jason_els
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- Joined
- Dec 16, 2004
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- Warwick, NY, USA
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- 90% Gay, 10% Straight
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- Male
-What are the conditions that need to be in place in order for creativity to develop and be sustained?
Acceptance or, at least, tolerance. Encouragement helps too.
-Is the society we live in the ideal system to perpetuate creativity?
Absolutely not. Society tolerates some creativity if that creativity can be used for commercial gain. I don't know a single parent who encourages their child to be an artist of any sort. Even if they are encouraging then there's always an admonition that children study something else, "to fall back on." Do parents say that to their kids who go through MBA programs? Do we see art of creative and high quality every day? No! American taste is awful and our education system has killed any incentive for kids to learn about the value of art and creativity. If you're creative then study engineering.
Since the 50s art in school has been seen as superfluous. It's nice for little kids because, as most educators see it, they can't learn anything more valuable at that age. What most people do not understand, because they've never had art education themselves, is that art, even art history, is ridiculously valuable in teaching people how to think. It takes great effort to discern what is being communicated by art and how what is communicated effects us and our society. Brains need to learn to discern, recognize, compare, and analyze abstraction; a high-order brain function, and art is the single greatest tool for teaching that ability. There is a reason that people who study art are broad-minded, attentive to detail, sensitive to nuance, and always aware of the context of communication. That reason is because art fosters that kind thinking ability.
As we exist in a capitalist society, our fortunes based upon our ability to earn money in a commercial-industrial-service economy, parents demand schools prepare their children to fit into that world. Art is not seen by parents as contributing to that goal. They want sports, math, and science. History, another exceptionally valuable course of study, is withering on the vine as well. Even English has become a red-headed step child and contemporary business correspondence shows it most painfully.
This is what happens when you have multiple generations living in a system that teaches, not to the test, but to the goal of profitable employment. They're not teaching kids to think independently and creatively, but to get a job.
Ages ago liberal arts were seen as the best way to create well-rounded people with multiple skill sets who, ultimately, were able to synthesize those skill sets in a sophisticated manner. This produced people with vision and intellectual curiosity. As we become more and more specialized, course of study is becoming narrower and narrower to satisfy the requirements of attaining a specialized skill. Until that changes then I don't see that anything will change.
Already in NYC there are several high schools devoted exclusively to certain subjects. They are exceptional schools by any measure, yet they're essentially taking an elementary school student and channeling that student into a specialized course of study that will not expose the student to a broader range of subjects, and thus ideas and modes of thinking. I think we'll be seeing more schools like this, high schools becoming universities, so long as the American economy requires highly specialized workers to stay competitive.
-When did you think the most creative periods of your life were and why?
A study that was recently published said that the early 20s are the most creative period in most people's lives and that's not surprising as it coincides with college and generally represents a period of life when people have the time to be creative. They're not worrying about mortgages, car payments, insurances, feeding a family, educating their kids. In my view, I think any period of life can be most creative if a person can find the time to do it. Picasso didn't blossom until his 30s and Matisse, already a great artist, went on to create an entirely new style in his 60s when arthritis prevented him from painting as he used to.
That said, my most creative periods are when I'm soaking in the bathtub reading, smoking, or eating ice cream. I don't know why, but all my best ideas come from soaking in the tub. Must be the Piscean temperament.
-How does an individual's creativity benefit society?
Creativity is essential in everything from engineering to architecture to medicine to business. If America is losing ground in all fields (and we are), then it's largely because our population is generally too ignorant to understand that many school subjects are less valuable for the information they give the student then in how the student learns to understand and analyze the subject itself. The value in art, almost always, isn't in the finished product, but in how it was conceived and executed. The value of learning history isn't in knowing that Jomo Kenyatta led the Mau Mau Rebellion but in evaluating all documented accounts to arrive at a conclusion of cause, events, and effects of what took place. This is what education is, not facts and figures, but learning to think!