Boris stuttered his way through a speech in which he lauded the imagination. Why?

It is yesterday’s news. But…Finally, after I have waited my whole life for the gift I was given; an imagination, to become valued in society, our Prime Minister decided the imagination is worth talking about, because, wait for it, it makes money; so, hey, it must be of value after all.

In A Critique of Pure Reason it was Kant who observed that it was the memory that categorised for expediency, but the imagination that did something entirely different. You see, the imagination has the ability to wonder what if? and why? Other thinking requires memory of prior things, and things as they are, or things to remain as they are, sometimes that means stereotypical, and this places value on the memory, because it is the memory that reminds us, for example, that the imagination, certainly in this age, is of no value. Monetary value being the marker for value; profit; GDP and KPIs, and so forth. Perhaps that is why Boris stuttered through his speech to restore the imagination to its prior place in society; a place it perhaps enjoyed when, for example, Coleridge and Wordsworth were writing poetry and feelings were not something to be ashamed of. Perhaps Boris’s education did not cover English Literature, and, having no prior knowledge of his literary history, his memory failed him. So he drew on Peppa Pig instead of our great and poor poets. Or perhaps it was deliberate since value in anything is equal to monetary value in our present society in spite of Greta Thunberg’s perhaps prophetic retort to World Leaders, ‘you talk of money’ ((2019). Poets do not conjure up the same feeling of wealth.

English GCSE syllabus has placed grammar and punctuation ahead of ideas, turn of phrase, feeling, observation, and empathy; all of which are an intrinsic facet of the imagination and of equal value to well presented letters. We end up with very dull and imaginationless writing when people believe that if they can get a good editor, or present writing well, but without a reader in mind, they are blessed with an imagination. However, the imagination is a complex thing not easily understood and it needs work. Edgar Allen Poe observed that those with imagination had powers of critical reasoning, and that this was a facet of the imagination. (Since I am paraphrasing, for further reading on this see The Telltale Heart And Other Stories referenced in the bibliography at the end of this essay. The other stories in this collection are full of observations, so that whilst putting this observation about critical reasoning in the mouth of an omniscient creator, POV, Poe performs the very trait he observes, and this is just one example of the imagination as a process.) This suggests that powers of observation are intrinsic to good imaginations because the creative mind sees things that minds that are focused on memorised facts do not.

Having written a few children’s books myself, I have nothing against Peppa Pig. I still enjoy the original Barbapapa characters, and, aged 10, I loved the stereotypical characters in Tintin; the bungling detectives, the mad professor, the drunken sailor, and the educated and well-meaning problem solver with his side-kick, Snowy. It is well known that writing for children is akin to poetry. It is the art of saying much with few words and, often, purely with pictures.

Apart from Kant, the words ‘The Imagination is more important than knowledge’ are attributed to Einstein, who must have known something about the matter since he is well known enough to be called by his surname, whereas Boris is just plain old Boris.

Maybe if we understood the imagination better then we would celebrate it more. Maybe we would have libraries in every town full of the work of local artists of all ages like the art library in Boston where, instead of merely keeping the one painting of a talented art student, never to return it to them, thereby committing the unfortunate double whammy of appearing not to value the feeling that went into producing that painting by the theft of not returning it to its rightful owner (yes this sort of art theft goes on up and down the country in schools, here), Boston art library curate the art and allow other people to borrow the art for reference purposes, thereby giving it value by, instead of hiding it away never to see the light of day, like say The Elgin Marbles, sharing it and allowing it to, perhaps, influence others.

We know that influence is of value since successful people often refer to great teachers as pivotal to their success.

I am sure the art teachers, who perpetuate art theft by forgetting to return art, are well meaning and not art thieves at all; perhaps they are art curators. But who knew this art theft and subduing of the imagination was going on?

Nowadays we choose to dampen down our feelings with mood suppressing drugs like prozac (Fluoxetine), but what if we valued the imagination? The imagination, as Freud observed when studying creative writing, creates meaning out of trauma. I have observed through my own observation, and from practising the art of creative writing for almost 4 decades that it (that is creative writing), is capable of rendering a form of psychoanalysis on the problem the artist is confronted with by taking something apart and putting it back together, rather like the arc of a work of detective, or clue-puzzle fiction, which when done well restores order from chaos, as has already been observed by other writers. This must be linked to what has been documented in children who have witnessed acts of violence in schools who have been observed to act out the episodes as they remember them. Isn’t this too a form of storytelling?

Perhaps thanks is due to Boris for drawing attention to the art of storytelling through the performance of losing your way and appearing to forget, since it is only through disorder that order can be restored.

Bibliography:

Bennett, Andrew, and Royle, Nicholas Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (Pearson Education ltd.,), 2004

Freud, Sigmund, ‘Creative Writers and Daydreaming’ in Pelican Freud Library, Vol 14, trans James Strachey. Harmondsworth: Penguin

Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams trans Joyce Crick (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1999

Kant, Emmanuel, A Critique of Pure Reason (Kindle edn., 1781)

Poe, Edgar, Allan, The Tell Tale Heart and other stories, (New York, Dover Publications), 2020

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