​​As we stand at the junction of retrogressing to the hierarchical & segregationist past rather than progressing towards inclusive, egalitarian & plural ideals, there is an urgent need for holistically making sense of HOW the intersection between economic, social, cultural & psychological forces is colliding to produce the phenomenon that is being expressed now & HOW it can be addressed in order to create the vision of a society that we believe in. Despite the need, discussions remain polarized/splintered, more focused on critique of the problem rather than generating solutions on HOW we can move forward.

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SOCIAL IMAGINARY fills the gap by creating the SPACE for CRITICAL ANALYSIS & SOCIAL VISIONING that engages the public & youth in critical analysis of WHERE WE STAND NOW & social visioning of HOW we can move forward. It serves as the space for:

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• HOLISTIC: Holistically making sense of HOW the intersection between economic, social, cultural & psychological forces is colliding to produce the phenomenon that is being expressed now & HOW it can be addressed in order to create the vision of a society that we believe in;

• CLARIFYING: Clarifying that the values of equality, inclusion, justice & fairness are neither Left nor Right ideal but UNIVERSAL ideal — the source of unity — under which different ways of achieving these ideals can be debated & discussed; 

• UNIFYING: Having 'difficult conversations' that nonetheless need to be discussed & clarified in order to bring different sectors onto the same page & move forward.

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It offers 8-week online courses, which empower participants with critical thinking, interdisciplinary thinking & design thinking skills in direct engagement with urgent issues of our time​​:

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• BEYOND MULTICULTURALISM [8-weeks, online]: How do we create an inclusive & egalitarian society in which diversity is not merely tolerated or managed but fully harnessed as a thriving lived experience for enrichment of everyone involved & benefit of the society as a whole? BEYOND MULTICULTURALISM empowers participants with social consciousness to be able to SEE, with a critical distance, WHY where we stand now is still a problem & HOW we can move beyond where we stand now towards creating a truly multicultural society & HOW we can become active agents of social transformation in the way we choose to create our everyday lives. [MORE>]

• ROOTS OF POPULISM [8-weeks, online]: Despite the eruption of populism across the globe that is throwing liberal democratic values into a disarray, there is little public understanding of what populism is, what's fueling it & what can be done about it.  ROOTS OF POPULISM takes participants through the process of holistically & systematically making sense of how the intersection between economic, social, cultural & psychological forces is fueling the phenomenon of populism that is being expressed now & how it can be addressed at the root. [MORE>]

• CRISIS OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY [8-weeks, online]: When we say 'democracy' in the West, we mean liberal democracy.  But liberal democratic values — such as freedom, equality, the rule of law — have increasingly come under attack, not only in societies that adopted liberal democracies from the West but within Western liberal democracies themselves. CRISIS OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY explores WHAT we mean by 'liberal' in liberal democracy, WHY it has come under attack [including its dysfunctions, contradictions & shortcomings] & HOW we can restore liberal democratic values as the source of unity rather than division.  [MORE>]​​

• RISE & FALL OF NEOLIBERALISM [8-weeks, online]:  The course examines HOW neoliberalism — an economic paradigm that lets the market, with hardly any intervention by the government, determine the outcome — came to be accepted as the unquestioned 'ideology' that ended up contributing to the increasing wealth inequality with a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. It will examine WHAT neoliberalism is (its intention vs. outcome), HOW it ended up contributing to the growing wealth inequality & WHAT alternative paradigm can replace the neoliberal paradigm. [MORE>]

• THE LINE BETWEEN FREE SPEECH & HATE SPEECH [8-weeks, online:  How do you draw the line between free speech & hate speech? Free speech does not mean finally being able to say what one 'really' thinks including hate speech. But increasingly, the line between free speech & hate speech has become blurred, exacerbated by the emergence of social media that serve as the echo chambers for amplifying hate and spreading it like a virus. There is an urgent need for clarifying the line between free speech and hate speech. THE LINE BETWEEN FREE SPEECH & HATE SPEECH aims to clarify what the LINE is between free speech & hate speech.[MORE>]​

 

Rather than reliance on top-down policies, SOCIAL IMAGINARY asks how the society could shift through the renewal of social consciousness, through the shift in social imaginary, putting power back in the hands of the people in creating the vision of a society that they believe in.