Creativity
Third Class, November 20
http://www.is.wayne.edu/drbowen/crtvyf04
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
1
Agenda
(Please check your name off on the list)
• Finishing up
• Creativity as a course topic – the essays
• Types of creativity
• Why is creativity important?
• Grammar
• Review of reading
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
2
Finishing up (end is 12/15)
If you are not going to finish by the end of the
semester, your options are:
•
•
•
•
Incomplete (I – must have substantial work in)
Withdrawal (W – complete official form)
Regular grade (D or E)
Unofficial withdrawal(X)
It is important to make the best choice for
your situation - see a counselor and let me
know.
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
3
Ambiguity of Creativity
• What exactly is Creativity?
• At this point, best criterion we have to to
watch for its effects on other people. The
two ideas about creativity both have this
aspect
– Something new that meets a need or solves a
problem.
– A change in the culture
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
4
Ambiguity of Creativity
• At this point, we do not know enough to
manage an objective criterion.
• The same idea, too early, will not engage
the field (Darwin, Wegener).
• The same idea, too late, will not be thought
of as creative, even if it was developed
independently.
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
5
Conditions for Creativity
•
•
•
•
•
•
Some spare time / effort / attention
Autonomy
Focus
Basic skills in Domain
Access to Field
Something you like, something you pay
attention to, keep coming back to
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
6
Types of Creativity
• Flow (internal state, may be no product, can
be very important for individual quality of
life)
• Everyday problem-solving
• Innovation (in material culture)
• Little c (but can add up) (in symbolic
culture)
• Big C (in symbolic culture)
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
7
Csikszentmihalyi Doesn’t Say It,
But…
Why does Creativity require complexity? Isn’t
simplicity better?
• We solve hard problems by dividing them into
pieces
• More connections to be made, these are a raw
material for Creativity
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
8
1. Why is Creativity important?
• Stages of society – how did we develop?
–
–
–
–
Hunter-gatherer
Agricultural
Industrial
?
• We know quite a bit about agricultural and
industrial societies, but not so much about
hunter-gatherers. So…
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
9
2. Social Changes
Times’ Harvest, ISP 3360
Agricultural
Industrial
11/120/04
Status of
religion
Wealth
comes
from…
Basis for
marriage
State
religion
Owning
land
Arranged
Multiple
churches
Owning
means of
production
Romantic
love
Creatiivity, Third Class
10
3. Sectors of Culture
In all cultures, as soon as artifacts become
durable, we see:
• Social organization
• Economy: production, distribution
• Who are we, how did we get here, why are we
here? (Religion, myth, modern science)
• Art and personal adornment
• Music, narrative and performance
• Systematic observation of nature (experimental
science)
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
11
4. The Rise of the Creative Class
by Richard Forida
• Start: map of fast-growing US regions
• Met gay grad students who had gay-friendly
map
• The two maps were virtually identical!
• Not that gays are necessarily creative, but
that creative people seek diversity
• These days, corporations follow them, rather
than people moving towards employers
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
12
5. Simple Ideas About Economy
• Demo – the $1 economy
• Wheel-shaped economy – producers and
consumers
– Kick the wheel and make it spin, and we’re fat
and happy
– Hesitate, and we all get laid off
• Other sectors work in similar ways
• How to find what we want – Creativity
provides raw materials, we decide
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
13
6. So…
• Creativity is a key driver of historical and
economic progress
• In turn, progress and economic growth
provide a complex society, excess effort,
ability to focus (hunter-gatherers had to be
generalists) for more creativity
• Not a vicious cycle but a virtuous circle
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
14
Grammar 1
•
•
•
•
Essays a generally very good
Have read and understood
Good form and organization
Mechanics is the weak are
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
15
Grammar 2
• A sentence
°
°
°
°
Verb (action)
Noun (who or what takes the action)
(Expresses a complete thought)
Examples:
 John hit the ball (sentence)
 Because John hit the ball (not a sentence)
• Its Vs it’s Vs its’
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
16
Grammar 3
• Subject-verb number agreement
° Subject and verb should agree as to whether the
subject and verb in a sentence (and between
sentences) as to singular or plural
° Examples
 Eliot write/writes that…
 We understand/understands that…
 A group of authors say/says that…
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
17
Grammar 4
• Showing possession
° ‘s is possession by a single person
 Never for plural unless there is no alternative
 s’ is possession by more than one person
 Exceptions:
 Its is already possessive
 Other words also inherently possessive – their, our
 Examples:
 Belonging to one company – to several?
