Societies do not function only through constitutions, markets, or institutions. At a deeper, structural level, they function through shared frameworks of imagination, through which people interpret reality, assign value, and regulate their aspirations. Imagination, in the sociological sense, is not fantasy or illusion. It is the collective understanding that enables societies to determine what is true, desirable, legitimate, and worth striving for. Social imagination often shapes how actions are understood, even before people decide what to do. These imaginations regulate aspiration by defining success and failure. A society guided primarily by scientific imagination encourages trust in evidence, expertise, and rational explanation. A society shaped by religious imagination orients aspiration toward faith, duty, and moral order. Where market imagination dominates, life is imagined through competition, choice, efficiency, and measurable achievement. People learn not only about their needs and lacks but also how to account for them.

Modern societies are not governed by a single imagination. They coexist with multiple imaginations—scientific, legal, moral, cultural, religious, and market-based in the same social space. What differentiates stable societies from unstable ones is not the presence of plurality but the existence of a relatively settled hierarchy of imaginations. Such a hierarchy does not eliminate diversity; rather, it organises it. It provides clarity about which imagination should dominate which sphere of life and which should remain secondary.

Most of the developed societies tend to assume this hierarchy rather than constantly contest it. While there is a presence of all major imaginations, i.e., moral, religious, and market imaginations, it is noticed that scientific imagination dominates their public reasoning. They anticipate that evidence, expert knowledge, and institutional procedures will underpin policy-making, healthcare, education,........

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