In the European philosophical tradition, 'imagination' refers to the human capacity to integrate discrete data points (whether sensory or rational) into 'wholes' or 'Gestalts'. Imagination in this sense allows humans to make sense of their sensory field, to shape events into narratives, and empirical data into larger theories. Imagination, in other words, leaps ahead to wholeness: it is the catholic motive force of human beings. This power is operative in all spheres of life, including political life, where (moral and prudential) evaluations, decisions, actions and policies depend on the ways in which we imagine the whole in and for which we are acting. In contemporary society, we are witnessing intense conflicts of interpretation about how to delineate that whole. Analysing our political and social predicament with reference not to substantive disagreements but to the way imagination operates can help us understand (and potentially resolve) conflicts on a more open plane. This paper discusses some relevant characteristics and pitfalls of the imagination as the 'catholic' human power, and concludes that it is necessary to practice a self-abnegating imagination which is not too quick to jump forward to wholes, but is capable also of enduring fragmentation and incompleteness.