The capacity of the human race and possibly other intelligent beings in the universe to develop concepts and to consciously plan, design, and produce life-enhancing constructions of various kinds is ironically the crowning work of undirected cosmic forces, planetary environmental dynamics, and the random gene mutations that underlie biological evolution. Mankind's capacity for conscious creative design therefore constitutes a gift of the highest consequence--which, in turn, poses the very real challenge of making good use of it.
In that connection, it is important to keep in mind that the term "creativity," as it is used in this essay, is not limited to artists of various kinds, some of whom produce inspirational works of genius that have enduring impact; it refers instead to the impulse all humans have to give expression in a meaningful way to the creative potential they perceive within themselves. Most people, I believe, can fulfill that impulse most consistently by working with others to help solve problems in the workplace. But to make that possibility real, the workplace itself--by which I mean any locus of operations in any enterprise, from a farm, to a tool shop, to a doctor's office, to Congress--must be consciously designed to provide two fundamental supports: namely, maximum latitude for the input of individual talents and insight, and a means by which those assets can be collaborated with the talents and insight of others to achieve a specified goal. At the same time, the creative goal itself must be consistent with a purpose already emphasized: that it introduce new objective value into society or the world that, by its nature, helps meet real human needs. To that end, I believe, our democratically elected federal government can play a key role: first, by formally establishing important needs in society that remain unmet; and second, by providing incentives to related industries or other institutions to pursue the technological or other advances required to meet them. With this as a creative challenge, an entire American army of thinkers, researchers, planners, managers, engineers, and computer programmers can come together to let their creativity blossom and produce the best possible solutions.
In industrial applications, hands-on machine operators could find themselves in exciting new roles on self-directed modular parts production teams, perhaps similar to those pioneered by Saturn Corporation in the 1990s. At Saturn, the production teams were given considerable latitude for on-the-spot problem-solving, in-process programming and tooling changes, and quality improvements; in addition, all team members were enrolled in annual obligatory employee training programs to promote cross-module operating flexibility. This creative freedom added objective value to existing manufacturing operations by, among other benefits, cutting manufacturing costs and improving the performance and reliability of resulting products. In addition, because creativity-based modular production teams are considerably more agile than standard production practices using independent machine operators, they are also well-suited to provide fast, cost-effective solutions for such possible new challenges as ultra-fine tolerance limits in machining parts critical to the responsiveness of new autonomous vehicles.
Though the prospect of a creativity "revolution" in American industry and institutions is only a vision at present--perhaps, even, only my vision--a widespread transition from top-down profit-based, to bottom-up creative, production practices could well play a vital role in more rapid achievement of needed improvements in American society. Here's just a small sampling of things we could and should do:
- Replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.
- Repair and rebuild America's decaying physical infrastructure.
- Develop inter-urban high-speed trains and enhanced public transportation in cities.
- Shoot for medical breakthroughs, including new, more effective, antibiotics and therapies for longer life at higher levels of health.
- Find effective methods for peaceful conflict resolution that would make almost all killing and war-making indefensible.
- Develop new industrial technologies and tools to help produce more quickly and cheaply a wide variety of products that provide increased utility, better performance, and greater reliability.
- Create more independent and informative news media.
- Promote more culturally edifying music, dance, theater, film, and other performing arts.
- Propose new ideas for improving the functioning, quality, or products of government; politics; agriculture; architecture; environmental protection; medicine; nutrition; police/community relations; education; transportation; public power, gas, and water utilities; recreation centers; and the teaching of the natural sciences and liberal arts.
All these improvements would bring joy to their creators and lessen drudgery, reduce pain, increase convenience, raise the quality of life, or provide inspiration for those whose lives are touched by them.
Summing Things Up.
We human beings are the most successful product of biological evolution on earth, and also the only species capable of abstract thought and comprehensive planning. In the absence of any evidence of a superintending power in the universe, this gives us the rare capacity to create the necessary conditions for our own happiness. We have in fact the responsibility to do so. As a rare thinking species, we are a crowning jewel of natural creation, with the ability to attain heights of joy in life that far transcend the satisfactions of mere survival experienced by other animal species that may be lucky enough, due to a chance shuffling of genes in their ancestors, to successfully adapt to their habitat.
