Thinking about the Imagination: Wendell Berry

Last April, Wendell Berry gave the 41st Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. His title is, "It All Turns on Affection." I'm still in the process of thinking about the lecture, but thought I would share it here. His lecture proper starts about 11 minutes in...

So, here is Berry on the importance of imagination (or the failure thereof) and economy, land, families, connection, America, sustainability, ... 

Favorite quote about imagination:

The term ‘imagination’ in what I take to be its truest sense refers to a mental faculty that some people have used and thought about with the utmost seriousness. The sense of the verb ‘to imagine’ contains the full richness of the verb ‘to see.’ To imagine is to see most clearly, familiarly and understandingly with the eyes. But also, to see inwardly with the mind’s eye. It is to see not passively, but with a force of vision, and even with a visionary force. To take it seriously we must give up at once any notion that imagination is disconnected from reality or truth or knowledge. It has nothing to do either with clever imitation of appearances or with ‘dreaming up.’ It does not depend upon one’s attitude or point of view, but grasps securely the qualities of things seen or envisioned.

Favorite quote from the lecture, from about 70 minutes in:

...truth, nature, imagination, affection, love, hope, beauty, joy. These words are hard to keep still within their definitions. They make the dictionary hum like a beehive. But in such words, in their resonance, within their histories, and in their associations with one another we find our indispensable humanity without which we are lost and in danger.