IMAGINATION

Princeton sociologist Benjamin takes Toni Morrison’s advice to “dream a little before you think” and runs with it.

In this brief treatise, imagination is both a noun and an imperative, and the author’s usage is “unruly.” In essence, Benjamin invites readers to consider a different world, one that the imagination of others tells us is the best of all possible worlds. It’s fruitful, for instance, to imagine not an America in which exceptional “unicorns” of color are marked as evidence that the educational system is colorblind, but instead one in which a new system of education is created to “cultivate everyone’s creativity and curiosity.” Just so, Benjamin writes, we need to collectively imagine ways to combat such things as racism, climate change, economic inequality, and the like. Sometimes the author’s language is a touch jargony, unless you like rubrics such as “transition imaginaries,” but more often she’s refreshingly direct: “We can transform the hostile environments that try to trap us—whether they are literal cages, barbed wire–encircled playgrounds, or bullet-friendly classrooms. We can imagine otherwise.” The author also examines efforts to put this kind of imagining into practice, such as a board game that turns Monopoly on its head by teaching the values of economic cooperation, and an imagined border in which steel walls give way to binational cities. One of Benjamin’s experiments, as she describes it, was a delightful remaking of daily life in isolation via beekeeping. “Not only do bees teach us that collaboration is how we survive, that decision-making should be collective…but also that we don’t have to choose between working hard and creating beautiful, sweet things.” Benjamin closes with a set of writing and thinking prompts that will enliven curricula and dinner-table conversations alike.

A provocative manifesto indeed, and one that deserves a wide audience.