DEFINING CREATIVITY – THE IMPORTANCE OF DOUBT

There has always been a great desire to analyse creativity, to dissect it, to demystify it. There seems to be the ambition to provide a set of rules for innovation, to list the steps to be taken; to be able to manage imagination, inspiration and ingenuity, and, it appears, (and this may be the main intention), to not waste any time; to make the process more efficient, more predictable: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/04/what-is-good-design.html It is as though we need to train more Einsteins, now, to make a ‘smarter’ world.

So it was that the discussion on ABC Radio RN Saturday Extra, 20 April 2019, caught one’s attention. Geraldine Doogue introduced Michael Anderson, Professor of Education at the University of Sydney and Co-Director of 4C Transformative Learning: see - https://www.4ctransformativelearning.org/our-team Doogue spoke about how we might make better decisions in today’s turmoil before Anderson lurched in, speaking at speed and with enthusiasm about “teaching creativity.” These words drew my attention. Was this yet another attempt at design methodology in other words? The spectre of Tom Heath loomed large, shadowed by that of Geoffrey Broadbent: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/04/what-is-good-design.html

With a snappy precision, MA rattled off his theory of the four ‘C’s – “collaboration; communication; and critical reflection.” This sounded like three ‘C’s to me, so I replayed the discussion later. Nope, just three. Maybe one had to be ‘creative’ and count the ‘C’ of creativity itself? Checking further on-line, one discovers the set in a different sequence -

The four C’s of 21^st century skills are some of the most popular learning strategies in today’s environment.

The four C’s are:

1. Critical thinking
2. Creativity
3. Collaboration
4. Communication

Critical thinking is all about solving problems.

Creativity teaches students to think outside the box.

Collaboration shows students how to work together to achieve a common goal.

Communication lets students learn how to best convey their ideas.

. . . and there is a lot more too: see - https://www.aeseducation.com/career-readiness/what-are-the-4-cs-of-21st-century-skills Ah! So that makes it clear. The idea is a ‘21^st century’ vision, not just an MA idea. This was not made clear.

MA continued with his learned spiel, asking about how, “on a wet Friday afternoon, what creativity looks like as a learning strategy.” He added his “aerosol” words, “a creativity cascade,” to explain the ambition; words that could be “sprayed everywhere, catch attention, and never be understood; but would linger.” It sounded like the artificial star in the sky asking for eyeballs: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2018/01/asking-for-eyeballs-wind-turbines-in.html  MA never spoke of the 4’C’s being a global understanding; was ‘aerosol’ his term?

The “four stages of creativity” were then quickly noted, rattled off almost as an aside. It seemed as though MA was summarising one of his lectures he knew off by heart: “noticing; asking why; critical play with possibilities; and how to select and evaluate.” There were indeed four items this time. The intent was “how to get innovation to work,” which is the aim of design methodologists. They all, like MA, want to “demystify” the activity, to, as MA said, “discover what’s possible with creativity.” Will anyone really know? Do we want to know? Can we ever know?

One remains shocked at this attempt to manage things ‘creative’ as a checklist. It appears to be a driving force for educators. The https://www.aeseducation.com/career-readiness/what-are-the-4-cs-of-21st-century-skills site is based in ‘312 East Walnut St. Suite 200 Lancaster, PA 17602’ - Pennsylvaina. Is the whole ‘4C’ thrust coming from the American ‘can do/will do’ rational optimism? The idea of lists is dangerous, as they can be seen to be a prescription for action when they have come from a process of analysis that carries the aberrant assumption that, if the steps of a successful creative act can be itemised, scheduled, then the reiteration of these steps will give a creative outcome. This is an irrational, false vision, a foolish hope. An analysis remains just an analysis, something that can be debated and discussed – maybe taught too. It never provides a prescription for innovative outcomes; it only talks about them.

A weather map of Australia?

It is unreasonable and unwise to assume that matters like imagination, inspiration, ingenuity, and innovation can be understood by the enquiring, analytical mind, let alone taught. Flights of fancy are grounded by the reviews and the chatter; the Muse is timid and never appears from analysis: it creeps in from the shadows – see sidebar: HOW POETRY COMES TO ME; THE MUSE – GETTING IT RIGHT; and THE AIM OF ART. By definition alone, inspiration can never be quantified: dreams cannot be predicted. How can the fact that a novel can begin with its ending, (Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda), ever be explained, or be useful for replication?

