Lockard has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Northern Iowa (1994) and has continued classes at the Writer’s Workshop in Iowa City. She writes regularly for "The Courier", a regional newspaper, and has published several short stories and poetry. Amy and her husband live in Cedar Falls, Iowa with the youngest three of their eight children.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world." (Albert Einstein)
It is not moral decline, or political or religious disagreements and division, not borders, nor social strictures, which bear the lion’s share of responsibility for the world’s woes and wrongs.
It is because we all suffer, in varying degrees, from “heart” failure. We cannot, and will not, understand each other. The systemic cause of this condition: massive “Failure of Imagination.” It is the underlying culprit which seizes otherwise healthy, reasonable, educated individuals and has now developed into a raging epidemic.
If we cannot imagine others’ lives and times, we can perceive only that “they” are not like “us.” They do not think like us, may not look like us, do not follow the same rules, do not serve the same god.
Republican/Democrat; Ukrainian/ Russian; Palestinian/Israelite; Transsexual/ Heterosexual; Black/ White; Vaxxer/ Anti-Vaxxer; Muslim/ Jew/ Christian; on and on the list goes, encompassing nearly everyone but our mothers, and sometimes them as well.
The result is dehumanization, and it is the nucleus of every conflict. The “other” becomes “the enemy.” That person has transgressed, is at best misled, possibly criminal, maybe not even human.
It is an ancient story of privilege and power, but mystifyingly becoming worse in our “enlightened” age. As the stakes become higher, the gap between “them” and “us” becomes wider, allowing and encouraging misunderstanding, conflict, generating terror and destruction.
Only by employing our imaginations can we transcend our times and our own limited existence. We may know the facts of history, or of any current conflict, but that knowledge is just the beginning. Without using our imaginations, it is impossible to empathize.
The ability to imagine others’ lives connects us with those who came before us and those we now share this planet with. Eight billion stories are unfolding at this very moment, tales of struggle and redemption, of great successes and great failures, of life and death.
But too often our imaginations extend to pursue only the glamorous, to follow celebrities, sports figures, politicians. We immerse ourselves in the never-ending buzz of social media, channeling our personal Amazon Wish Fulfillment Center.
Most of us are good at imaging, say, what we’d do after winning the lottery. Or how we’d use our incredible wealth and power if only we were Elon Musk, or Beyonce, or the president. But we are not as proficient at imaging a Sudanese mother trying to feed her family in a war zone, (sorry; wrong continent) or the terror of a Venezuelan immigrant fleeing his country, (tough; higher walls) the struggle of a family with a transexual child (nope; male or female) or a father’s despair after his daughter is gunned down in her kindergarten class (woah; second amendment rights.)
Who wants to imagine such depressing scenarios anyway? Better to flip on a “reality” show. We feed our minds a selected diet of news and viewpoints designed to nourish our already established beliefs, narrowing our world and creating a false sense of reality.
As the genesis for intolerance is “Failure of Imagination,” beginning there is our only hope. Tasking and reproving, judging and condemning is always counterproductive. Failing to engage leads to apathy, apathy to dislike, dislike dissolves into hatred, and hatred brews barbarism. Only by imagining other’s lives can we begin to understand, can the barrier between “them” and “us” be breached.
Books, movies, all the arts, every means of telling humanity’s stories, can trigger our imaginations, if we’re open to it. So, instead of endlessly circling, as if playing at the “Game of Life,” collecting stars (fame,) dollar signs (money,) and hearts (romantic love,) while checking off our bucket lists and tallying our accomplishments, how about immersing ourselves in a truly fascinating game? This game enriches our lives by imagining others’ lives and utilizes our minds to reach further, toward understanding.
It is riveting. It is real. It is Life.
And if we use our imaginations to play, we all win.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.