Are people becoming less creative?

azezil

Are people less creative because of education?

When I read about great inventers of days gone by who discovered so many things we take for granted today I can't help but wonder that by learning about so many things we are limiting our creative potential. We spend so much time learning things others have learned before that we don't take time to think for ourselves. "Great minds" of today often taken existing ideas and just find a new use for them or add to them, ignoring compatibility and financial issues, if they started from scratch on a problem would that no prove more beneficial / constructive and lead to greater things?

simu

We spend so much time learning things others have learned before that we don't take time to think for ourselves.

Well, it means we can get on to thinking and learning about new things - "if I can see further than you it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants" (a quotation attributed to various people throughout history).

I can't help but wonder that by learning about so many things we are limiting our creative potential.

I find that you have to be creative to learn anything that's anyway complicated - you have to take information and find a way of understanding it, of picturing it, remembering and seeing where all the different parts fit together.

"Great minds" of today often taken existing ideas and just find a new use for them or add to them, ignoring compatibility and financial issues, if they started from scratch on a problem would that no prove more beneficial / constructive and lead to greater things?

People do that but for me, the fact that they do so disqualifies them from being "great minds".

chewy

what you have to remember that nobody ever invented anything from scratch those guy you talk of just put together bits from teh guys before em too......


and i reckon that we don't spend enough time learning these days (well compared to them) if you think if the apprentice work they would have ahd to put in before tehy could ever work on something proper..... ew're jsut in a rush these days...

DadaKopf

I think people *are* getting less imaginative. Although the answer very much depends on your definition of 'imagination'. The concept has changed a *lot* over time.

If by 'imagination' we mean introducing something innovative, or 'new' into the world, we have to examine what 'new' actually means. Is what we consider 'novelty' just a logical equation playing out, or is the imagination something autonomous from the genericity of everyday life? Is novelty just an ideological construct, a subjective wish, or has it objective reality?

Define terms and we might be able to get somewhere. (This is a philosophy board, it's kinda required )

Personally, I think the current structures we're inhabiting these days are conspiring against the imagination. I think all our options are diminishing as a result of the genericity of everyday life. My optimism is that this process will get too far, people are already rebelling and are carving out spaces for the imagination once again.

It's late and I need sleepies, but maybe I'll come back and explain myself better anon. Have fun. :ninja:

seamus

Very few people are geniuses, and practice at what they're geniuses at. It's a rare occurence of events that leads to massive creativity.

But overall, I would tend to agree that as a whole, the human species should be capable of much much more, given our numbers. The problem is that the current system is driven towards consumerism. Everyone is encouraged to take and benefit in what humans have created, rather than encouraged to contribute to the creative pool.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, but especialy since WWII, what we need has been more-or-less dictated to us. And we're really bad at trying to guess what people need. Patent offices are filled with millions of useless patents. How many times have you had media pushing a new invention as the next big thing, only for it to disappear the next day?

Funnily enough, it's the things that corporations don't think the population as whole needs, that are the things which take off. Computers and mobile phones being perfect examples.

I think the point that we're at now is that we want for very little. Human needs are remarkably small. Now we integrate things into our society, and make them necessary, thereby driving further innovation in that field. The world as most of us know it, would be in a shambles without computers and phones.

So, eh, to summarise, I have no idea what I just said

[DF]Lenny

Ehh no the world would not degrade into chaos/usefulness without consumerism(a term created by the very people it thrives on)The beauty of being single minded is that the world is the same.We are no different than our forfathers ,the genius remains the application is just different...if for instance some1 scores a record score on a computer game..is it any different from Plato's nuances in prose..i think not..

Forms of expression change ,people do not.

rde

People aren't less creative; they're just less inclined to exercise that creativity. The reason? Television. It's possible to spend all your spare time sitting on your arse watching football/soaps/documentaries, without having to excercise your brain beyond remembering to press the mute button during the ads.

In order to be creative, you have to have an idea of what to create. I'm quite sure that some great ideas came about while someone was sitting on the couch watching Eastenders, but the number doubtless pales in comparison with what it would be if we had no television.

Of course, television isn't solely to blame. If it weren't for television, we'd probably all sit around reading fantasy novels and spy thrillers, and be just as disinclined to wonder why galaxies don't fly apart, or what it is that causes electricity to work the way it does or etc etc.

