"Imagine thinking..."
You've probably read a lot of tweets opening with those two words. I've written them before.
But it's a bad rhetorical habit and not just because it's snarky; it's that it fundamentally means the opposite of what it says.
You've probably read a lot of tweets opening with those two words. I've written them before.
But it's a bad rhetorical habit and not just because it's snarky; it's that it fundamentally means the opposite of what it says.
The author is NOT actually encouraging an act of imagination; rather, they are saying that the object of derision is so outlandish that they *can't* imagine it being correct.
But that often says more about the author than it does the object. It's a failure of their imagination.
But that often says more about the author than it does the object. It's a failure of their imagination.
I suppose I take this seriously because I'm a historian. We spend a lot of time training our brains to do an unnatural act, which is to temporarily step outside of our personal experiences, time periods, and cultural contexts and attempt to inhabit the point of view of another.
This is a hard, often unpleasant, even sometimes dangerous thing to do. But it's a vital and humanistic practice.
Historical imagination or empathy is like a muscle. It has to be worked at, exercised, torn down and built back up. Don't use it and it atrophies.
Historical imagination or empathy is like a muscle. It has to be worked at, exercised, torn down and built back up. Don't use it and it atrophies.
And so when I see someone tweet (or when I tweet!) "imagine thinking...", it makes me sad for them, that they are living a life without intellectual empathy, which must make it a very two dimensional, monochrome experience.
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