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Babbitt's Moral Imagination: Unpacking the Paradox of Creative Imitation
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Holston 9
Against the idea of a creative imitation, it may be argued that any time such a
“model of imitation” is established, creativity is necessarily delimited or circumscribed, and therefore, it is unavoidable that in some sense, expression of the universal does become predetermined or predictable. While it is true that a genuinely ethical imagination is restrictive in “impos[ing] measure and proportion upon … expansive desire,”
54
to characterize all such restraint as interfering with the work of the imagination
is to commit the error of Bergson of seeing all imaginative activity as subrational; this fails to recognize the different qualities of imagination of which man is capable. Moreover, it fails to take seriously the idea of the universal good as consisting in a spirit, in contrast to the ideal of pure form characteristic of intellectualist abstractionism. To be sure, Babbitt may be partly responsible for the failure of his critics to appreciate the full sense in which imitation can be creative. For he fails, perhaps, to emphasize to a sufficient degree the sense in which the terms he employs – “proportion,” “decorous,” and even “model of imitation” itself – so evocative of the visual image or object that is copied or replicated literally, are in fact intended in a metaphorical sense. In other words, in his own conceptualization of the process of creative imitation, Babbitt’s use of such terms perhaps does not do justice to his distance from the intellectualist imitation of abstract or metaphysical ideals, which is so clearly at odds with the core of his thinking. However, conceiving of Babbittian imitation in terms of a “spirit” of universality helps to clarify how it is possible for him to sustain creativity within a concept of imitation.
Equally important in coming to terms with the concept of creative imitation is
developing an understanding of the imaginative use of symbols as a means of representing the ethical reality to which man, at best, has only limited access. The significance of symbols for the imagination is tied to the fundamental sense in which the latter operates in experiencing reality. Babbitt explains, “The word [imagination] … stands less for what one perceives, either inwardly or outwardly, than for what one conceives. … Now to ‘conceive’ is, in an almost etymological sense, to gather things together, to see likenesses and analogies and in so far to unify what were else mere heterogeneity. The imagination, says Coleridge somewhat pedantically, is the ‘esemplastic’ power – the power, that is, that fashions things into one.”
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It is this
awareness of affinity or analogical relation between symbol and higher ethical reality that allows the imagination to use particularity to express that which transcends what is incidental in particularity. Babbitt illustrates: “Every successful humanistic creation is more or less symbolical. Othello is not merely a jealous man; he is also a symbol of jealousy. Some of the myths of Plato again are imaginative renderings of a supersensuous realm to which man has no direct access. They are symbolical representations of an infinite that the romanticist leaves out of his reckoning.”
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Whereas
the symbols of the romantic imagination are made to relish in pure eccentricity and become increasingly opaque to the rest of humanity as a result, a genuinely moral imagination is able to fashion together innumerable, unpredictable imaginative symbols and, in doing so, communicate to others an aspect of their universal human nature to which each is able to relate.
If it is true, as has been argued above, that Babbitt would have benefited from
additional emphasis on the metaphorical sense of his “model of imitation,” this sentiment is echoed strongly, among numerous places, in Babbitt’s wariness of the reification of
54
Ibid, 166.
55
Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership, 34-35. Emphasis added.
56
Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism, 227.
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Holston 9
Against the idea of a creative imitation, it may be argued that any time such a
“model of imitation” is established, creativity is necessarily delimited or circumscribed,
and therefore, it is unavoidable that in some sense, expression of the universal does
become predetermined or predictable. While it is true that a genuinely ethical
imagination is restrictive in “impos[ing] measure and proportion upon … expansive
desire,”
to characterize all such restraint as interfering with the work of the imagination
is to commit the error of Bergson of seeing all imaginative activity as subrational; this
fails to recognize the different qualities of imagination of which man is capable.
Moreover, it fails to take seriously the idea of the universal good as consisting in a spirit,
in contrast to the ideal of pure form characteristic of intellectualist abstractionism. To be
sure, Babbitt may be partly responsible for the failure of his critics to appreciate the full
sense in which imitation can be creative. For he fails, perhaps, to emphasize to a
sufficient degree the sense in which the terms he employs – “proportion,” “decorous,”
and even “model of imitation” itself – so evocative of the visual image or object that is
copied or replicated literally, are in fact intended in a metaphorical sense. In other words,
in his own conceptualization of the process of creative imitation, Babbitt’s use of such
terms perhaps does not do justice to his distance from the intellectualist imitation of
abstract or metaphysical ideals, which is so clearly at odds with the core of his thinking.
However, conceiving of Babbittian imitation in terms of a “spirit” of universality helps to
clarify how it is possible for him to sustain creativity within a concept of imitation.
Equally important in coming to terms with the concept of creative imitation is
developing an understanding of the imaginative use of symbols as a means of
representing the ethical reality to which man, at best, has only limited access. The
significance of symbols for the imagination is tied to the fundamental sense in which the
latter operates in experiencing reality. Babbitt explains, “The word [imagination] …
stands less for what one perceives, either inwardly or outwardly, than for what one
conceives. … Now to ‘conceive’ is, in an almost etymological sense, to gather things
together, to see likenesses and analogies and in so far to unify what were else mere
heterogeneity. The imagination, says Coleridge somewhat pedantically, is the
‘esemplastic’ power – the power, that is, that fashions things into one.”
It is this
awareness of affinity or analogical relation between symbol and higher ethical reality that
allows the imagination to use particularity to express that which transcends what is
incidental in particularity. Babbitt illustrates: “Every successful humanistic creation is
more or less symbolical. Othello is not merely a jealous man; he is also a symbol of
jealousy. Some of the myths of Plato again are imaginative renderings of a
supersensuous realm to which man has no direct access. They are symbolical
representations of an infinite that the romanticist leaves out of his reckoning.”
the symbols of the romantic imagination are made to relish in pure eccentricity and
become increasingly opaque to the rest of humanity as a result, a genuinely moral
imagination is able to fashion together innumerable, unpredictable imaginative symbols
and, in doing so, communicate to others an aspect of their universal human nature to
which each is able to relate.
If it is true, as has been argued above, that Babbitt would have benefited from
additional emphasis on the metaphorical sense of his “model of imitation,” this sentiment
is echoed strongly, among numerous places, in Babbitt’s wariness of the reification of
54
Ibid, 166.
55
Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership, 34-35. Emphasis added.
56
Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism, 227.
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