Expectations Are Good, Bad and Ugly in The Social Imagination!

When we expect too much we become disappointed. This can happen between people that know each other very well and between people that don't know each other at all.

We live in our social imagination and that is where we will always be. It begins for us with mother for she imparts her social knowledge to her infant even before its born. Everything mother knows, trusts, and expects is transferred; including what she doesn't know, doesn't trust and doesn't expect.

In saying that, we can't imagine she could transfer what she doesn't know or trust or expect but lack of information or no information 'no data' as in blanks transfers as much as data bits filled with good, bad and ugly information does.

We come to expect certain things and behaviors from people firstly based on what mother expected or not and later as the socialization process continues, those expectations continue as well. We can expect more or less from people or nothing at all based on social encounters. When we expect less or nothing, we tend to move away from that person or group of people.

We like some and dislike others. This can appear as prejudice or discrimination. It does not mean we intentionally dislike to the point of hating someone or another group. It simply means that we like and don't like based on what we expect.  What we don't like is often due to not knowing what to expect given limited or lack of information; that along with our preferences for liking or not liking one thing or person over another is largely based on what we expect firstly from ourselves and then from those that we know which we expect will reciprocate in a like manner.

Sometimes, a person is not able to reciprocate in a like manner due to economic hardship, due to lack of cultural information or lack of social knowledge or lack of experience in a behavior that would give support for 'right' or expected amount of reciprocation.  The simplest example of this is when you are in a crowded place and overloaded with a burden of whatever kind. Someone you don't know at all bumps into you.

The first reaction is one of expectation - you look for an apology. As you do that, you instantly scan the individual in terms of obvious physical differences. When the apology does not come in the moment you expected it or even not all... judgement and discrimination kick in. You calculate in your social imagination all information on that 'type' of person, you place them in a group of information.

The next time you are in the same situation, you avoid all those 'types'; because, you know what not to expect and what to expect. Think about it. Consider all those seemingly 'innocent' from an outside observer's view that have caused you to expect more or less from someone or a group of people.

You don't ask them out to lunch or over to your house, you don't engage them in conversation, you don't deal fairly with them in the office or in public, you join in with others who mock them as you feel that they too have been disappointed and expectations are low.

Someone once told me not to expect anything from anyone and you will never be disappointed. But, what kind of society would that be, what kind of social imagination would that provide... gray! We live in a social imagination and in it there will be good, bad and ugly information and expectations or lack thereof but it is necessary for social reality, necessary for its existence. We can imagine because of those things which we know well, know a little about and don't know much about.

In that social imagination, we live, move and have our being. As Durkheim would have called it - sui generis. This is a fallen world and thus it is not perfect. And, in this imperfect 'world' this imperfect social imagination we rise and fall, we cry, and sing, we love and even hate but we live.

God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘- We are His offspring.’ Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.…
Acts 17:27-29.