Social Imaginaries

When reading “Social Imaginaries” it made me question where my practices come from? Do they come from my own personal beliefs or do they come from the practices that already exist in my normative life? Taylor focuses on, “imagination” as a way that people see their world and these social imaginaries are not told in theories/doctrines but are told in stories and legends (23). I recall that when growing up education was a major influence as far as shaping my own self-discipline to do well in school, yet the practice of having good work ethics was already established before I went to school. I can’t recall a time in my life that having good ethics was ever officially taught to me, I have always known it as a skill to be developed. Practices are passed down from generation to generation and the “economy” we see today comes from our own ways of seeing the world around us. Taylor states that “the new practice, with the implicit understanding that it generates, can be the basis of the modications of modern theory, which in turn can inflect practice” (30). As a point to this, I grew up under the Catholic tradition which was passed down by my family’s beliefs and although there is a part of Catholicism that I still hold on to, I started inquiring about other belief systems and explored the religion of Buddhism (even read a book that looked into the benefits of both religions). The way I live my life is to be good person and at the same time to be a mindful person, these types of practices comes from the beliefs of two already existing religions which has transformed for me over time from family traditions to my encountering of my own atmosphere.