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The central topic of the present study is the analysis of human relations in present-day societies, which I conceive as "gaseous societies." I carry out the analysis based on my philosophical perspective that consists in an anthropological-social philosophy of imagination, images and imaginaries, which I have expressed in all my publications since 1975. Present-day societies manifest themselves as "gaseous societies," dominated by violence, hatred, war, xenophobia, and generalized human and planetary destruction. To a large extent, these anti-human and irrational behaviors of the species that defines themselves as "rational" and "human," were foreshadowed and propelled by the imaginaries nurtured by those characteristics: imaginaries of violence, hatred, war, xenophobia, destructive, and predatory. They, in turn, are produced by the imagination in its dimension of creative destructiveness, imaginaries that are oriented towards death in every respect. I claim that it is a matter of the unhealthy functioning of the imagination: its images and its imaginaries. The analysis is carried out by means of an interdisciplinary approach that threads together philosophy, physics, and art. The paper proposes a possible alternative path towards the healing of the species that has become preponderantly the annihilating agent of the planet, of nature: animals, plants, water, air, society, and the species itself. I propose an exit towards the light, an exit towards a dignified and free life.

DOI: 10.1007/s42087-018-0015-9

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