Great Post: Moral Imagination

In his article in Touchstone Magazine entitled "Of Weeds and Fairy Tales", Vigen Guroian talks about the imagination. Not the "little kids playing pretend" thing our modern society calls imagination, but rather the true "moral imagination" that is anything but child's play. Here, Guroian discusses three different kinds of imagination; the idyllic, the idolatrous and the diabolical. He also discusses the role that stories, especially fairy tales, play in the shaping of the imaginations of both children and adults. Here is a sampling...

"Fairy tales are not scientific hypotheses, nor are they practical guides to living. They do something even better, however. They resonate with the deepest qualities of our humanity. They possess the power to draw us into the mystery of morality and virtue. They enable us to envision a world where there are norms and limits and where freedom respects the moral law or pays an especially high price. Fairy tales show us that there is a difference between what is logically possible and what is morally felicitous, between what is rationally doable and what is morally permissible."

HT: World Magazine Blog