Is there some way to correct bad social imaginaries? You say something at the end about "embrace the crisis". Does that mean "try practicing something new even if it creates a crisis"? Or that when crises come there's no way to not rethink things?
You also say something about incentives in academia which steer people toward the same debates and positions. If academia isn't rethinking bad social imaginaries, or is captured by incentives, then who could?
To the first, I mean simply that crisises create the situation in which we either realize that the thinking is creating the problem, or we double down on more of the same. I think the latter--"practicing something new even if it creates a crisis"--is interesting, in that something new does create a crisis for the old, because something that was once only thinkable is now actual, and thus possible. And that's frequently bad news for the older version.
To the second, I think there's all kinds of ways of using the incentive structures against themselves, but it has to first be accompanied by a recognition that another way is thinkable.
This only comes, however, by exposure to something beyond the institution, of a cross-polination happening. This happens all the time in academia without us noticing: business models overtaking pedagogical concerns, social concerns governing what kinds of conversations happen, etc. But it's also possible within academia to have the space and time to realize these dynamics for what they are--this is the gift that academia has to give to other spaces, I think.
Is there some way to correct bad social imaginaries? You say something at the end about "embrace the crisis". Does that mean "try practicing something new even if it creates a crisis"? Or that when crises come there's no way to not rethink things?
You also say something about incentives in academia which steer people toward the same debates and positions. If academia isn't rethinking bad social imaginaries, or is captured by incentives, then who could?
Right--good questions.
To the first, I mean simply that crisises create the situation in which we either realize that the thinking is creating the problem, or we double down on more of the same. I think the latter--"practicing something new even if it creates a crisis"--is interesting, in that something new does create a crisis for the old, because something that was once only thinkable is now actual, and thus possible. And that's frequently bad news for the older version.
To the second, I think there's all kinds of ways of using the incentive structures against themselves, but it has to first be accompanied by a recognition that another way is thinkable.
This only comes, however, by exposure to something beyond the institution, of a cross-polination happening. This happens all the time in academia without us noticing: business models overtaking pedagogical concerns, social concerns governing what kinds of conversations happen, etc. But it's also possible within academia to have the space and time to realize these dynamics for what they are--this is the gift that academia has to give to other spaces, I think.