A wet Friday afternoon?

It may be advantageous for academics to analyse and to ‘teach’ creativity, if this is their job on a wet Friday or not – is creativity only an afterthought, for ‘spare’ time pursuits? - but the effort to rationalise the process will always remain just an intellectual game. The identified strategies will stand alone as barren ground for the frustrated, would-be artists, and remain as fertile possibilities only for more ‘fashion-conscious’ thinkers wanting to make their mark in the clever ‘4C’ world.

One cannot ever be told how to be creative. One might be able to understand what one’s problem might have been or not been, but these studies are always after the event – trying to guess what has happened in an attempt to quantify the unquantifable.

Strangely creativity is seen as a brain explosion. What has happened to the rest of the body?

Studying, measuring, and recording does not necessarily mean that one is even close to the essence of creativity. There is a truly mystical quality in the act that cannot be removed, ignored or itemised. One has to spend time in this field to understand that studies such as those MA is interested in only make for academic books, reputations and CVs, nothing more, other than perhaps radio shows. The old adage stands: if it can be explained, it would have been. This goes for all art, as well as religion, and for scientific discoveries too. It is misleading to pretend otherwise. We should stop trying to cleverly demystify our world and spend more time engaged with its enchantment; its magic – yes, its mystery; believing in it and giving it space, rather than dismembering or isolating it. We need to attend to its re-enchantment, a matter that has been written about by others: e.g. see - https://www.amazon.com/Reenchantment-World-Morris-Berman/dp/0801492254

Is creativity multi-coloured?

The whole of the RN discussion, while enthusiastically presented, reminded me of those terrible books: How to be an Artist. Cringe!! Is this how we get a ‘Damien Hirst’?

The naive images of innocence are interpreted as creativity

Is the bulb graphic a pun on enlightenment?

One must be wary of any analysis that can always be proven to be ‘correct’ as an overlay, a template placed over every ‘creative’ act, as MA suggested it could be. There may be the matches, but these are not essential explanations. Explaining has its limitations and is one-directional: it reviews after the event; it does not necessarily foretell.

We need to learn from science to doubt embracing explanations, theories that appear too good, too easy to be ‘proven’ to be true. We need a greater struggle with ideas and feelings; to be prepared to challenge every conjecture and to be ready to change, to admit an error rather than to stubbornly justify personal positions. It is dangerous to feel good about solutions and to preach their positives with fervour and panache. It is always difficult to accept the critique, to acknowledge that there is a problem – but, ironically, this is the more ‘creative’ strategy, the more positive approach.

Doubt is good, necessary. Our era’s problem is that it is too quick to shout down the critic, or to promote a vision en masse, with the button click of a thumbs down or up. Educators must come to understand and accept this considered process of conjecture and refutation that Karl Popper so clearly identified in all of its apparent irony, a position that proclaims the essential strength of doubt. Doubt is better than shout: more ‘creative’ if you like, for creativity stands on an abyss of uncertainty, the unknown, a void that is only filled in by the explanations that strangely, irrationally seek to predict it: they literally ‘ground’ it, grind it into nothingness, to become not only an intellectual intrigue, but also a creative irrelevance.

NOTE:

Looking through Google Images of ‘creativity,’ one is alarmed by the clichés that illustrate the concept. It is as though the educators’ approach has been replicated in form. Light bulbs appear (old ones: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2011/08/ideas-images.html and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2012/01/inspiration.html ); the idea of the brain exploding is common, as is the split brain, right and left; different colours, and random arrays of paint brushes and coloured pencils are used, as are random splashes, smudges, and squiggles. The Google catalogue of illustrated references includes quotes and numerous books on ‘how to,’ and ‘explained.’ The images are frightening in their limitations, their banality, representing a cross section of ideas that are really commonplace mottos, proverbs, platitudes, buzzwords and stereotypes. It is the most despairing exposé of ‘creativity’ that one could imagine, and reveals the danger of the educator’s rational vision of the process, the explanation of mystery. The images reproduced here are indicative of the terrible mix.