Collective Imagination Is the First Step Towards Change

“The map to a new world is in the imagination.” – Robin D. G. Kelley

For those of us who thought the long arc of the moral universe was bending towards justice, the past year can feel disorienting and hopeless. The Trump administration has implemented cuts to public health funding, made drastic changes at the NIH and CDC, and aims to punish work on equity and justice. Just a few years ago, many people were embracing a long-overdue racial reckoning that could help repair our divisions. But now, it can feel like we are being torn further apart. Is a better, more just, and equitable world possible? Or are we on a slide towards autocracy, dystopia, and suffering?

The reality is that both futures can happen. The choices we collectively make now will flow into the future and create the world our ancestors will live in. Will that future world be egalitarian, sustainable, and flourishing? Or one where exploitation, violence, and inequities pervade?

Simply critiquing and being frustrated by what we don’t like only gets us so far towards a better world.

Oren Lyons, a member of the Onondaga and Seneca Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, wrote, “In one rationalization upon another, you continue the exploitation for wealth and power, but you must consider in the process and in choosing the direction of your life: how will this affect the seventh generation?” This indigenous seven generations philosophy urged leaders to make decisions for their society based on how it would affect their descendants seven generations into the future. In this moment of national crisis, we can adopt this wisdom to help us.

The future orientation demanded by the seven generations philosophy enables us to imagine the future that we want for our descendants. It shifts the lens away from our present-day stress about money or safety and instead allows us to think about our great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren. What do we want for them? What does the world we want for them look like? Feel like? Sound like? Will they be proud of the decisions we made, or ashamed?

For those of us working in the field of public health, anchoring ourselves in the future helps us to identify what we want to build and create for our society. Simply critiquing and being frustrated by what we don’t like only gets us so far towards a better world. We need to actually imagine, plan, and create the blueprint for a better world. Once we imagine that better world, we can get to work building it.

Making a better world for the seventh generation means that we need to imagine doing better today so that we can carve a path towards a better world tomorrow.

The future orientation enables us to take a long-term perspective. As much as it might pain us to admit, we are not going to transform the world overnight or even in the next year. Remember that the arc of the moral universe is long, so we need to be envisioning this as generational work. Just like the effort to plant tulip bulbs in the fall for a delayed benefit a year later, we need to think about what seeds we can be planting in this generation so that future generations can benefit.

For the field of public health, we need to be clear about what a society where all people have the opportunity to thrive and be healthy looks like. What types of schools does that society have? What criminal legal system does that society have? What environmental protections does that society have? And what do public health institutions—across government, non-profit sector, and academia—do to help foster this better future? Imagining this better world, in vivid detail, is the first step towards building it.

As we enter the second year of a national political climate that is antagonistic towards public health and health equity, it can be easy to feel hopeless or to want to cling to old systems. But making a better world for the seventh generation means that we need to imagine doing better today so that we can carve a path towards a better world tomorrow.