The writer is chief executive of the Institute of Imagination, a children’s education charity
Recent crises have exposed the inability of powerful people to grasp the implications of emerging threats. The debates about what went wrong after these threats became reality have restored the currency of a phrase that had fallen out of use: “failure of imagination”. Made famous by the 9/11 Inquiry — which was critical of the US government for their “failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management” — it encapsulates the concept of not being able to envisage or anticipate potential outcomes, thereby hindering progress.
This week, England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty deployed the same phrase in discussing the government’s sluggish response to warnings about the potential impact of Covid. This is a classic case of how leaders, and those advising them, grapple — or fail to grapple — with uncertainty during an era of turbulent geopolitical, technological, and societal change. A global lockdown wasn’t something that pre-existed in the imagination of scientists, nor was it a planned policy. This has led to debates around whether action was taken too late and if we could have avoided the subsequent fear, turmoil and tragedy.
But the failure of imagination is not only limited to crises — it is evident in the persistence of systemic inequalities of everyday life. The failure to imagine a society that is truly inclusive means we risk perpetuating disparities in schools, the workplace and the areas we live based on race, gender and socio-economic status.
Addressing these challenges requires us to imagine new remedies that challenge the status quo. Imagination, if harnessed positively, will not only help us protect ourselves from the bad — terrorist attacks, worsening climate change or pandemics — it can also lead to leaps in thinking which advance our societies for the good.
Without imagination, we would have no hope of ever achieving anything beyond what currently exists; it allows us to see the potential for change. Imagination is our human superpower. It can, and has been, the driving force for many of society’s greatest achievements and innovations. From the first mark on a cave wall, to Dr Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ vision, to breakthroughs in vaccination research and space exploration, our greatest developments have started with leaps of imagination.
Encouraging imagination is not a “nice-to-have”; it’s a necessity and an essential skill for life. It’s the conduit for creativity, curiosity, critical thinking and problem-solving. The issue is that while challenges and crises are nothing new, today’s children are growing up in a world wildly different to what we adults once knew. Continued instability, conflict and fear for the future of the planet are making it even harder for young people to imagine a positive future.
While we have lived with uncertainty in the past, the skills we will need to respond to this change are not being taught in schools. And failure to imagine can have profound consequences on future generations and their ability to adapt, to hope and to dream of a better world.
It is therefore imperative that imagination is framed positively. It must be seen as a springboard to inspire people to tackle and solve challenges both today and tomorrow, from immediate personal challenges to crisis solutions to world-changing ideas such as artificial intelligence and other developing technologies.
It’s important that we harness imagination in a way that pre-empts or constantly considers the unknown so that history does not repeat itself. In order to do this, we need to help equip children and adults with the confidence and experiences to strengthen their imagination muscle. Part of this is teaching our children not to be afraid when things go wrong. After all, not all imaginative leaps go the right way. And there is no failure in that.