Humans have always been ignorant and lazy. However, it's so much easier these days.

chewy

its not televisons fault it ours!!! we are the ones that let ourselves sit and veg....

tv gets blamed for eveything

seamus

Originally posted by [DF]Lenny
Ehh no the world would not degrade into chaos/usefulness without consumerism(a term created by the very people it thrives on)

Maybe you picked me up wrong (it was a bit of a brain puke). I meant that more society evolves to embrace and integrate new technologies that we don't specifically require for survival, so that society itself believes that its survival depends on these new inventions. That's not to say that society would die and the world descend into madness if they disappeared, but society as we know it, would cease to exist. There would still be society, but it would have adapted to the new situation and would virtually depend on other things for its survival. If that makes any sense.

The beauty of being single minded is that the world is the same.We are no different than our forfathers ,the genius remains the application is just different...if for instance some1 scores a record score on a computer game..is it any different from Plato's nuances in prose..i think not..

Forms of expression change ,people do not.

Well, I don't think that a high score in a game is comparable to poetry, but I agree with where you're coming from. My mother, in her post-menopausal feminist stage, was talking one night about how women are more artistic and creative than men, because it comes from that side of the brain.
Posed with the question, I argued that a piece of program code can be beautifully written, and can contain just as much creativeness and skill of craft as a well-made sculpture. Even the difference between code and bad code can be likened to the difference between a good painting and a bad painting.

IMO of course. As you say, the art is still there, just how it's expressed has changed.

rde

its not televisons fault it ours!!! we are the ones that let ourselves sit and veg....

That's pretty much what I meant; a television is an inanimate object. But it's the object in front of which we all sit, and can be said to be to blame in the sense that without it, people would have to do something else. Course, that doesn't mean it'd be something productive (as I said above (or below)), but it'd productive for some people.

Oh, and I happen to think that we would descend into chaos if consumerism were to suddenly evaporate. We live in a world where most people live in cities; taking Ireland as an example, how many of Dublin's fair citizens depend on that consumerism for their income? Without it, we'd have a city of pandaemonium, where formerly gainfully-employed people would find themselves with no source of income and/or food. There'd be a mass exodus to the country, where you can pretty much take a leaf out of any post-apocalyptic film for the consequences.

Unless the developed world's population dramatically decreases, consumerism is the only thing that's going to keep us going.

Executive Steve

Originally posted by [DF]Lenny
if for instance some1 scores a record score on a computer game..is it any different from Plato's nuances in prose..i think not..

Forms of expression change ,people do not.

duuuuude... go read some plato, then play a computer game, then reread plato.

writing a series of dialogues that profoundly influence the course of western thought and set the scene for over two thousand years of academic discourse is a wee bit more.... involved? errr.... noteworthy??? than being l33t at quake....

or am i missing something???

DadaKopf

Unless the developed world's population dramatically decreases, consumerism is the only thing that's going to keep us going.

I think I know what you're saying. But unlimited consumption, expanding markets and urbanization is likely to destroy that very system. Ecological negative externalities are prompting firms to dispose of dangerous waste into rivers and the like, possibly irreversibly damaging the ecosystem, while urbanisation places upwards pressure on wages, which may eventually cause global hyperinflation and total failure in the world capitalist system.

Added to that the suspicion that market 'choice' isn't real choice - for example, for all its flaws, the United Nations Development Programme defines freedom as expanding choices in adequate access to the essential ingredients of life like food, education, health, democratic political systems, and so on. Conversely, the consumer ideology of capitalism is limiting choice in most of the world, including the developed world, via market colonisation (& monopolisation).

I agree that we're locked into this system at present. The important thing to remember is it isn't the 'natural order of things', its a structure that has been invented by the actions of men (mainly men, but some women). So, the important point to bear in mind is that this structure can change.

We have to dismantle consumerism and replace it with something better. THat implies a duty for all of to be creative and the use the imagination as a weapon against the genericity of consumer capitalism.

DadaKopf

Oh yeah, and that myth of an apocalyptic world if consumerism ends suddenly. Either it will because it's inevitable, or we can be smart about things and re-orient the social world in a more sustainable direction.

Ironically, that myth is a lie that fools us into accepting the system as an inevitability. The fear of the coming apocalypse (due to the nature of capitalism) is the very thing that keeps us on that road to destruction.

I say once again: we need to reclaim the imagination.

rde

quoting from a few different comments, here...

duuuuude... go read some plato, then play a computer game, then reread plato.

