Creating Power of Imagination According to Jacob Bronowski, Essay Example

Apple and Hurricane Katrina as Two Examples of the World

The Power of Human imagination, as Bronowski identifies it, deals with expanding beyond physical limitations into the surreal. Many of the concepts he presents, such as the human obsession with symbolic objects, or the failed testing of children and animals to uncover the mysteries of imagination, all point to the notion that there is still something untouchable and incomprehensible that gives the process of imagination an unsaid power and influence within the physical world. The following will endeavor to show how the phenomena of Apple computers and also Hurricane Katrina were examples of the same reach and power of imagination Bronowski mentions in his work. Namely, these phenomena highlight the creative power of imagination as a uniquely human faculty that in essence continuously produces new modes of existence.

In order to develop the correlation between these aforementioned phenomena and Bronowski’s account of the imagination, it is first necessary to present a more detailed account of the latter. It is clear from Bronowski’s text “The Reach of Imagination”, that he envisions imagination as something both profoundly unique and as well as profoundly human. For Bronowski this is made explicit at the outset of the text: “To imagine is the characteristic act, not of the poet’s mind, or the painter’s, or the scientist’s, but of the mind of man.” (1) Accordingly, there is a purely anthropological dimension to imagination, insofar as imagination essentially defines the human being as human being. Bronowski evades any account of imagination that would reduce it to a particular human practice, such as the examples he gives, but rather conceives of imagination as essentially the same as human cognition. It is this same equation of imagination with human cognition that gives imagination its uniqueness: human cognition differs from other forms of cognition within the environment, to the extent that it forms an unprecedented relation with this environment. This claim is backed up by Bronowski with citations from empirical research on the cognitive differences between human and animal; this difference itself highlights the uniqueness of imagination itself, which Bronowski describes as follows: “To imagine means to make images and to move them about inside one’s head in new arrangements.” (8) The uniqueness of imagination is again underscored in the definition of imagination itself: it is the creation of “new arrangements” of ideas. Bronowski himself uses the term images to understand the materials with which the imagination is working with, this term carrying a meaning similar to the meaning the American philosopher Charles Peirce gave to the term “sign”, which in Bronowski’s definition indicates abstract symbols, “without regard for its sensory quality.” (10) In other words, the senses or the material parameters of our life do not define what we can imagine: we can imagine within these parameters or go beyond them.  Accordingly, imagination introduces novelty into the world, a gift that is doubly unique since it is unique to humans and it itself produces uniqueness. Imagination thus does not only introduce novelty into the world, but also produces its own worlds, an infinite series of worlds, as Bronowski makes clear: “The richness of human life is that we have many lives, we live the events that do not happen (and some that cannot) as vividly as those that do, and if thereby we die a thousand deaths, that is the price we pay for living a thousand lives.” (14) Accordingly, for Bronowski imagination is essentially human existence, which suggests that imagination is the ground of any existential account of anthropology. At the same time, what makes this mode of existence so different when conceived according to this account of the imagination is that imagination makes possible numerous forms of existence. Imagination thus creates and produces.

The veracity of Bronowski’s account can be most accurately and appropriately tested by seeking outs instances of its potential appearance within human practice and the environment in which human practice takes place. One such phenomenon that seems to correspond to this account is that of Apple: the grip that this brand has had on the public imagination is strong, as witnessed by the frenzied and almost idiotic consumerist excitement over the release of a new Apple product, such as the iPhone. Certainly, this example could be considered to completely antithetical to what Bronowski understands by imagination: the popularity of Apple is merely another example of the herd mentality of a consumerist culture, which blindly follows trends established by others. Moreover, the popularity of Apple as a product can be understood as a fetishization of the product itself, that is the importance given to a material good, and thus something that is not imagination in Bronowski’s sense: insofar as Bronowski defines imagination as essentially the creation of unique and novel forms of existence, the Apple hysteria of consumerist culture entails people merely conforming to this already existing culture.

