A social imaginary is the shared web of meanings, symbols, and taken-for-granted structures through which a society understands itself and organises its collective life — not a single belief but the imaginative background that makes particular institutions, norms, and habits of action feel natural or inevitable. The term was developed by philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis in The Imaginary Institution of Society (1975), who argued that each historical period institutes its own singular way of living, seeing, and making its existence. Charles Taylor (2004) later gave it a narrower sense: the ways people imagine their social existence, a shared, largely pre-reflective understanding rather than an explicit theory.
Diagram of the social imaginary as a system of concentric meanings, from the Social Imaginaries Project (socialimaginaries.org).
The Social Imaginaries Project, drawing on systems thinker Donella Meadows, treats a social imaginary as an interconnected system rather than a static worldview: elements cohere around a keystone concept that holds the whole structure together. For contemporary Western society, writer Sam Earle identifies this keystone as entitlement, expressed through liberty (freedom to choose) and hierarchy (the right of superiors to make demands of inferiors). Positive feedback loops reinforce the existing imaginary, while disruptive events — “bolts out of the blue” — can trigger negative feedback and open space for a different imaginary to take hold.
Also see Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Worldview