At the first of the semester, Dr. Terry Ferguson asked me to join a faculty reading group. The book under consideration is The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery. The tome's topic is climate change and global warming. Needless to say, there's a lot of science in this book. I last took a science class in 1982, and the only thing I remember from it is I shouldn't spell 'beetles' as 'beatles' because that's a rock band, not a bunch of bugs. So a lot of the time I'm left in the academic dust of our discussion group, struggling just to keep up with the concepts.
But as we talked today---and our talks are always lively, because that's what you get when you put a bunch of science, math, business, computer and humanities types together---I couldn't shake a nagging fear that I have. I've had it before, but it bubbled back up to the surface today.
To think about potential ecological crises of vast proportions requires imagination. If you can't imagine what the consequences of species loss might be, or envision how citizens of a major metropolis would react to suddenly having no water, then it's hard to get riled up about debates on the nature and severity of climate change. If your view of the future is limited to what you'll eat for dinner, then how can you be motivated to become an activist for planet earth? Or for any worthy cause?
And what about our students---do they have the kind of imaginations necessary to perceive of both a potential disastor and its possible solutions?
I do think that Wofford students can be exceptionally creative. I also believe they can be highly motivated, and that they can use those wonderful young imaginations to solve problems and to work for a better world. The recent success of the ONE campaign speaks to their mental agility as well as to their big hearts. But at times, when I ask a class how many of them like to read, or write stories or poems, or draw pictures, or simply fantasize about the future, I get dull, glassy-eyed looks. Even worse, I often register waves of disgust, as if I've asked them to go for a weekend without checking Facebook or text-messaging. And that, gentle readers, disturbs me deeply.
Maybe it's because I can't imagine NOT imagining! As a historian, I have to build entire worlds from fragments of documents, from blurred photographs or idealized portraits. I have to spin it all into a story in order to grasp it, to look for a meaning. Or maybe it's because I grew up as an only child, spending long months on the farm without peers and playmates. I'm not even claiming to be very good at this art; let's face it, I'm most likely not going to write the great American novel. But the stories in my head never stop. I can close my eyes and try to mentally delve into 'deep time'---the 70 million year old fossilized tooth I wear as a necklace (crafted for me by a scientist, no less!) helps with that. I can populate nineteenth century London or frontier Florida on a movie screen in my mind. And maybe that's why this book scares me, because I CAN visual this Gulf Stream failing or Australia going dry. And maybe it's wrong to expect nineteen year olds to have that ability, because their lives are so intense, so real in this moment---why should I belabor them to mentally step either behind or beyond this second in their universe?
Possibly they're better 'imagineers' than I realize. Maybe I just ask them questions on bad days. Perhaps it's 'all in my head.' I sure hope so.