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
18
Grammar 5
• Compound adjectives get joined with a
hyphen. Examples:
° just-released movie
° newly-formed friendship
• Set off non-restrictive phrases with commas
° non-restrictive: not needed to understand
sentence. Example:
 Marina, who was the president of the club, was the
first to speak
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
19
Grammar 6
• Joining sentences
° It is never wrong to leave two complete
sentences separate.
° Two disparate sentences should never be
joined.
° To emphasize a connection, you may join tow
complete sentences with:
 a semicolon (;)
 a joining word (and, but, so etc.) and comma (,)
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
20
Grammar 7
• Joining sentences (continued)
° Examples of joining sentences
 “I do” sounds simple, but it is a lifetime
commitment.
 John went to the store; he bought orange juice.
° An incomplete sentence must be joined to a
complete sentence with a comma. Example:
 Because we are growing quickly, our company has
to move often.
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
21
Grammar 8
• In-class exercise…
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
22
From Flow (audiotape)
• My notes from audiotape on on course wb
site
• (1A.88) The amateur gardener
• (2A.15) Comparing enjoyment and pleasure
• (2A.157) Aspects of a complex personality
• (2A.324) The assembly-line worker
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
23
Review of Reading
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
24
Corporate Creativity
• Good reception in this class
• Often, people in this class are surprised to
think that a corporation could be creative
• Actually, for most of the day, 100% of our
surroundings are due to corporate creativity
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
25
Corporate Creativity
Advantages a corporation may have
• Diversity, including job rotation
° But focus and experience are also necessary
(DB at Ford)
• More resources, including people
• Different personalities – innovator doesn’t
have to be all things in bringing idea to
fruition
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
26
Corporate Creativity
Alignment:
• Two-say agreement on goals
• Must have some level of inspiration
° Tom Peters: Nobody even got excited about
“we’re no worse than anybody else.”
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
27
Creating Minds
• Gardner also wrote “multiple Intelligences”
° Pg 363
• Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot,
Graham, Gandhi. Not one nice person.
° “made” modernism
° Cognitive – what is going on inside the mind?
° Pervasive influence, they influence you even if
you don’t know them or like their work
° Really revolutionary (web page about this)
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
28
Creating Minds
• Creative within one domain, must be
accepted by a culture
• Regular creative activity – ten-year rule for
major breakthroughs
• Effort at presenting themselves as creative
• Faustian bargain
• Personal and professional support at the
time of breakthrough
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
29
Creating Minds
• Can be viewed as going back to child-like
content and methods
• (DB) Often mastered classical and romantic
methods before innovating
° Picasso – book
• (DB) General contribution: incorporation of
ancient images (Stravinsky, Graham,
Picasso)
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
30
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Freud: unconscious
• Einstein: relativity – see later
• Picasso: art depicts, not the objective world,
but our subjective reaction to it
• Stravinsky: rhythm in music
• Graham: freeform dance, expressiveness,
rise of American arts and America generally
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
31
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Eliot: loss of moral certainty, questioning of
authority
° From The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock:
“Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.”
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
32
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Eliot:
° from The Waste Land
“I think we are in a rat’s alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.”
° from The Hollow Men
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
33
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Eliot:
° from Little Gidding, Pt 5, in the Four Quartets
(retelling of Homer’s Odyssey?)
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time.”
Eliot being positive?????
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
34
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Eliot:
° Other poetry spekas of the moral bankruptcy of
authorities – they are no better that we are.
° I think this led to our current mixing of public
and private lives. They used to be separate, but
now are mixed. Example follows
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
35
Mixing public and private lives
• Duke of Windsor resigned as King of
England in 1936 to marry American
commoner Wallis Simpson. The British
press and royalty kept this affair silent for
eighteen months.
• Compare this with how the press and the
public handled President Clinton’s dalliance
with Monica Lewinsky.
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
36
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Gandhi: Merging of protest and publicity
using non-violence to apply moral pressure
to bring down a repressive regine. (We now
tend to think that the protesters are right.)
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
37
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Einstein:
Special Relativity. (Speed of light = 1 ft per nanosecond)
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
38
Creating Minds
Special contributions (DB):
• Einstein:
° What happens if we do not see the car moving
at 110% of the speed of light?
° We see the railroad car and the car as shorter,
car moves 6.6 feet instead of 20, we see it
moving at 96.6% of the speed of light, instead
of 110%
° People on railroad car don’t see it as shorter,
though. They see us as “thinner.”
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
39
Creativity
• Questions, comments?
• Done!
11/120/04
Creatiivity, Third Class
40