Speculative imagination generates collective futures under incalculable uncertainty

Evidence

Speculative imagination: a generative, creative (albeit unequally distributed) capacity to imagine under conditions of incalculable uncertainty; to bring forth new collective images of the future, which helps economies, societies, and polities navigate the present’s volatile conditions. A social force that is both materially bound (conditional on access to material resources, technologies, and capital) and idealist in nature (dependent on available symbolic resources, ideas, and shared myths). The speculative imagination seeks opportunities to engage constructively (but not to master or eliminate) life’s ambiguities and the future’s unknowable outcomes. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 9

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Second foundational term — the ‘unequally distributed’ and ‘materially bound’ caveats matter for the reader’s left/reclaiming assessment.

Related

• The capacity to imagine under uncertainty is unequally distributed (similarity 0.94)
• Speculative imagination gives provisional images to future chaos we can live with (similarity 0.91)
• The speculative imagination keeps the future open to change by collectively owning its indeterminacy (similarity 0.90)
• A collective speculative imagination shapes how capitalist societies cope with future uncertainty. (similarity 0.88)
• Uncertainty is a resource enabling political subjectivity, not merely an outcome of finance (similarity 0.87)
• Speculative imagination is willingness to stake on future uncertainty despite scarce resources. (similarity 0.87)
• Speculation re-enchants collectivities by projecting broken promises onto shared futures (similarity 0.85)
• Collective imagination, not individual gamblers, shapes our shared wagers on the future (similarity 0.85)
• Imagination is social and intersubjective, constituting collectivities (similarity 0.85)
• Speculative imagination is a generative social force integrated into everyday capitalist life (similarity 0.84)
• Speculative communities emerge from collective imagination, not individual gambling (similarity 0.83)
• Speculative imagination can unite communities rather than atomize them. (similarity 0.83)
• Agrarians and lay speculators shared a speculative imagination despite resource limits. (similarity 0.83)
• Imagination functions both as an open-ended process and a fixed outcome (similarity 0.83)
• Imagination actively creates worlds rather than merely imitating an external reality (similarity 0.83)