Would this have been conceivable had Egyptian society been healthy, cohesive, heralding its energies to build a better future?
Would the enigmas of Jasper Johns's flags or Ed Ruscha's deadpan pairing of image and text have been conceivable otherwise?
"Even five years ago, it wouldn't have been conceivable for the Super Bowl to express an unabashedly pro-gay message during the half-time show".
Neither would have been conceivable before the reforming Vatican council of the 1960s, but they show the considerable distance that the pope and most of his church have travelled since then.
Come to that, does anyone believe that if 'culture' and 'sport' had not been lumped together into a single government department, it would have been conceivable to raid the arts budget in such a shameless way?
Borzage's eternal theme — that romantic love transcends all physical circumstance, with a force like that of religion — is developed in "7th Heaven" through elaborate camera movements that would probably not have been conceivable without Murnau's example.
Neither would have been conceivable without the pathbreaking work of Tarsila, who synthesized the volumetric treatment of the human form, which she encountered in the studios of Léger and others in Paris, and the vibrant visual culture of her home country, in an art that still feels open-ended.
If Disney had not postponed the opening of "The Alamo" until spring, it might have been conceivable, if not necessarily plausible, that all five of the best-picture nominees for 2003 would be scored to cannon and musket fire and decorated with gold braid and brass buttons.
Federal regulations prevent the doctors from discussing the details of their work on any patient, but Jeter's return to the lineup only six weeks after dislocating his left shoulder is the kind of routine medical miracle that would not have been conceivable perhaps 20 years ago.
"All of Europe has undertaken reforms that a year and a half ago would not have been conceivable," she said, pointing to the higher retirement age in Spain, the sale of state-owned assets in Greece, savings packages in Ireland and Italy and even a new commitment in France to bring down its budget deficits.
