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“Beware of the creativity of the powerful”

Once I wrote an article – a complaint on the lies and double talk of representatives of the local government – and ended it with the following line: “Beware of the creativity of the powerful”. It was a response to the repetitive answers of the public officials – that they have different plans. What plans can an official have? It’s just a job!

Creation as Self-creation

My notion of creativity as it enters various fields is based upon thoughts that I repeatedly had after hearing a lecture by Slovene art and media theorist Janez Strehovec, in which he looked into reasons for the new creative (artistic?) field – the area of genetics and creativity as a concept that had entered the field of biology since the start of cloning experiments. The area was described as “new (mass) media” a couple of years before by artist/activist Heath Bunting. One can understand that genetics will help humans to get a couple of years closer to “immortality” and medicine will help us to be just a couple of operations away from the beautiful. So, it is about self-creation.

The changing paradigms (in this postmodern, postindustrial,… posthistoric time) were pointed out as a dynamic “modus operandi” that redefines the relationships in the discursive fields and therefore also our understanding. Since these fields are “local” systems of evaluation they are not necessarily in conformity with broader, more basic evaluation matrices (humanistic, religious, scientific). In the ideal case, this conformity would exist at least to some extent. The broader evaluation systems are based on the ethical dimension – linked to notions such as civilization, collective, social aspects and humanity as a species. And it is these fields that are the only fixed points of reference and therefore “the critique” for the technologically advancing areas. If new areas are not viewed as parts of the broader picture, the perspective gets twisted – the humanism suddenly becomes old and conservative and all relationships from here on get transformed. Not in an illogical manner, however – it is therefore a truly credible system of evaluation.

Since I am interested in seeing creativity as the basic concept, some questions would be: why is art associated with creativity and should it necessarily be so? And: what becomes of generally positive aspects of creativity when subjected to different discursive fields – why is art good for creativity and why are science, biology, politics, business not so good? Is it always the ethical dimension that poses problems? When I speak about artificial life, I am actually speaking about understanding Life, but on a model of lesser life. If I forget that the model is just an “image” (a representation, etc.) – I will start to speak also about self-creation of the model – and quickly about the Life of the model. The basic mystification (be it religious, scientific or humanistic) is lost and the world becomes arbitrary – a designer’s playground.

What is Creativity? (from Wikipedia)

For ancient Greeks “poiein” meant simply “to make”. Poetry was the high art of creation, other artistic fields were imitating rather than creating. Ancient Romans introduced the word “creatio” – and used two words for “to make” – “facere” and “creare” (“creatus” – to have grown). The word “creation” was used to describe artistic work. In the Christian period “creation” was reserved for God’s “creation from nothing”. It was not until the  Renaissance (15th century) and especially the Enlightenment (18th century) that the word creativity was again used to describe human work. In the 19th century it was only art that was regarded as creative. At the turn of the 1900s, the discussion of creativity in the sciences and in nature began. Today we talk about creativity in all fields of human activities – Industry, Business and Economy – describing the creation (the growth) of anything.

Creativity and Politics

We like to say that we know that Politics goes hand in hand with the capital – the profit. How and when does Politics become creative and what are the reasons and the consequences? Here I point to the fact that we mainly live in a “western style democracy”, governed by elected members of government, the parliament, an independent legal system, independent media control, religion systems separate from the state, etc. What we have to perform the governing role are public officials – the public servants, as they used to be called. Individuals don’t count much in the long run – the “institutions of democracy” are the foundations that keep societies stable.

There is no need for a public official to become creative, since his/her job is mainly about the system that must be continuously repetitive and only slowly transformable. No abrupt revolutions are needed in the contemporary notion of democracy. For such a stable, almost fixed situation there would be no need for “people with vision”.

But for any kind of situation demanding fast reaction time – like crisis endangering the system – there comes a need for a faster – “a reduced” democratic system. “Creativity” has now entered politics and quick changes can be made. The usual situation in war: democratic/civic institutions are put aside. What happens if no war is declared or no democratic/civic structures are disbanded – they are “just not functioning very well” – or the other way around? In the case of the USA (and the western world …) the War on Terrorism was declared, but the civic institutions continued to function – just “not very well”.

Externalizing the Economic Problems

The same “not-very-well-functioning” of civic/democratic institutions is going on even without the direct threat of terrorism. In the case of Europe the economic systems in the past two decades are not growing enough to sustain societies in the long run. The fall of the Eastern bloc didn’t bring as much gold as expected. The War on Terrorism also didn’t bring as much as it did for the USA.

