The counternarrative few want to admit: The role of imagination is not to come up with a better future, but to create contingencies for futures

A common diagnosis across critical theories of contemporary society is that it has lost the capacity to imagine a better future. As early as 1985, Habermas voiced the concern that utopian energies were exhausted (Habermas 1985), and variations of this sentiment are often echoed in reference to the neoliberal mantra that ‘there is no alternative’. . . .

Against this backdrop, I propose the following starting definition of the role of imagination in critical theory: It is presented as a capacity that, at once, cannot be cut off from the social order (i.e., it is potentially ideological or delusional) while being often referred to as an element within the human psychodynamic that leaves open the possibility for transcending the social order. . . .

To be clear: The resulting claim—that critical theory presents imagination as a part of the human psychodynamic that is not fully corruptible— is not intended as a reason for optimism. Given the current state of the world, with progressive politics largely confined to rearguard actions (or worse), such a picture would be strange to endorse. Quite the opposite: In the context I discuss here, imagination is presented more or less as an almost transcendental capacity (i.e., a condition of possibility) for transcending the social order—which, given the current state of affairs, may only serve to highlight that no real alternatives are in sight.

Which however means. . .

Following that, imagination is essentially framed as the element within the human psychodynamic that makes complete identification with a social whole impossible. In this sense, it serves as a category introducing contingencies into a social theory deeply centered on the concept of the “totality” of a social order. . . .

If there truly were a totality of the social order that inscribed itself perfectly into the psyche of every individual, not only would emancipatory change be impossible, but any form of change at all would be precluded— an evidently absurd notion. I rather think that attributing the possibility of change (i.e., contingencies in the social order) to an individual capacity implies that there are no social processes on the horizon for a critical theory to cling to (such as theorems like the diminishing rate of profit, etc.). In a sense, this way of thinking about imagination suggests that a better future is possible against all odds.

Gante, M. (2025). “Imagination in Critical Theory: Utopia, Ideology, Aesthetics” Constellations, pp. 1 – 10 (accessed online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8675.70009)