Saturday, January 3, 2009

When Imagination Goes Bad

I discovered this little gem a few minutes ago.



I won't spend any time refuting the argument but it just made me think of the dangers of an unchecked imagination.

When your six year old daughter, let's call her Betty, shows you her latest monster drawing and says, 'This is Tony and he likes to eat chicken sandwiches and he's made out of your socks, Daddy', you may feel all proud that your DNA and parenting has turned her brain matter into a fertile little mind and you brag to your friends at the firm that Betty is 'imaginative'.



But her imagination won't just make your coworkers envious that their 'Jacks', 'Trevors', and 'Elizabeths' aren't as 'imaginitive' as your Betty. Betty's imagination may in fact wake you up at 3AM when she starts screaming, 'Aaaah Tony is going to eat my toes! Daddy don't let Tony eat my toes!'.



So you see imagination isn't always a positive thing. It's good on the one hand because without it we wouldn't have great art, real scientific knowledge, or useful technology.







But an unchecked imagination also creates envy, ideology, and arguments that because new life forms have never been observed popping out of a peanut butter jar that evolution is a myth.





I'll scan some cartoons shortly...

1 comment:

Kenny P. said...

Yeah, like any tool, the imagination can be used for good or ill. But, peanut butter is almost always simply delicious.