Yunqing/Isaac Han is a student studying philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. They are interested in social philosophy, especially in examining what is considered moral or beneficial for individual societies and for international dynamics, through the lens of various domains like feminist philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy of AI, and philosophy of mind.
A post by Yunqing/Isaac Han
In this post, I discuss how we might use our social imaginings to advance social equality. Social imaginings are representations or reconstructions of an aspect of a society’s past, present, or future, e.g., class relations, inclusivity, event, an individual’s feelings and motivations (adapted from Medina 252). I focus here on social imaginings of the past that aim at past realities.[1] For example, when one imagines that there was actually no racial inequality in the past in the U.S. as part of a process of historical reconstruction one aims at reality (even if, in this case, one misses one’s aim), whereas when one entertains counterfactually the idea that there was no racial inequality in the past in the U.S. and then imagines how one might act in that alternate past, one is not aiming at reality. I focus on the former, reality-aiming imaginings (hereon just “social imaginings”) and discuss whether any such imaginings should be discouraged in social discourse.
Before proceeding, I want to clarify that the past-directed thoughts I focus on are imaginings, not beliefs. Unlike beliefs, we do not need to have factual or reasonable justification for imaginings, but we can still use them to inform beliefs. We often rely on imaginings for understanding the past because we lack the relevant personal experience or historical expertise to form beliefs based solely on facts or experiences. In debates about reparative measures for racial inequality, for example, imagining that there was no racial inequality in the U.S. might nudge us towards thinking that nothing needs to be done about racial inequality and its legacies (let’s call this the racial inequality example).
With this example in mind, let us examine two conflicting accounts on inclusion of social imaginings in social discourse. The first is inspired by Janine Jones’ claim that inaccurately conceiving the past veils past and ongoing injustices (Jones 148). [2] This account, which I will call the prescriptive account, rejects inaccurate social imaginings, or imaginings that do not fairly represent past social realities, and suggests they be excluded from societal discussions. The other account, which owes directly to José Medina, supports the consideration of all social imaginings; via feedback from discussions, these imaginings can then be subsequently refined (Medina 282-284). I call this the pluralist account.[3] After explaining both accounts, I suggest two reasons for preferring the pluralist account: first, it avoids the issue of having to decide whose social imaginings to include; second, it has the resources to avoid a pernicious feedback loop among inaccurate imaginings, false beliefs, and harmful action or lack of action. I end by detailing and responding to an objection to the pluralist account.
There are two reasons one might support the prescriptive account. First, inaccurate imaginings create a harmful lack of acknowledgement of the past and its legacies. In our racial inequality example, our imaginative rejection of racial inequality amounts to a refusal to acknowledge non-White people’s suffering and resistance.[4] We cause harm by diminishing the impact of racial inequality and its legacies on people’s lives.
Second, inaccurate social imaginings create a feedback loop that leads to the further promulgation of inaccurate imaginings, false beliefs, and harmful action or lack of action. As aforementioned, our inaccurate imaginings can lead to false beliefs, e.g., from the racial inequality example, the belief that nothing needs to be done about race in the U.S. This false belief is harmful like inaccurate imaginings—we reject the impact of racial inequalities.
Moreover, this false belief then leads to a lack of action or harmful action. Following the same example, we might become indifferent or opposed to reparative measures. A combination of false beliefs and lack of or harmful action then leads to new inaccurate imaginings. When we inaccurately account for a particular aspect of the past in our social imaginings, we negatively affect our accuracy in imagining what we want or ethically need for the future. In our example, we would orient our attention away from our moral duty to construct a future of (more) racial equality, negatively influencing if and how we imagine future reparative measures. These new inaccurate imaginings will create further false beliefs, and the vicious cycle continues. We might not be able to stop forming these inaccurate imaginings (we cannot stop people from imagining in their heads). However, the prescriptive account suggests that we can diminish the harms of these imaginings by restricting their dissemination in society, i.e., by excluding or discouraging their expression in social discourse.