Better yet, just play three games of tetris. How anyone can think Plato's Republic is anything other than drivel is beyond me. I apologise if, here in the philosophy forum I'm causing nosebleeds in devoted platonics, but damn. It was a pleasure to delete it when I'd finished.

writing a series of dialogues that profoundly influence the course of western thought and set the scene for over two thousand years of academic discourse is a wee bit more.... involved? errr.... noteworthy??? than being l33t at quake....

But that's hardly an argument. As you say, Plato's been around for two thousand years, and for 1,800 he was the primary influence, centuries after society had evolved massively. It's only recently that we've come up with new theories on our place in the universe. Granted, most of those were technology-driven, and it could be argued that in a technologically stagnant country there's no need for philosophy to evolve so dramatically. But the fact remains that at the dawn of the last century, we came up with the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. If you look a the mathematics of time dilation, for example, it's quite simple; once you assume that the speed of light is constant, time dilation follows automatically. But it wasn't until Einstein that anyone thought that way.

Equally, quantum mechanics is so bizarre a construct, you have to wonder sometimes whether scientists aren't just taking the piss. Truly a massive triumph of the imagination.

We have to dismantle consumerism and replace it with something better. THat implies a duty for all of to be creative and the use the imagination as a weapon against the genericity of consumer capitalism.

It seems a bit of a failure of the imagination that you can't see how to make consumerism sustainable. Technology is advancing all the time; we live longer, and have such a massive choice before me I have to wonder what the hell you're talking about when you refer to the 'genericity of consumer captialism' (ever eaten an orange?). With effort, production can be made cleaner, and the advent of clean hydrogen will have a massive impact. This is driven by capitalism, which is driven by consumerism.

gom

Yes, I believe that people are getting less creative due to education.

Pre-Modernity(1890) people explored, people discovered, people experimented, people wrote and mused, painted and wondered... Today we as a spieces are have an upceasion with Economics/Working and Consumption/Shopping. We spent much of our time thinking about what to buy and what to do.
When we are growing up our parents and the state wonder what is the best job for the youth. Sometimes Parents and the state are in conflict. The state usually being more focused to Labour shortages(eg. ICT, Science and Nursing), were the parents look to more traditional careers for their children in Finance, Accounting, Sales, Doctors, Lawyers, Pharmacits etc.

Not so long ago the idea of an education was exploring knowledge.

Today Education Comprises The Qualification of the Knowledge One Requires to Preform a Task to the Best of Ones Efficency, with the greatest Innovativness.

Only when Knowledge becomes an end unto itself once again can Creativeness reamerge.

rde

Pre-Modernity(1890) people explored, people discovered, people experimented, people wrote and mused, painted and wondered...

No they didn't. At least the vast majority - the majority of whom you'll never hear because they left no record - lived, worked and died without going two hundred miles from where they were born. Today, you can get on a plane and visit any continent within a day - and people do. There are more people now travelling each year than there were alive in 1800.

You could argue that in relative terms the number's gone down. If it has - something I'd dispute without seeing some numbers - it's irrelevent. The number of people alive today who travel, who read, who think, who write is greater than it's ever been.

Not so long ago the idea of an education was exploring knowledge.

I'd dispute this, too. Just as there've always been people for whom learning was a joy, for the vast majority the object has always been power and/or money.

Karl Hungus

Originally posted by azezil
Are people less creative because of education?

When I read about great inventers of days gone by who discovered so many things we take for granted today I can't help but wonder that by learning about so many things we are limiting our creative potential. We spend so much time learning things others have learned before that we don't take time to think for ourselves. "Great minds" of today often taken existing ideas and just find a new use for them or add to them, ignoring compatibility and financial issues, if they started from scratch on a problem would that no prove more beneficial / constructive and lead to greater things?

I wonder, did those people you consider as "Great Minds" ever think consider at the time, what they might've thought as greater acheivements while working on their own things?

Also, speaking of creativity in the sense of innovation...
Who created the wheel?
Who created sliced bread?

And I also get the feeling that when speaking about great acheivements, you seem to see this as something with shelf life. If someone now created something that could indeed be as usefull as the wheel, or sliced bread, would it need to be something that we've all taken as granted for years to be an acheivement? Or perhaps even a rather vulgar concept that something has to be well recognised (or even popular?) to be considered an acheivement... As far as you know, there are hundreds, even millions out there using their own imaginations to their utmost, and being truly creative. If you use your imagination, does it need to be confirmed by others before you can even say you used your imagination?

