Luke Lattimer
Mugavero
ENG 201
9-16-13
Assignment 1 “The Cultural Imagination”
The “cultural imagination” has been around since the beginning of organized thought. It
can be defined by, the way in which society uses imagination to understand the world as well
the great unknown that is death. It is interesting to see how men have created separate worlds
to illustrate what they cannot understand. The “cultural imagination” allows men to create for
themselves a world outside of reality where progress is gained and the world is better
understood. Freud focuses on magic and dreams, Steiner focuses on the unrealistic idea of true
tragedy as a catharsis, and lastly Beckett introduces a bleak vision of the world by way of
confusion and utter disorder.
Sigmund Freud was a psychoanalyst who believed that there existed a magic and a
sorcery in the world. Magic must have been created by people in order to explain things such as
why they had been protected on a hunt or why they had the ability to defeat an enemy. The
basic element of both magic and sorcery is that it is a method for humans to exercise their will in
a world where they don’t know how to get what they want. Sorcery came after magic and it is
when people wanted to influence the spirits of the world to do as they wished. This is where
things such as rain dances and fertility rituals started as it was necessary to appease the spirits
in order to influence them to do as the people wanted. There was nothing in the world that
described how nature worked to these people so it was a necessity for individuals to imagine for
themselves and create a system that allowed them to get what they wanted. Later on there is an
idea that Freud calls, “Omnipotence of Thought.” This omnipotence of thought involved a person
only needs to think in order to influence nature. The reality that they had created for themselves
within the realm of spirits and sorcery, was not reality according to science, however it was
natural for the primitive men to associate these things together. Freud realized that it was only
natural for them to make connections in their minds and to mistake these ideal connections
about the world for real ones. The people created for themselves a system within the world that
made sense to them so that there could be a basis for reality. Then and only then, upon the
foundation of their created system of the world, could these people progress in their
development and understanding within the world.
Freud also theorizes about dreams and how they work in a person to express repressed
emotions. The world of dreams can be made up of ideas that were once in the mind, but were
pushed away by morality and the standards of the current society. The world that is created is
apart from reality because it is not correct for the emotions or actions to be expressed within the
bounds of reality. The mind of a child represses and the mind of a more mature individual
expresses, by means of dreams or even irrational behavior, what was repressed from an early
age. It was Freud’s mission to unpack the unconscious and to find out why things such as this
existed. It was the element of suppression that led to such behavior in reality. All stemming from
the unrealistic desires that could not be expressed. Once these desires and passions are
exposed it is then that Freud sees progress. Freud took dreams and he gave them meaning and
a purpose within a system of thought could not have been recognized as anything important.
The ideas that Freud illustrated within the realm of myths and dreams has brought about a
people that is able to understand for themselves what is real. Even though there is science that
has voided much of the myths it is important to realize how the mind makes ideal connections
within itself for anything that is not fully understood. Everybody has a mind of their own with the
ability to create and imagine anything so humans can progress at all times.
In a world full of myths and the spirits in nature, the imagination was once given the
freedom it needs to develop stories of tragedy in its truest form. Steiner wrote on the death of
tragedy. Tragedy at one point in time was uniquely different from hardships that have been seen
in stories such as that of Job. A real tragedy being something that results specifically from a
small flaw usually in a man’s pride. This tragedy is inevitable, it cannot be avoided, and it cannot
be explained by reason. The tragedy of Oedipus was unavoidable and yet it was caused by the
pride in Oedipus. He lost everything and was totally defeated when he learned what he had
done. One of the elements of the dramatic tragedy is the language that is used to incite the
emotion of the story into the listener. Great writers once used language to create emotion and
new feelings in response to what they felt and believed in. They were able to arrange language
in a way that was unique and impressive. Creation of language that came from a desire to
express what they wanted to portray that had no way to be expressed. The writing of epics and
stories from an alternate reality is extremely powerful and moving in all time periods. These
came from a mythological reality that allowed the imagination to work freely and uninhibited.
Today we live in a world that has deemed the existence of mythology to be a myth and this has
caused the cultural imagination to severely inhibited. There is no longer room for creation and
ingenuity because of the stricture that all society has been placed under from revelations from
science. The imagination is less willing to go free when there is a science of reality that is
understood as the only truth of nature. Great progress and creation was infinitely accepted and
praised in a culture when there was little solid truth known. People were more accepting and
willing to allow their mind to make connections freely instead of being placed in a mold of the
current culture as is the case today. The greatest progress is possible and has occurred when
the mind is uninhibited and the imagination is given free range to develop and create for itself.
It is in the film, “Waiting for Godot,” that Beckett uses a very great disorder and
confusion to shed light onto his bleak outlook on the world. Beckett created a world that is
extremely unrealistic as the characters have no evident life yet they seem to have a vague
understanding of the world and its functions. Through the world that Beckett creates there is no
imagination and therefore no progress and hardly any perceived intelligence. It is tragic that
they still find a way to stay and wait for Godot even though it has become quite evident that his
arrival is not going to occur. The past life and memories have been almost completely erased or
confused for the sole purpose of neglecting the past and looking to the inevitable future. The
mythology and connection to one’s past that is seen throughout history does not exist as both
Vladimir and Estragon have no clarity in the past. In contrast to the past there is the future that
has a slight comfort and hope in the man named Godot. Man must submit himself to the
continual passing of time. The two men want to kill themselves but they cannot even do this so
the cycle of babble and repetitive time passing continues. Vladimir and Estragon are incapable
of producing any kind of progress because they are unable to imagine. When they do imagine a
place with Godot in a hay loft with food and a safe place to sleep, the two men find inspiration
and a renewed hope to stay and wait another day for Godot. Exercising the imagination and
using the mind to create, to think, and to produce ideal connections is what gives individuals the
ability to progress. This ability within humans to organize language so that it makes sense and
relays ideas to others is the element of life that the characters lack. Progress is essentially
connected with the ability to exercise one’s imagination and to allow one’s mind to naturally
decipher the natural world through connections in the minds imagination and predetermined
images.
This world is carried by the progress of people from an uncivilized state to civilized
groups that have immense power and intelligence. How can this have occurred? Well the ideal
connections of the mind connected the world with the works of ration and the mind to figure out
problems, to learn to communicate, and even to express phenomena that has no natural
connection. To create and to solve problems is a capability that surpasses all other forms of life
that has ever existed. It is in using the imagination and looking into the world of the unreal that
we can go past what is seen to create for ourselves systems to explain and solve problems that
forever have and will exist in the world. Finding systems to explain nature. Explaining dreams
that have little order and clarity. And finally creating alternate forms of reality to explain how the
world can be viewed as repetitive and unclear when there is no recollection of the past in order
to use it to move into a better future. Without the cultural imagination the world would never
have progressed to where it is today.