John Lennon, sly dog that he was, got one thing right: the power of imagination, especially young people’s imagination, is one of the most influential political agents in the world

The Politics of Escapism

by Michael Davis

John Lennon, sly dog that he was, got one thing right: the power of imagination, especially young people’s imagination, is one of the most influential political agents in the world. Young people will slide flowers into the barrel of a National Guardsman’s rifle. Young people will stare down tanks in Tiananmen Square. Their elders will always be the brains of a successful revolution; but sinewy, juvenile spirits will be their general infantry, their cannon fodder and their battle cry.

Establishment politics can’t harness this incredible power, whether they be right or wrong. Establishment leaders (i.e. Obama) might, but only with a P.R. campaign of safety-on radicalism: “Get your radicalist credentials with none of the sacrifice!” Otherwise, young people won’t show up. And perhaps a mainstream solution is what we need. But perhaps the extremism of young minds also dooms our society to accommodate extremes.

The good news is that the conservative has always been urged to harness this fantastical, unfounded idealism. For Christ said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” It’s not the intellect or the physicality of children that we need, but the imaginative power: an imagination that flouts all of life’s disappointments, all of the world’s callousness. We need hearts that demand love unfailingly and offer love unconditionally. We need minds that see the world in golden and sapphire hues.

And we need a battle-plan.

The Imaginative Conservative, as the name implies, has an inkling of this potential. An imagination fed by the richest grain and clearest water can batter away any adversity, hold fast to any great principle. At least till the spirit collapses.

This has been the demise of the Leftist counter-culture: they fed the imaginative mind, but did not take the imaginative soul. They urged their followers to dream of a better world (the material), but not of a better self (the soul). We might take up the old Aristotleism, that prosperity demands virtue. And by any conservative reckoning that’s certainly true: individual betterment precedes social betterment. But what the conservative has neglected is the arresting awe in the presence of Truth that gives way to virtue.

And from what I can devise, this strikes the heart of conservatism. Variety (or, say, diversity) is the spice of life, yes.

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Read more: www.theimaginativeconservative.org