In terms of creativity, or imagination, human kind is boundless once they see their own potential. Whether it be trying to create something of a technical nature, or trying to express themselves via art.

To be fair, education isn't nessiceraly killing creativity, because as it stands ingorance breeds ignorance, and the more we know, we begin to understand how little we know about everything in the grand scheme of things. I think there's a saying that goes "A man who realises he's a fool is a fool no longer." Or rather something to that degree.

So I don't find the idea that education is killing imagination or creativity is anyways true, but that there's a notion that once you've finished your leaving cert, or get a degree, you automatically know everything, as some people I've met seemed to think. So I suppose it's the way education is implenented that might be a problem?

There's also the advent of world-wide communication, which in the grand scheme of things, we're really only on the footsteps of. Surely when people first had phones, they thought how marvellous it was, yet none of them could begin to imagine something like the internet, where many a discussion could be gleamed from people who normally would never meet, and probably outside of the internet, never will meet.

So, in conclusion, I think you're ironically limiting yourself asking such a question! You're looking backwards and thinking of what people have done before you, without looking farwards and thinking what you yourself could do.

DadaKopf

Not so long ago the idea of an education was exploring knowledge.

The modern institution we now know as 'education' was largely developed in tandem with European nationalism. It was a strategy predicated on a transforming socioeconomic structure at the end of the nineteenth century that required new forms of state legitimacy. The industrial revolution, internal migration within emergent nation-states, and the first managerial revolution required a form of universal education that could produce the society necessary to administer state institutions and corporations. At the same time, social pressures - poverty and inequality - were mobilising the working class, who were demanding equal opportunities in the political economy, so the ruling elites - increasingly the emerging bourgeoisie - let them have their education because it satiated them and increased efficiency in the long-run, anyway.

State-endorsed education is mostly about control and compatibility. It's a system that actually limits people's imaginative horizons. Sure, horizons can be pretty wide, but still narrower than all the manifold possibilities in totem.

It seems a bit of a failure of the imagination that you can't see how to make consumerism sustainable. Technology is advancing all the time; we live longer, and have such a massive choice before me I have to wonder what the hell you're talking about when you refer to the 'genericity of consumer captialism' (ever eaten an orange?). With effort, production can be made cleaner, and the advent of clean hydrogen will have a massive impact. This is driven by capitalism, which is driven by consumerism.

"I'm not here to tell you how the story ends. I'm here to tell you how it begins." Hehehe.

Many attempts have been made to make the capitalist world-system sustainable. But since the US left the gold standard and the oil crisis occurred in the 1970s, there have been increasingly frequent economic crises and meltdowns. Immanuel Wallerstein says that neoliberalism - the dominant economic model at present - is fundamentally about slowing the world economy down for the benefit of the industrialised countries due to a systemic paradox in the efficiency and profitability of non-service industries in developed economies. Neoliberalism is actually about preserving underdevelopment in two-thirds of the world. In order to justify this strategy, the dominant core countries have to promise that neoliberal measures can bring development, while at the same time ensuring it doesn't happen. The paradox of the world-system is that if the whole world became employed, and industrialisation and urbanisation occurred everywhere, hyperinflation would cause the whole system to collapse due to the emergence of organized labour and high-level consumption. Now, the conclusion is: the capitalist system is out of options. We can only delay the inevitable.

Since technological solutions are bound up in this system, one ought to question the efficacy of this approach. Not to deny technology, but to question it and reconfigure its role in human activity.

Now, I'm not entirely convinced this will happen, but the evidence, to me, is certainly very convincing. Never underestimate the importance of a good war. Nonetheless, this system defines our social existence. Our options - our scope for imagination - are limited by its limitations.

First, we all have to register this. We have to register that this system isn't natural, but the result of selfish actions of the powerful. Second, we have to map a way out of this by identifying sites where this system is perpetuated and transformed. Recognising that the system can be transformed by challenging these sites, we can be sure that our imagination can feed material changes in the world by altering human activities, such as modes of production, modes of governance etc. This should, dialectically, alter our ideology. Thirdly, we do this by opening up spaces in the public sphere where we can all openly and democratically voice our opinions and make decisions collectively and consensually. Fourthly, we need to radically alter our education system so that children from a young age internalize the value of independent thought.