that it would have been beneficial to at least affirm an understanding of one of the major competing theorists of the same era to give the content more robust undergirding. \u00a0Taylor does later briefly allude to Rousseau and Marx and the ongoing possibility of revolution in relation to the ideal when the ideal proves to be less than its ideal.\u00a0 However, I see a bit more emphasis on the utopian nature of the dreams of the modern over the costs incurred to establish a \u201cmodern social imaginary.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, a modern social imaginary, among other aspects, for Taylor becomes a form of ought, \u00a0a \u201cmoral order\u201d or moral ordering which becomes \u201chermeneutic\u201d and \u201cprescriptive.\u201d\u00a0 That is, once that which is initially dreamed becomes broadly commonplace with enough people for long enough, it loses some of its ephemerality and takes on the corporality of lived experience.\u00a0 The shadows of dreams take on the substance of people acting out their particular interpretation of the imaginary to the point that it eventually becomes difficult to remember that the society one is participating in enacting is the historical emanation of what was once but an idea birthed within the psyche of another human being somewhere.\u00a0 People tend to allow to pass from active consciousness the fact that what is once was not.<\/p>\n

In many ways the most powerful aspect of Taylor\u2019s defining of our social\/personal imaginaries is its pervasive foreground and background, all-encompassing aspect that exists beyond the specific characteristic of any set of facts.\u00a0 One cannot ever exactly, fully, comprehensively define a social imaginary.\u00a0 This is an aspect of its power.\u00a0 There is always room for a shifting of its enactment, room for a reinterpretation or revisioning of its ideal constructs.\u00a0 Major revisions of course take significant, even seismic or cataclysmic events and subsequent need for existential recalibration on major portions of the population.\u00a0 Yet, microshifts, microrecalibrations occur on ongoing bases.\u00a0 However, the point is that it is the existential, non-empiric, fluid, nature of the imaginar(y\/ies) that empowers it and gives it its longevity.\u00a0 As well, people lives, their safety, their own sense of self, their ease, etc. becomes tied-up in maintaining this imaginary that they often don\u2019t even know they are part of.<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone does well in all social imaginaries.\u00a0 However, even those who are more marginalized sometimes begin to take certain pride in their marginalization through the establishment of cultures critical to the entrenched wealthy\/elite\/powerful status quo.\u00a0 These critical cultures become part of the larger social imaginary and play their own particular role in the overarching drama.\u00a0 Or, those who are marginalized, participate through dreaming the same dreams and living for the hoped for same results.\u00a0 They also seek to \u201cclimb the ladder\u201d that has been popularly imagined.<\/p>\n

Overarchingly, Taylor discusses the themes of the imaginaries of modernity in the text through breaking them down into essentially socio-economic, the socio-political (the public) and the socio-personal\/private (self-governance) spheres.\u00a0 And he not fully, but strongly sets up the distinction between modernity functioning on profane\/secular orientations as opposed to the pre-modern sacred\/religious time.\u00a0 Ironically enough, he suggests that Protestantism led us to such secularization.<\/p>\n

Overall, it\u2019s a good, helpful read.\u00a0 There\u2019s some pieces missing at points, but it\u2019s a short text (unlike some of his other work which runs much closer to a 1000 pages).\u00a0 Yet, for me, as much appreciation as I have for the text and enjoyment of having walked through a good bit of history currently applied, I feel as if I just read some version of Thomas Kuhn\u2019s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions<\/em> or some other such text that talks about epochs, paradigms, eras, worldviews and all the complexities that accompany their interactions.\u00a0 So, was it good? Yes.\u00a0 Did I find it theoretically groundbreaking? No.\u00a0 Did I gain a bit of further insight, was reminded of some important principles, and garnered some new, descriptive terminology? Yes. Would I recommend it? Yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What \u201cmakes\u201d you think the way that you do?\u00a0 What orientations do you typically adhere to without even considering that you do so?\u00a0 What subconsciously drives your thinking and your actions?\u00a0 Charles Taylor in Modern Social Imaginaries explores facets of these very questions. Taylor, suggests that ideas drive actions which lead to the creation of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,85],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-taylorimaginaries","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}