Post #833427

2026-03-28 11:13 UTC

Anarchists, academics, general interested political folks!: I&#39;m looking for writings on the importance of political imagination for political progress. I feel like I often come across this kind of thinking in passing in radical literature (e.g. &#39;even just asking the question about what a world without prisons might look like itself makes it possible&#39;), but I don&#39;t know that I know of an essay or book length defense of its importance. Ideas? #politics #anarchism #leftism #ideology #theory

Replies (11)

@flyhigh@universeodon.com 2026-03-28 11:40

@pjw David Graeber's "Revolution in Reverse" and "Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology " are both brilliant.

Open ##2084279
@natematias@social.coop 2026-03-28 11:49

@pjw within religious studies, Bruegemann’s The Prophetic Imagination was a manifesto for this.

Open ##2084281
@arod@social.coop 2026-03-28 12:16

@pjw Freedom Dreams by Robin DG Kelley is about exactly this

Open ##2084286
@einsiedlerspiel@todon.nl 2026-03-28 13:11

@pjw the classic in that department would be cornelius castoriadis i guess. maybe his 'The Discovery of the Imagination' is a start. edit: fat fingered the name

Open ##2084289
@quietmarc@kolektiva.social 2026-03-29 00:00

@pjw "Rehearsals for Living" by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Robyn Maynard is a series of letters they wrote each other in the first year of the pandemic that covers some of those themes. Also "Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and emergent strategies" by Andrea J Ritchie gave me lots to think about.

Open ##2084291
@davva23@kolektiva.social 2026-03-29 00:02

@pjw Not specifically anarchist but I found it a compelling argument https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-10-20/monbiot-need-new-political-narrative/

Open ##2084292
@davva23@kolektiva.social 2026-03-29 00:06

@pjw Also Murray Bookchin talked about the importance of imagining a different politics. "The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking." The Meaning of Confederalism, Green Perspectives, no. 20 (1990).

Open ##2084293
@sal@brain.worm.pink 2026-03-29 00:23

@pjw Tbh "The Sane Society" n "The Revolution of Everyday Life" as far as Marxists go, n Daniel Quinn wrote more wingnutty anti-civ stuff, n Diane DiPrima if you want a bunch of odd poems that get at the matter in the style of koans

Open ##2084294
@bituur_esztreym@pouet.chapril.org 2026-03-29 00:27

@pjw saw many good ideas in the answers; i'd add Srećko Horvat, 'Poetry from the Future. Why a Global Liberation Movement Is Our Civilization's Last Chance'.

Open ##2084295
@bencourtice@aus.social 2026-03-29 00:41

@pjw I don't know of that exact book either but I think the spirit of that question pervades the writings of Michael A. Lebowitz, especially his conception of the state, and I think probably István Mészáros but I haven't read any of his books yet.

Open ##2084296
@kdwarn@social.coop 2026-03-29 02:43

@pjw do you know the situationists?

Open ##2084297