The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History by Samuel W. Franklin, and: The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea by Shannon Steen (review)

IF 0.8 3区 哲学 Q2 HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Technology and Culture Pub Date : 2024-07-19 DOI:10.1353/tech.2024.a933122
Stina Teilmann-Lock
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Accountancy aside, society seemingly cannot have enough of creativity. According to the World Economic Forum’s <em>The Future of Jobs Report 2023</em>, the second most sought-after skill of employers is “creative thinking” (out sought only by “analytical thinking”). Two recent volumes, Samuel W. Franklin’s <em>The Cult of Creativity</em> and Shannon Steen’s <em>The Creativity Complex</em>, explore the roles and exploitations of creativity in the United States. Both monographs historicize the notion of creativity (in line with recent scholarship such as A. Reckwitz, <em>The Invention of Creativity</em>, 2017; T. Beyes and J. Metelmann (eds.), <em>The Creativity Complex</em>, 2018; W. P. McCray, <em>Making Art Work</em>, 2020) and shed light on the ways in which creativity, over the past century, has been instrumentalized, commercialized, and promoted as a solution to problems ranging from boredom in school to sales optimization and ecosystem collapse.</p> <p>In the United States, creativity research has been a big deal in psychology and business studies since the mid-twentieth century, as such well funded by, among other sources, public money. Research outcomes have included “creativity tests,” psychometrics of “highly creative” individuals, “divergent thinking,” methods for “creative problem-solving,” fostering of “creative thinking” across industries, and more (see V. Glăveanu, <em>The Creativity Reader</em>, 2019).</p> <p>In <em>The Cult of Creativity</em>, Samuel W. Franklin points to the paradoxical character of the notion of creativity. It is commonplace and sublime; it makes work less alienating while it optimizes workers’ performance; it encompasses both Don Draper and Louise Bourgeois. Creativity is the darling of management gurus and starving artists alike. Franklin, elegantly, submits that the contradictory character of the concept of creativity is its special force: it reconciles tensions between the “individual and mass society, the extraordinary and the everyday, the spiritual and the crassly material, the rebellious and the status quo” (p. 7). The notion of creativity has become a lens for us to <strong>[End Page 1030]</strong> see social change in a particular light and to come to terms with deep-seated tensions of contemporary society. In nine chapters, Franklin’s book presents manifestations, uses, and usefulness of “creativity.” We are presented with the role of Ellis Paul Torrance, an educational psychologist and creator of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, in the reconfiguring, from the 1960s onward, of the American school system toward supporting the “creative child.” Embracing creativity in education promised to unleash individual abilities of children to become Nobel laureates, or at least happy workers.</p> <p>Franklin points to how Abraham Maslow saw the real potential of creativity as a means for “self-actualization.” (Maslow prescribed hard sciences for men and more domestic forms of self-actualization for women.) Management thinkers picked up Maslow’s ideas and gave us the (received) idea of the coming together of happy employees and happy bottom lines. The creative revolution on Madison Avenue was yet another manifestation of the power of the concept of creativity: the advertising industry gained its identity as a creator of cultural and social value (advertising has taught us to “think different” and “just do it,” or at least to pretend to).</p> <p>While the strength of Franklin’s argument is its unraveling of the many hidden and contradictory assumptions and their trajectories that are brought into play every time we call upon creativity, its weakness is the disillusion that threatens to hit after the tearing apart of such a cherished “thing” as creativity. A certain scholarly freeze arises from exposing the notion of creativity as <em>only</em> a product, or a construct, of a particular societal arrangement at a given time. Once the scales have fallen from our eyes, how do we approach creativity? 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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Reviewed by:

  • The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History by Samuel W. Franklin, and: The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea by Shannon Steen
  • Stina Teilmann-Lock (bio)
The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History
By Samuel W. Franklin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023. Pp. 253. The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea
By Shannon Steen. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023. Pp. xi + 246.

Creativity is encouraged in everyone, except accountants. Accountancy aside, society seemingly cannot have enough of creativity. According to the World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs Report 2023, the second most sought-after skill of employers is “creative thinking” (out sought only by “analytical thinking”). Two recent volumes, Samuel W. Franklin’s The Cult of Creativity and Shannon Steen’s The Creativity Complex, explore the roles and exploitations of creativity in the United States. Both monographs historicize the notion of creativity (in line with recent scholarship such as A. Reckwitz, The Invention of Creativity, 2017; T. Beyes and J. Metelmann (eds.), The Creativity Complex, 2018; W. P. McCray, Making Art Work, 2020) and shed light on the ways in which creativity, over the past century, has been instrumentalized, commercialized, and promoted as a solution to problems ranging from boredom in school to sales optimization and ecosystem collapse.

In the United States, creativity research has been a big deal in psychology and business studies since the mid-twentieth century, as such well funded by, among other sources, public money. Research outcomes have included “creativity tests,” psychometrics of “highly creative” individuals, “divergent thinking,” methods for “creative problem-solving,” fostering of “creative thinking” across industries, and more (see V. Glăveanu, The Creativity Reader, 2019).

