Verbatim quote · defining passage

“The sovereign (more recently: central) imaginary is what you arrive at when you utter some political desire (universal healthcare, no more immigration, etc.), imagine the kind of political authority that could satisfy that desire in such a way that you could recognize it to have been satisfied, further imagine the scenic conditions that could enable the stable continuation of that authority (because you don’t want you political desire met just for a single administration) and then consider whether that authority would in fact do what you want it to do because, after all, if it could do it, it wouldn’t have to and might have something very different in mind.”

— Adam Katz, Language, the Ultimate Source and Analysis of Data · Jan 09, 2022 · Bouvard Substack