Stigmatized Imagination and Imagination Beyond Stigma

Stigmatizing ways of imagining play a crucial role in causing expressive and epistemic harms—and more indirectly other kinds of harm as well—by distorting and excusing the suffering of some, making it appear as if it were tolerable or even necessary. But resistant ways of imagining can contest exclusions and stigmatizations, and they can help us become sensitive to the suffering of excluded and stigmatized subjects.

(Medina 2013, 252)

In Ancient Greek mythology, we often encounter images of nymphs, centaurs, and egocentric Olympian gods endlessly interfering in the affairs of mortals. We are entirely justified in stating that, in the physical world, there are no corresponding objects to these images. However, can we truly deny that they were an important and legitimate part of the world of the ancient Greeks? This thesis reveals the idea of a diluted dualism between reality and the realm of imagination, articulated by the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Cornelius Castoriadis.

Castoriadis, particularly in his theory of the social imaginary, opposes the idea that the creation of institutional forms and psychological attitudes ex nihilo (creation “out of nothing” by the divine act) is a result of the world order itself. Instead, he affirms human imagination as their primary source. Naturally, this refers not to individual imagination that produces fantasies and dreams, but to collective, radical imagination that reproduces these fantasies in reality.

For Castoriadis, radical imagination is one of the fundamental capabilities of both individuals and societies, through which the creation of an Eigenwelt (“own-world”) becomes possible - an origin of prospective qualities and logical forms (Castoriadis 1997, 321-322). With this definition of radical imagination as a creative power and mode of expression, the social imaginary produces all social institutions from within itself. Castoriadis notes that the imagination of a single person is non-functional; the only thing that allowed humans, as a species, to secure their existence was their ability for collective creation - the construction of society as a whole, or more precisely, all the institutions that embody socially imaginary significations.

This leads to the emergence of a new ontological form of eidos and being, that is, the way of organising objects into being, the reflection of abstract ideas in material things, supported by institutions (such as language, family, the state) and the meanings these institutions work with (taboos, myths, commodities, etc.). However, from this form of eidos and being arises a paradox: an institution created by the human psyche ends up providing meaning to human life itself. Therefore, any thought of destroying or radically changing such institutions may horrify the individual, as it would deprive them of the very ground beneath their feet. Heteronomous societies elevate this fear to an absolute, proposing the image of a split and undefined subject devoid of a life purpose. In fact, all of this is directed against the liquid nature of imaginary social significations - a flow which Castoriadis compares to magma (Castoriadis 1997, 336). This “magmas”, on one hand, solidifies into institutions, but on the other, is always in a “not fully” solidified state - thus remaining susceptible to changes in form and meaning. The trend of limiting this natural fluidity, as we see, extends beyond pseudo-democratic dictatorships, and as soon as an institution monitored by the state is reinterpreted, a reaction follows from the authorities. The operations of differentiation, positing, and unification - as well as production, construction, and ordering - are carried out not by society, but by institutions of control (Castoriadis 1987, 365). Society is thus deprived of its creative potential.

Castoriadis envisions a possible way out of this condition, which he calls the project of autonomy. This project operates on both collective and individual levels - politics (as a collective emancipatory movement) and philosophy (as self-reflective, relentlessly critical thought). At one time, collective and individual autonomy gave rise to a new ontological eidos, namely democracy, whose essence was freedom, not in a metaphysical sense, but as the effective and humanly achievable establishment of rules for social activity (Castoriadis 1987, 101-108).

Yet, at the same time, authoritarian states of the past and modern era suppress not only centers of radical imagination but also the very possibilities of autonomy. Active participation in political life against ruling powers becomes stigmatized; individuals are marked not only physically but also socially. Even though free thought remains a more attainable form of autonomy, it still runs into the painful alienation from the very object of reflection - a reality that no longer belongs to the experience of the one reflecting, nor depends on them.

In this regard, I believe it is necessary to introduce an additional component into the conversation about the social imaginary: trauma. Trauma always presents a challenge to radical imagination, either leading to stagnation or unleashing its creative potential. A parallel can be drawn between the means of achieving autonomy and Freud’s distinction between melancholia and mourning (Freud, 1948). In the context of melancholia, trauma is an external irritant, something the state can exploit by reassembling the subject’s memory. Melancholia renders the subject mute, deaf, and blind. Mourning, on the other hand, approaches trauma as an internal experience of the subject, which makes it less susceptible to external manipulation and more available for articulation and symbolization. Moreover, its capacity for performative action brings imagination into the field of culture, specifically into its most self-reflective mediums, among which cinema and literature can be singled out.

The poetic imagination born of trauma not only enables the rethinking of the trauma’s source but also of the imperfections of the social world as a whole. When I was able to verbalize my emigrant experience in poetic form, its lacunarity, which once frightened me, revealed itself as a space for maneuver, a reservoir of energy necessary for inner transformation.

I left Russia three years ago. I have neither the possibility nor the desire to return. I feel no longing to once again share closeness with the population of my country. This is neither dictated by a sense of ethical superiority, nor by a desire to change the Russian authoritarian regime. The poetic imagination of the emigrant will not be understood by people living under the dome of propaganda. But it can still be addressed to the world as such. Stigmatized imagination tells us that tomorrow will be the same as today. Imagination invoked by the stigma, the wound, the trauma, knows that the day after tomorrow must be different. Thus, radical imagination in the context of trauma is not just a dynamic human capacity for creation, but an inner obligation - to history, to the world, and to oneself.

References

1. Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1987. The Imaginary Institution of Society. Polity Press.

2. Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1997. The Castoriadis Reader. Blackwell Publishers. 

3. Freud, Sigmund. 1948. “Mourning and Melancholia.” In Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers vol. The Hogarth Press.

Medina, Jose. 2013. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations. Oxford University Press. 

Ivan Kalinin