“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to
envision that which is not ... in its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is
the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have
never shared ... Unlike any
other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having
experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places. Of course, this is a power ... that is
morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just
as much as to understand or sympathise."
This quote is from "The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination", J. K. Rowling's Commencement Speech to the Harvard class of 2008. While Mrs. Rowling emphasizes the positive aspects of imagination as it applies to empathy, Mr. Smith questions the motives behind our sympathizing with others. Smith argues that "it is by the imagination only that we can
form any conception of what are his sensations ... It is the impressions of our
own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy", (Smith, paragraph 2). When we sympathize with others we seem to transpose our own pre-conceived notions and our own opinions on their experience. Additionally, the other person's experience only matters to us as individuals once we imagine ourselves in it, "when we have thus adopted [his/her feelings] and made them our
own", (Smith, paragraph 2).
What about the power of imagination used for evil ends?
As Smith puts it, "sympathy does not arise so much from the view of the passion [of another], as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality", (paragraph 10). We could use a false sense of how another person should feel according to our imagined sympathy to manipulate how we think they should respond. For (a rather personal) example, the way my dad talks to me about college and my freshman year at a liberal arts university:
My dad: "Amanda, this is the time of your life! You should just read Shakespeare and Dickens and sit under trees and soak everything in and let the rest take care of itself!"
Me: "But Dad, I want to be a scientific journalist. I love books, but I need to learn Chemistry and Physics and do labs. And I don't want to drown in student loan debt like my big brother.."
My dad: "But college is the best time ever! You should just read for fun for four years!"
I'll stop there. My dad and I see college very differently; his desire to, apparently, go back to the glory years overshadows his ability to understand how I am approaching a major turning point in my life. His imagination of how I should act manipulates the reality of how I will act. I think you get the idea. This is what it's like for sympathy to be situational or imagination gone too far in one's own perspective. This can lead to manipulation and can reflect self-centeredness.
To this extent, with situational sympathy, we can clearly see self-centeredness in imagination.
But is this always the case? What do you think?
PS- Is self-centeredness even a word? If so, AWESOME! If not, it seems like an effective way of communicating what I want to communicate, so I'm not changing it!
What about the power of imagination used for evil ends?
As Smith puts it, "sympathy does not arise so much from the view of the passion [of another], as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality", (paragraph 10). We could use a false sense of how another person should feel according to our imagined sympathy to manipulate how we think they should respond. For (a rather personal) example, the way my dad talks to me about college and my freshman year at a liberal arts university:
My dad: "Amanda, this is the time of your life! You should just read Shakespeare and Dickens and sit under trees and soak everything in and let the rest take care of itself!"
Me: "But Dad, I want to be a scientific journalist. I love books, but I need to learn Chemistry and Physics and do labs. And I don't want to drown in student loan debt like my big brother.."
My dad: "But college is the best time ever! You should just read for fun for four years!"
I'll stop there. My dad and I see college very differently; his desire to, apparently, go back to the glory years overshadows his ability to understand how I am approaching a major turning point in my life. His imagination of how I should act manipulates the reality of how I will act. I think you get the idea. This is what it's like for sympathy to be situational or imagination gone too far in one's own perspective. This can lead to manipulation and can reflect self-centeredness.
To this extent, with situational sympathy, we can clearly see self-centeredness in imagination.
But is this always the case? What do you think?
PS- Is self-centeredness even a word? If so, AWESOME! If not, it seems like an effective way of communicating what I want to communicate, so I'm not changing it!
My first reaction is that your post demonstrates what the philosopher Slavoj Zizek considers a very important feature of postmodern culture: the very thing that was once prohibited to us now becomes required of us. So instead of a parent discouraging you from majoring in your passion, he or she encourages you to follow your passion and forget about a job. It is a weird feature of the age, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI think, too, it is a good example of the ambiguity of sympathy. Certainly for Smith it can lead in many ways. We can sympathize with others because we want what they have, or because we already like them, or because it makes us feel better. He doesn't discount these possibilities. As we'll talk about later, one reason he distrusts businessmen is because they can manipulate this ability.
It's interesting that you read Smith as being somewhere between Hutcheson and Mandeville. perhaps I'm wrong about that, but that seems to be what you are implying. I always considered him as closer to Hutcheson in part because he expresses his admiration for Hutcheson and partial distaste for Mandeville. But it does seem that, to some extent, his thinking absorbs part of Mandeville's thought. Smith clearly sees people as usually sympathetic and benevolent. I wonder exactly how this differs from Hutcheson's more blanket praise of human nature. That would be an interesting idea to follow in a paper.
Oh, and yes, self-centeredness is a word.
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