The crisis of creativity in America

By Cage Innoye

Photo: The crisis of creativity in America

There is a great crisis of creativity in our age. Critical problems are mounting up and very little is being done. It is because we do not understand, teach or promote creativity that we are in the great mess of today. We live in world of advancing complexity and evolving situations and contradictions; there is no way a species can manage all this without being creative. The more developed a culture and society, the more developed must be its creativity. But look at our nation, our creativity is either inadequate or simply non-existent.

“Genio” is a word for creativity. America is a nation whose Genio needs examination.

Our crisis of creativity appears in various ways:

-Money is declared as a creative force in itself. But since October 2008, money has shown this is not true -- real value, ethics and hard work are still primary behaviors that make money creative and productive. Money being creative is a mantra that no longer spells us.

-Further, just being an American does not mean you are creative, though some think through some sort of mystical process that citizenship or residence makes it so.

-We see leaders and institutions block creative solutions in a country with many problems. Difficulties get worse, the crisis of creativity worsens. There is very little creativity at the top.

-In some fields there are creative solutions but they are suppressed by powers that be, for example solutions that are green, organic etc.

-In many other fields there are no fundamental solutions at all to problems -- for example, the economy, government, foreign policy, education, healthcare, mental healthcare, diets and nutrition, poverty, crime, drug addiction and so on.

-Further, we live in a culture that celebrates “mis-creativity” which serves consumerism and bad entertainment. Vast amounts of potential creative energy are drained away on the trivial and manipulative. “Prodigy slayers” stalk young creative talent and convert them into “Pandermaths” (geniuses who serve consumerism and entertainment), who don’t create art but “dis-art”.

-And consumerism makes you a genio-user, but not a creator, by the very fact you use its products, and this reduces your own imagination.

-Genio theft is rampant by individuals and corporations whether in industry or Hollywood. We live in a culture of “Genio-vores”, thieves of other’s creativity. In fact this theft is brazen, well rewarded, and considered clever and prestigious.

-And think of this: At the level of education, we have NO curriculum that teaches creativity in secondary schools or in universities. What creativity the nation has comes spontaneously in a hit or miss way by individuals. This uneducated, haphazard creativity is a testimony to its drive in all of us, a drive which overcomes the barriers set up by education and the culture at large. But think how much more creative we might be with training from a very young age? Creativity is spontaneous because the curriculum is fully academic and logical. How then does creativity arise from the Ivy League? It does not and that is why we are in a crisis.

We know nothing of what we can call a “sphere mind”, the mind of imagination, with its floating nature and the sudden flash appearance of spheres of new ideas. The sphere mind has many unique behaviors -- randomness, flash, juxtaposition, vagueness, wholes, collecting, negation, absurdity, excepting, a different perception of time, story formation, hearing poetic voices, rebellion, intuition, the subconscious, the spiritual, a very different kind of ego...and more.

What we do know about is the “thread mind” of logic which threads logical deductions, timelines, flowcharts, hierarchies, sequences etc. It is the mind of imitation and rote. Its culture dominates, and its culture fears the true Genio because she or he cannot be controlled.

Assaying our national situation, it is clear, for the most part, we cannot rely upon leaders and institutions. Only by developing our own creativity and our new institutions can we solve our problems today.

It is a principle of creativity that you must do things yourself; Genio is a most unique individual and human expression, the most individual of behaviors. One cannot rely on others, on politicians, parties, CEOs or celebrities -- for the most part they have shown that are not creative, not enough to solve our problems. There are some good and creative people but far too few.

It is time to create a Genio culture — a culture that teaches and supports creativity, that makes creativity the prime need in life, that makes recognition of creative credit a primary right, that organizes social projects around maximizing creativity, and that gets the sphere mind to lead the thread mind in a productive way.

Genio is the creative force of the cosmos. It is an extension of the power of the “Diverse” (die-verse). In a Diverse, diversity and difference are the great forces in all things. Genio is special expression of diversity and difference. Genio is in all things -- stars, planets, plants, animals and in Human beings. Genio is the power of creation and evolution.

Genio is simply creativity. Genio is in all humans, it is a form of "genius" given to all, accessible toall. And Genio is a primary need in Human beings; it gives fundamental meaning and purpose to life.

But Genio must be taught and nurtured and managed. We have a crisis of creativity today because none of this is being done.

Further, the future is an act of artistic creation, events are not predictable or inevitable, thus, creativity is its fundamental driver. And without this creativity we have no future. We cannot study the past because it cannot tell you how to teach mass creativity, build a true citizen’s democracy, engineer a new economy that is neither old capitalism nor socialism, develop healthy mass media and mass entertainment, solve the healthcare or mental healthcare problem. None of these things have been done before; you will not find answers in history books! We have to rely on our own imaginations.

And more, we do not have to know the future as a blue print; we only have to hold onto our principles of Genio, diversity and human ethics. We do not have to know where we are going in any precise and detailed way; we can find our way if we are practical.

If the people begin to develop their Genio, then all the institutions that hold back creativity can be replaced, then we can solve our many problems. This means creativity in your daily life as an individual and as a social activist building new things. The world changes much more at the personal level not at the collective level; and real changes are at the bottom essentially not at the top.

Creativity has many advantages. It is unique for each person; it expresses their minds, their personalities, their unique experiences, emotional mix, and particular views. It comes right out of your individuality; it is best when it is individual and unique; and it fails when it copies others.

A further advantage of creativity is that one becomes more in touch with her or his emotions, sensations, the subconscious, right brain and the mind of action and doing.

Creativity can then be applied to one’s self, that is, re-creation of self or Self-Genio. This is a major project for each of us. Many of the principles of art and creativity can be applied to your self growth.

The crisis of creativity in the world ends when we can end the crisis of creativity in ourselves.

The sphere mind must now lead because it produces the vision. Now, the psychological behaviors of artists, inventors, discoverers, and paradigm founders can become commonplace.

This is the age of the “Geniotariat”, a class of sorts, a voluntary class coming from all classes which defines itself as creative. We should not be looking toward an “intelligentsia” for leadership anymore, we should look to the “Intelli-Genio”, the creative person from any class or demographic or any walk of life.

When we survey the true facts of our creativity in the USA we have to give ourselves a D plus or C minus. We are on the boundary of true Genio behavior but not quite there yet; this is because of opposition to creativity and lack of education in its principles.

But we can get past this confusing stage into true creativity; America is capable of getting an A plus.

Innoye is an American writer. You can contact him at his blog, or at his email address. His new book, “The Axxiad”, will be available soon.