A New Frontier - Social Imagination

The new frontier is one that has been starring us in the face for some time. The global reality, the largest social imagination possible. Is that possible? A good question. What it requires is a large number of social networks working toward one cause- one common social imagination ' wyobraznia spoleczna!  Likely, that will be established by one language and with that a new beginning for many and an end for some regarding culture/language. That large numbers are already at work, the internet their main tool. At no other time in human history has there been such worldwide communication and social imagination exchange. The results are not yet known or are they. For a first time in my blogging career, I ask you my audience to comment on this.

Mother: Socialization Process of Social Imagination

The socialization process in this temporal 'worldly' hologram we live in starts with the mother.  You see, there is only one way a child comes into the world, through the mother. She imparts all social knowledge to her child even before birth. The social person she is (as her socialization process in ongoing) is passed to her child. The information she has at hand (in use by her) is all she can offer. The information can be correct and incorrect, corrupt in some people's eyes and in others not. Prejudice and not. Prejudice is unfavorable opinion that over time can become hardened. Whether is this information is right or wrong in the moment it is passed on does not matter objectively to anyone else but to the mother. She passes information on because it matters to her, what matters is that it is used because it it is familiar, it has been given as it has been working in the past, present and is presumed to work in the future. The role of mother is part of writing in a default program. Once embedded, there is little one can do to update or patch the program with other information. The social imagination relies this basic construct the basic program; it runs off this default mode- never to be deleted or erased yet, not without the possibility for upgrades.
Essentially, socialization is the process of transferring information - social inforamtion = social reality. Technically, we can posit that it is divided into three stages: the primary stage which involves the socialization of the young child in the family; the secondary stage involves the immediate community including church and school and the third stage is the adult socialization when individuals enter roles that their primary and secondary socialization prepared them for and or not fully prepared them for.

The Latent Hand, What is now?

I am going to present the idea that social imagination is the result of the composition of one's socialization, an ongoing relation among personal ideas as Cooley would have said. It is also dependent upon time and space in that it follows a time space continuum where there exists a past, present and future. Time, past, present and future is also dependent upon our social imagination as the social mind  needs and reacts to such order.When we remind ourselves of Escher's hands drawing hands, we can understand that Now is when we see the active hand and the other is latent. Even though we can change our view, and look at the latent hand it instantly becomes active and the other latent which was active a moment ago. We must also consider the hand that draws the hands drawing the hands in this now. When we do that, now gets mixed into the past and future, in a sense but rather we see how fluid time and space are. Social imagination is also fluid using that same illustration of hands drawing hands. We realize then that the socialization process is a stream of conscious interaction, social imagination thus is not concrete or fixed in time and space. Nonetheless, we still percieve now in relation to the past and future. Why? As it is with viewing atomic structure or particles, they do not appear until we fix our eyes on them, the latent hand becomes active when we look at it. It then becomes now!

The Self as Social Imagination and Free Will

Approaching this notion of Self as Social Imagination and Free Will I am reminded of the drawing by M.C. Escher, titled, Hands. It is the one where hands draw hands. Interesting to look at ;-) but that is not all... Escher wanted us to consider his own hands drawing hands drawing hands ;-).  The point of this drawing is the interwoven, interconnectedness of the subjective and objective, the ins and outs, the push/pull of the mental and physical world. This drawing by Escher is not the only drawing he created (Escher Relativity:1953 or Concave and Convex 1955 i.e.) intended to illustrate the subjective and objective relationship or the mental and the physical relationship. Escher meant for us to understand this drawing as an event that is greater than the event which it seems to illustrate... as it is never ending.  So you see, we are already there at that place, that point that Escher was trying to make... in this blog post, I am inside and outside (I am not alone because I am talking to you) I am and you are thus something which is much greater than this post event and it is never ending. There is no threshold, no beginning and no end or point at where one is without the other. Is this an explanation for the self as social imagination and free will. Yes, it is. How? It is because inasmuch as we think we have free will to make a decision, we are the hands in the hands drawing and it is being drawn.