While the US economy managed to successfully “externalize” problems of the local economy to the global level, Europe has been yet unable to do something similar. I would say that all these actions can be defined as creative, since they have provided growth (of certain segments of economy, certain profits – especially in the case of the US), or the reduction of costs of production (the cost of social security) in the EU.

The main reason that the economy in the EU has not “grown” is said to be the well-developed social system, which is very costly. It threatens to become even worse in the next decades. Without economic growth (which is not possible), or radical changes to the social system (that would include lowering of the social rights of the citizens) the crash of the EU economies is expected. And this means that an open call is out to the politicians for a “creative approach”.

Crisis & Creativity

So, the creativity of the mighty clearly describes the crisis of the system. The system needs to be changed from within – it must go through the process of “poesis” (creation). So, the prime ministers become “people with vision” (or people with vision become prime ministers …) and a lot of changes are proposed to the not-very-well-functioning democratic institutions. These changes are usually on the brink of legitimacy, some openly fascistic, like the ban on smoking – which is actually a ban “on people smoking” – successfully enforced all over Europe, debate on actions against paedophiles, who should be publicly marked as such, etc. It all becomes more and more an image from the near past.

I remember not long ago quite a lot of people were boldly saying: “I am a Stalinist”. They came from the part of the “ultra left” at the end of seventies, but they have kept repeating it up to this date. What does it mean? Being a Stalinist means that this person has a stand that the aim justifies the means. Soviet Russia leader Josef V. Stalin ordered the elimination (killing) of millions of citizens in the 1930s. In order for him to be able to act creatively, he had to eliminate this option for the others. So, the creativity of the mighty eliminates/negates this option for anybody else.

The saying “I am a Stalinist” actually means that the speaker does not believe in the technology of democracy. The other option is the absolute ruler, the enlightened ruler. The leader of the State becomes the creator – the artist. When politicians become creative they are moving away from democracy.

Creativity of Institutions = Conservatism of Citizens?

What happens to the citizens when the politicians become creative? The systems going through the process of creation are not stable systems – everything is changing – there are no fixed grounds, truths, institutions. The system seems to be a self-balancing one. So, is it out of denial of the right for creativity that the common people feel the need to provide firm grounds? The common people move ideologically to the more stable – conservative/traditional values. Is it a natural approach (some mystified self-balancing rule?) to keep the system in a balanced situation?

The institutions are supposed to be the pillars of culture in any society. By definition the institutions should be traditional, conservative. But when they turn creative, it is the people that in turn become conservative.

From Art to Design – the Creative Industry

When art is a just form – it is only about Aesthetics – it is mimesis (it “looks”). When it is an act of creation it is also about Ethics – the poesis (it “becomes”). As in the difference between some thing and its representation. As in the basic difference between “art is the most beautiful lie” and “art is the search for truth”.

What is missing with transplantations of “creativity” to other areas is Ethics (the firm stand). You have Design as the high peak of creativity, the Market as the basic field of discourse (the Economy as it’s ideologic –  evaluation system) and the Profit (the creation of  more and more exchange value – the money) as the basic creative force. On the market the value of objects is always translated into money (which is just a representation of value, the symbol of value). The money however is not being treated as a representation anymore – but as the object of desire itself – the main motive. Lately the Market is becoming more and more just the exchange of the simplest form of imaginary symbols –  the numbers. It is a very dubious belief system – very light and easily disintegrated (”from the material the dreams are made of…”).

One segment of work is constantly on the rise in the last decades, having emerged from the artistic field and is denoted as the creative industry. In the US there are about ten to twenty million workers in this segment. Their playground is the production of abstract values – the added value for the products. These are abstract goods for the leisure time market. People from the creative industry are designers. These are the people that use, misuse and redefine (redesign) evaluation systems, so that they get the most out of fictive (but totally tangible) “added value” systems.

From Social Democracy to Showbiz Democracy

As with any system that relies on imagination/fiction – the added value system is a belief system – a religion of some sort. Designers are the high priests of today. People from the creative industry are well paid and seemingly out of the traditional worker/owner division. They represent a big part of the so-called precarious class. They are not organized in workers’ unions, they even do not have any means of civic pressure at their hands – they act as if they are just temporary employees (workers) – working their way up to become employers (owners). In this way they have no social identity and are just mixing up the well-known class division of industrial times. People from the creative industry do not have their own social body.

The creative industry is the entertainment industry, show business – a lot are called but only a few are chosen. Show business is an effective mechanism for rejuvenating the ruling class in the post-industrial time. It is one of the rare possibilities for a member from the lower class to jump higher. It is a bypass, allowing for a few jumps of a couple of designers, but conserving the basic social structure. Today’s new members of the ruling class are Paul McCartney, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs …

Borut Savski