Defective Imagination. A quote.
Quoting Vladimir Voinovich. From “Moscow 2042”.
“Of course,” he said with a sad nod, as if admitting something that was supposed to have remained a secret. “Did you really figure that out all by yourself?”
“I didn’t have to figure anything out,” I said. “The truth was right there in front of me. But I didn’t have the imagination to accept it.”
“That’s precisely the point!” he said as if I had confirmed some thesis of his. “That’s precisely the point, we still do not trust our own imaginations. We don’t understand how perfect we are, and we think that there exists some objective world that does not depend on the way we view it.”
“Edik,” I interrupted, “you don’t have to tell me all that. I’ve already heard that primary is secondary and secondary is primary.”
“You’ve heard it, but you don’t believe it because of your defective imagination. You know, among other things, I’ve also studied madmen suffering from hallucinations of every sort. And I’ve come to conclusion that there is no such thing as hallucination. It’s just that the person having the hallucination sees something we cannot see, while we see things that he can’t.”
“In other words, let’s say, if I drink to the point where I get the DTs and start seeing devils, does that mean they really exist?”
“Of course,” said Edik with a nod. “They really exist in your world, whereas in mine, as long as I’m sober…”
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Posted on August 22nd, 2009 under Literature, Quotes • Tags: "Moscow 2042", imagination, Vladimir Voinovich. •
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