Bringing Magic to the World: The Ethical Application of the Sociological Imagination
Q: Do you know the difference between how magic works in films and how it works in real life?
A: Pace.
A Practice of Magic
I’d like you to try an experiment with me. Hold out your hand in front of you and bring your thumb together with your index and middle finger.
Now think of a simple object. Not too simple. But something you could make for yourself pretty easily and hold in the palm of your hand.
I’d like you to also hold in your mind the elements and materials which the object consists of.
Are you ready?
Ok. One, Two, Three then close your eyes and concentrate on the space between your fingers. Imagine atoms of the materials being brought together into that space and an object being brought into formation.
Imagine seeing the completed object in the palm of your hand.
Now. Click your fingers and look for yourself!
Ok.
It takes practice…
We’ll get there though. I can assure you of that.
The Metaphor and the Meaning
For me magic as a metaphor is important.
- It is the ultimate expression of; freedom, creativity and possibility.
- I believe it’s imperative to engage the imagination of the public. Magic in its truest sense has always done this and will continue to do so. Hogwarts and The Avengers are perfect examples.
- I feel that it could be integral to creating an organisational purpose and belief to help guide the larger Socially Enterprising story and direction.
For the rest of this post I’m going to try to illustrate how the metaphor of magic can be applied in the world around us.
Stick with it and you’ll hopefully see the connection between everything I’m trying to do.
Magical Practice in Your Community
Let me begin with Asset Based Community Development.
The practice of ABCD helps communities to improve their lot or meet their social needs through the considered application of the assets, strengths, relationships and resources which are contained with their local area and network of contacts.
Can you remember our magical experiment?
In this context only the scale changes.
Instead of a single mind there is a ‘collective mind’.
Instead of atoms and elements there are assets and resources.
Instead of an instantaneous act there is a creative process and an effort of organising and work which realises a social change in the real world.
It is a difference in pace only.
Magic in Development
The same process can also be used for other types of development too.
For example Personal Development, Organisational Development, Leadership, Staff or Workplace.
By the way it’s also possible to do all these things in conjunction with realising community, place or social benefit… It just takes a little thought.
Bringing Magic to Your Life
Imagine if you will, holding a small worry doll between your fingers.
Your life may have had difficulties in the past.
Maybe your relationships could have been better? Maybe you need help and support around what to do next? Maybe you have ambitions that have always seemed to far to reach? Maybe you just need to have a life audit, tackle your debts, and get yourself back on an even keel?
There are people and organisations available who can help you in every step of what you want to achieve.
I’d like you to close you eyes and imagine that through your creative freedom, choice and agency they start to come together around that doll.
A type of magic unique and perfect for you is starting to take place.
It takes time and it takes effort but it will work.
Now imagine who you would like that doll to become and open your eyes.
Say hello to your future self.
This is a future society.
The Magical Society: Where the social imaginary meets the sociological imagination
It makes sense to me that any attempt to create the new in society necessitates wide ranging ethical, moral and social understanding.
It’s all very well reaching deep into a magician’s top hat and pulling out a rabbit. But if that rabbit is then handed off to an animal testing lab then we haven’t moved ourselves forward a great deal, it is magic as spectacle and slight of hand.
In a society which has become so accustomed to illusion and deception we should demand nothing less of tomorrow than full access behind the scenes and a thorough questioning of the motives and intent of the actors involved.
It matters that we are able to situate ourselves in reality as it actually is and that is not a projected reality that is shown to us in popular media, society and politics.
We need to know what we are doing and why, as well as why the why exists and its various historical, social and structural contexts.
We need literacy in all of these things.
To be active participants requires us to be involved throughout and also engaged in critical follow up. We need to be cognizant of potential harms as well as benefits.
We should have deep embodied understanding available to us. This is contained within real people, real stories and real lives if we are willing to listen and open ourselves willingly to multiple truths.
For me there is a potential for arts and culture to combine all of these elements and requirements to give us access to this knowledge through multiple senses, perspectives and experiences.
Unlocking not just our individual; creative potential, literacies and confidences but our socially creative potential too.
The arts can allow us to develop human (animal, social and environmental) understanding and intelligences in multiple ways.
It is from this combined knowledge and understanding that creativity may be able to realise its most revolutionary potential.
A society that exists in a state of perpetual development, generational stewardship and radical creation.
The greater purpose of Socially Enterprising
In most other places I have written about the potential of a platform which connects society together in a different story. Socially Enterprising the platform.
But there is also Socially Enterprising as a form of Development NGO which operates across the Cultural, Social, Political, Environmental, Innovation and Technology spheres by bringing together and interconnecting the existing sectors, actors and organisations through a shared narrative and purpose.
It is through culture, creativity and imagination that transformation will be achieved within these spheres.
It is through these spheres that civilisation is developed.
This is platform + strategy + intelligence + governance (network orchestration) + an involving story of imaginative and social creation.
And finally there is what I feel to be a separate creative force which can actively engage in the creation and development of; new forms of commons (intellectual, social and cultural), networked and democratised institutions, furtherment of knowledge and practice, and the generation and development of new tools, software and ideas for common and social benefit.
All of these should be as the above demands.
Democratic and radically open institutions forever renewing themselves around some form of social constitution and guiding principles.
Once upon a time Walt Disney created a studio which brought hope and imagination alive.
I believe that today asks that we bring every ounce of our potential into the formation of a civilizational network that actively engages our hopes, dreams and imaginations in the development of a shared, repairing world and a of a magical type of society.
Ours is a world in peril.
It’s time we dreamt big again.
Close your eyes and imagine, a new world rising on the horizon.
Social Imaginary in Social Change