However, from another perspective, it can be considered that Apple itself created a unique and singular product, which corresponded to a particular way of life and form of existence that is compelling to the individual in terms of its boldness and dynamism. Namely, Apple products are popular, in this reading, simply because they represent triumphant examples of the human imagination at work. The relevance and importance of Apple products to human life can be said to answer certain needs in human life, or even create needs that were not there before, but become needs, because of the power of the products in question. Thus, Steve Jobs did not merely accept the previous ways of human interaction, but created new forms of human interaction. And because all humans possess imagination in Bronowski’s view, they do not want to merely stay within the confines of a particular world: they wish to experience new worlds, and conceive of “new arrangements” of images. What Apple products accomplish, in this regard, is to provide a medium for further creative expression. Apple becomes a prototypical example of Bronowski’s account of imagination in therefore two senses. Firstly, the work of Steve Jobs represents the creation of a new mode of existence, the introduction of a new world constituted by new principles and forms of relations, and a new environment itself. Secondly, Jobs’ world of Apple by its very essence invites its users to create their own worlds, through the new relations and processes it makes possible. Steve Jobs and Apple employ imagination to further the employment of imagination.

In contrast to the affirmation of imagination that is present in the creative enterprises of Steve Jobs and his Apple conglomerate, one can take as a phenomena with which to analyze Bronowski’s account a destructive event: for example, Hurricane Katrina. The destruction created by Hurricane Katrina could itself be considered a creative act, to the extent that it radically changed the world of the inhabitants of the areas afflicted by the storm, as well as the greater American country. However, Bronowski is obviously not attributing imagination to natural forces; rather, imagination in relation to Katrina emerges in terms of how the human continues to imagine different types of worlds in light of changes to one’s own environment. In other words, Katrina served as a certain catalyst to the usage of human imagination.

This is clear by the sense in which Katrina disturbed everyday existence, forcing people to think about those other than themselves. Namely, Katrina revealed some of the systematic injustices that were part of the system. In other words, it was not itself an act of imagination obviously, but it forced humans to utilize their faculty of imagination: in Bronowski’s terms, noting the key anthropological and existential link between the human and imagination, it could even be said that Katrina forced humans to be human.

Hence, a series of radical changes were introduced into American society by being forced to use the imagination and conceive new worlds. For example, the teen pop star or teen idol Kanye West attacked the Bush administration for failing to “care about black people.” Katrina forced individuals to re-think their relation to political structures, and in this very re-thinking a new potential “arrangement” of these same structures is made possible. President Bush, for example, visited the New Orleans area the next day after outrage was proclaimed over his failure to act in regards to the humanitarian crisis in the South: Criticism itself is a form of imagination, because it is the realization that one arrangement of images falls short of another potential arrangement of images. In other terms, it is possible to live in a better world, and when this possibility is not fulfilled, criticism is the making explicit of the failure to realize this possibility and potential.

Accordingly, following the analysis of these two phenomena, imagination, as Bronowski understands it, can be present in both apparently destructive and productive acts. The pure creativity of Steve Jobs and his Apple industry demonstrate the attempt to imagine new possibilities, in terms of communication, design and art. This attempt in turn allows others to develop even more arrangements, creating a radical use of the imagination on multiple levels. Yet also in negative phenomena, such as Katrina, individuals are forced to confront an unpleasant world and therefore react to this world: the reaction and the criticism of the failures to address the problems induced by Katrina represents the attempt to imagine a better world, a new world in which these problems are non-existent. It is the ability to explain how imagination nevertheless continues to work in regards to such diverse phenomena like Apple and Katrina shows the power of Bronowski’s account. The creative potential of imagination as linked to something unique to the human being means that imagination is potentially present anywhere human relation and activity is present. Although Bronowski acknowledges that the imagination remains a mystery on many levels, his account gives a deep insight into this paramount part fo the human identity, in its ability to constantly create new forms of life and existence in a multitude of forms, from works of art to technology to social arrangements and relations.

Works Cited

Bronowski, Jacob. “The Reach of Imagination.” The iDeal Reader. New York: McGraw-Hill Corporation, 2000.