However, not everyone agrees that this is the best strategy to take. In his The Epistemology of Resistance, José Medina argues for the need to give voice to all social imaginings. Because social imaginings stem from individual perspectives, we must proliferate them to have maximal input for ways to improve our society (Medina 266, 306). This includes inaccurate imaginings, because we cannot always be certain about our judgments of accuracy. For example, if we had excluded certain social imaginings on race 200 years ago, the ones that promoted racial equality would more likely have been excluded than those that justify racism. This is not to say that we should accept inaccurate imaginings as they are. The pluralist account stresses constant exchange and refinement of our social imaginings through cross-perspectival discussions. Rather than exclude imaginings, we should point out inaccuracies in others’ imaginings and adapt our imaginings to feedback. In this way, social imaginings come to reflect the knowledge and experiences of reality of as many people as possible.
This leads me to prefer the pluralist account. By voicing and revising of social imaginings, we are able to interrupt the feedback loop of inaccurate imaginings, false beliefs, and lack of or harmful action that proponents of the prescriptive account worried about. We would alter the inaccurate imaginings so that they can no longer create false beliefs. In contrast, on the prescriptive account, people could still have the inaccurate social imaginings, the resulting harmful beliefs, and a continuous vicious cycle even when they are barred or discouraged from voicing them.
The pluralist account also avoids a serious issue that plagues the first account: whose past and whose justice should we prioritize? When we focus on the U.S., what is accurate might seem clear—imagining there was no racial inequality is inaccurate. But we must look at more than one society’s social imaginings. What social imaginings we consider important (or consider at all), what counts as justice, and how we measure accuracy can be vastly different from one society to another. For example, many Americans know or imagine little of events in World War II’s Pacific Theater before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and of what happened in North Africa. However, whether or how we should introduce reparations for these events remains a contentious issue in many societies. We should be wary of using any single society’s social imaginings for determining the importance or accuracy of social imaginings. The pluralist account avoids this issue: by failing to prioritize among imaginings, we avoid further entrenching unequal global dynamics.
However, the pluralist account also prompts concern. We might object, for example, that if we can suggest and contest all imaginings, people who currently have less epistemic power—those holding minority opinions and who are social minorities—will bear more epistemic burden. They will have to explain and defend their social imaginings more often because more people will be skeptical of and/or ignorant about these imaginings. This additional labor is unjust, costs time and resources, and is often emotionally taxing.
I concede that the pluralist account makes it likely that minorities will have to spend more effort voicing and defending their opinions. However, as unfair as this is, I believe this is still preferable to excluding certain social imaginings from discourse. Minority social imaginings would more likely be excluded or marginalized in any exclusionary system because more people disagree with their opinions or do not share the same experiences. Enduring the epistemic burden at least allows the equal channeling of minority social imaginings with other imaginings. Moreover, the distribution of epistemic burden will likely become fairer as time passes. The majorities’ constant exposure to minority imaginings has the potential to render them more familiar with the imaginings.
Given these considerations, we should prefer the pluralist account, which allows all social imaginings in discourse and refines them through exchanges and debates. The prescriptive account leaves us unable to ascertain whose imaginings and accuracy we prioritize. The pluralist account resolves this issue and interrupts the feedback loop among inaccurate social imaginings, harmful beliefs, and lack of or harmful action towards social justice. Through cultivating more social imaginings of the past, we would also create more equality in our blueprint for imagining the future.
Notes
[1] I focus on imaginings of the past because they are key to our understanding of present societies and to our plans for future societies. Moreover, the past already happened, so we can discuss “aiming at realities” with our imaginings, whereas it is challenging to do so for imaginings of the ever-evolving present and future.
[2] Jones suggests that inaccurately conceiving the past is disturbing. She does not explicitly discuss social imaginings or the ill of the feedback loop (mentioned later in this paper), so I treat this account only as “inspired” by Jones.
[3] Thanks to Amy Kind for suggesting the names for the accounts.
[4] This is inspired by a similar example Jones supplies, where imagining that working class White Americans’ anger and Black Americans’ anger are similar overlooks the unique looking down at Black people’s race (Jones 148-150).
References
Jones, J. (2013). Can we imagine this happening to a white boy. Pursuing Trayvon Martin: historical contexts and contemporary manifestations of racial dynamics.(141-154) Lexington Books.
Medina, J. (2013). The epistemology of resistance: Gender and racial oppression, epistemic injustice, and the social imagination. Oxford University Press.