The Sociological Imaginary

So I still haven’t seen GoT, but I liked how this article looked at the final season from Zeynep Tufekci at Scientific American: Game of Thrones: Why People Hated the 8th Season

I think a lack of Sociological storytelling is one of the biggest issues America faces–its why our prison system is so big, why billionaires are allowed free reign over schools, transit, housing, our *ahem* social lives. A lack of sociological storytelling is a lack of historical understanding, and consequently a lack of imaginative flexibility for different futures.

It may not be a uniquely American issue, but it contributes to and is built upon some uniquely American structures of dominance. It is a maneuver that allows whites to ignore the structural legacy of colonialism and slavery; that allows angry man-babies to play pretend as victims of gender equality, rather than historical beneficiaries of gender inequality.

Stories are reality, and how we understand ourselves (or allow others to be understood, as with the racial bias present in the fundamental attribution error where children of color are seen as more responsible for “bad” behavior while white children are given passes for being children) can shape what we become.

Is there [liberational] potential in changing our style of storytelling?

Pair this will the introduction from Mark Fisher’s «Ghosts of My Life» about colonial melancholy and the “slow cancellation of the future.”