I strongly believe that, for our species, the key to a joyful life is to make use of our inborn insight and talents to produce, in creative interplay with others, products of all kinds--from organizational concepts, to wind farms, to art--that add objective value to human experience and meet real human needs. Such creativity is instrumental to a host of benefits. To name just a few:
- It fulfills the unique personal potential of individuals and gives them a necessary sense of social identity--which, to no small social benefit, prevents inevitable levels of personal frustration from ballooning into anti-social behavior.
- It brings groups of creative individuals together to delight in one another's achievements. Just recall the TV pictures you've seen of NASA scientists getting word of and celebrating the completion of a successful launch.
- It can lead reliably to solutions of technical, social, and environmental problems that can cause various levels of inconvenience, trouble, or pain, and disrupt the very focus on constructive creativity that is the key to human happiness.
- And, perhaps most importantly, relations with other humans based on creative interplay can replace competitive rivalries at all levels--from personal to international--with mutual respect, bringing together a diversity of backgrounds and material interests in spiritual harmony. The Olympic Games offer an apt example of this, and serve as perhaps my own best metaphor for the central sense I have of a "Creativity Revolution."
I myself have no doubt that the revolutionary transition from a social/economic/political system based on material self-interest and top-down regimentation to one that prioritizes individual creative self-expression would represent another giant step forward for mankind. It would make possible both an increased capacity for personal fulfillment and a higher quality of interpersonal relations. Moreover, the products resulting from creative collaboration would for the first time meet the high ethical standards inherent in the biological process of natural selection, which allows only those species to survive that have come into harmony with the diverse elements of their environment. Because the process of collaborative design also seeks to create harmony from diverse elements, it can never lead to such destructive technologies as mountaintop strip mining or the "fracking" process used to extract natural gas from protected recesses in the earth. Nor can it lead to the endless rash of perversely intriguing TV commercials designed to exploit for profit the readiness of a morally bankrupt audience to be titillated by illusions of sex and power.
The principle of "harmony in diversity" is an essential feature of all genuine human creation. Every work of art reflects this principle, in conveying both the artist's vision, and its own unity of impression, through the harmonious arrangement of the many elements composing it. The same principle, moreover, governs not only art in its traditional forms--music, dance, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, etc.--but even incidental art, such as that often displayed in athletics.
Beyond their visceral attractions, sporting events at the highest level exhibit in their own right the magnificent effects of making harmony from diversity, often resolving the inherent drama of conflict with extraordinary grace and beauty. Any TV sports fan will cite such events as among his own most elevated moments. Just imagine the possibilities: The walk-off homerun with two outs in the ninth that arcs majestically from the night sky into the farthest reaches of the upper deck. The pressured last-second three-point shot in basketball that catches nothing but string for the win. The last-second breakaway in hockey that completes an unlikely comeback with a winning goal. Or the Achilles-like quarterback in football, fighting free from a posse of tacklers to gain a moment's footing in open space, from which he hits his man in the end-zone for the winning touchdown. In all these cases, an artist athlete, by the grace of his own talents, overcomes a host of opposing forces to create the singular beauty of a triumphant end.
At the more prosaic level of solving problems in society, the economy, or international relations, one might not unreasonably hope that experts in high places, backed by a plethora of technological, political, institutional, and information resources, might achieve similar triumphs. But the difficulties involved in the real world are far more refractory than those encountered in the arts or athletics. Imagine what it will take in terms of creative ideas, technological innovation, political persuasion, and administrative planning to overcome the vast resistance of wide-ranging economic and geopolitical interests, and bring human industrial activity into harmony with the realities of the earth's changing climate.
Arresting global climate change will require its own "collaborative creativity," in which everyone gets on board with new ideas and tools to help bring conflicting interests into harmony with an overriding goal. But such efforts are also morally and spiritually transformational for those who participate in them. They provide not only the personal satisfaction that comes from tapping one's own best insight and talents to help solve problems, but also the excitement and joy of combining those contributions with the creative outputs of others.
So far on our conflicted planet, such a sense of unity with other humans, and perhaps through it, too, with the rest of nature, has only been hinted at. The day may come, however, when the liberated consciousness of humans can experience a rapture that is yet unimagined. I have in mind possible close encounters on far-away star systems with intelligent alien races and their creations. The creatures and plant life we would come to know there might well defy our sense of natural forms, but we would surely perceive that the intelligent beings among them are moved by the same creative urge that moves us. They too will want to explore through the creations of others what elements were brought to functional unity from the diverse conditions of their social, technological, and natural environments. Together, perhaps, we could celebrate an even more joyous harmony in diversity with such strange beings than any we or they have yet known.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
