Discover more from Douglass’s Newsletter
Habit keeps us in the rut. “Habit is the great flywheel of society. It keeps the farmer at the plow and the sail deep at sea.”* Habit is the enemy of change, while imagination is its companion. Or we will never break out of the iron grip of contemporary habits.
Two kinds of imagination needed
Accurate imagination, to discover what is.
Experimental imagination, try out what is new
Thinking of paths forward requires both kinds of imagination. we need to be much tougher and ride this invisible tiger.
We need to build on a solid foundation of good facts. For example. Transition lines are necessary for an electrical option.
An example of a bad fact: Replace gas automobiles with EVs cutting co2 emissions to zero. But there is no way we can build and replace 8 billion cars. Cost, time, energy, and materials.
* William James, Principles of Psychology
Two kinds of imagination needed.
"Replace gas automobiles with EVs cutting co2 emissions to zero" is not a fact by any definition. It's a proposed action, based on a stack of assertions (i.e. assumptions), none of which are facts. (Assertions never are.)
Mary Midgley, in Science and Salvation (p. 1), has this generative sentence: “Any system of thought playing the huge part that science now plays in our lives must also shape our guiding myths and color our imaginations profoundly. It is not just a useful tool. It is also a pattern that we follow at a deep level in trying to meet our imaginative needs.”
What you are questioning, I think, is how we can see what guides us, and perhaps try something new.