In The Cult of Creativity, Samuel W. Franklin points to the paradoxical character of the notion of creativity. It is commonplace and sublime; it makes work less alienating while it optimizes workers’ performance; it encompasses both Don Draper and Louise Bourgeois. Creativity is the darling of management gurus and starving artists alike. Franklin, elegantly, submits that the contradictory character of the concept of creativity is its special force: it reconciles tensions between the “individual and mass society, the extraordinary and the everyday, the spiritual and the crassly material, the rebellious and the status quo” (p. 7). The notion of creativity has become a lens for us to [End Page 1030] see social change in a particular light and to come to terms with deep-seated tensions of contemporary society. In nine chapters, Franklin’s book presents manifestations, uses, and usefulness of “creativity.” We are presented with the role of Ellis Paul Torrance, an educational psychologist and creator of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, in the reconfiguring, from the 1960s onward, of the American school system toward supporting the “creative child.” Embracing creativity in education promised to unleash individual abilities of children to become Nobel laureates, or at least happy workers.

Franklin points to how Abraham Maslow saw the real potential of creativity as a means for “self-actualization.” (Maslow prescribed hard sciences for men and more domestic forms of self-actualization for women.) Management thinkers picked up Maslow’s ideas and gave us the (received) idea of the coming together of happy employees and happy bottom lines. The creative revolution on Madison Avenue was yet another manifestation of the power of the concept of creativity: the advertising industry gained its identity as a creator of cultural and social value (advertising has taught us to “think different” and “just do it,” or at least to pretend to).

While the strength of Franklin’s argument is its unraveling of the many hidden and contradictory assumptions and their trajectories that are brought into play every time we call upon creativity, its weakness is the disillusion that threatens to hit after the tearing apart of such a cherished “thing” as creativity. A certain scholarly freeze arises from exposing the notion of creativity as only a product, or a construct, of a particular societal arrangement at a given time. Once the scales have fallen from our eyes, how do we approach creativity? Franklin suggests in his conclusion that the concept of creativity is a...

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创造力崇拜:塞缪尔-W-富兰克林著的《创造力崇拜:令人惊讶的近代史》,以及创造力情结:香农-斯蒂恩(Shannon Steen)所著的《艺术、技术和理念的诱惑》(评论
评论者: 创造力崇拜:塞缪尔-W-富兰克林所著的《创造力崇拜:令人惊讶的近代史》,以及创造力情结:创造力崇拜:一部令人惊讶的近代史》,作者塞缪尔-W-富兰克林:Samuel W. Franklin 著。芝加哥:芝加哥大学出版社,2023 年。第 253 页。创造力情结:艺术、科技与理念的诱惑》,香农-斯蒂恩著。安阿伯:密歇根大学出版社,2023 年。第 xi + 246 页。人人都鼓励创造力,但会计师除外。撇开会计不谈,社会似乎对创造力求之不得。根据世界经济论坛的《2023 年未来就业报告》,"创造性思维 "是雇主最需要的第二大技能(仅次于 "分析性思维")。塞缪尔-W-富兰克林(Samuel W. Franklin)的《创造力崇拜》(The Cult of Creativity)和香农-斯蒂恩(Shannon Steen)的《创造力情结》(The Creativity Complex)这两本最新专著探讨了创造力在美国的作用和利用。这两本专著将创造力的概念历史化(与近期的学术研究如 A. Reckwitz,《创造力的发明》,2017 年;T. Beyes 和 J. Metelmann(编),《创造力综合体》,2018 年;W. P. McCray,《让艺术发挥作用》,2020 年),并揭示了在过去的一个世纪中,创造力被工具化、商业化和推广为解决从学校无聊到销售优化和生态系统崩溃等各种问题的方法。在美国,自二十世纪中叶以来,创造力研究一直是心理学和商业研究的重头戏,其资金来源包括公共资金。研究成果包括 "创造力测试"、"高创造力 "个体的心理测量、"发散思维"、"创造性解决问题 "的方法、跨行业培养 "创造性思维 "等等(见 V. Glăveanu,《创造力读本》,2019 年)。在《创造力崇拜》一书中,塞缪尔-W-富兰克林指出了创造力概念的矛盾特性。它既平凡又崇高;它既能让工作变得不那么生疏,又能优化工人的绩效;它既包括唐-德雷珀,也包括路易丝-布尔乔亚。创造力是管理大师和饥饿艺术家的宠儿。富兰克林优雅地指出,创造力概念的矛盾性正是它的特殊力量所在:它调和了 "个人与大众社会、非凡与日常、精神与粗鄙的物质、反叛与现状 "之间的紧张关系(第 7 页)。创造力 "这一概念已成为我们从特定角度看待社会变革,以及应对当代社会根深蒂固的紧张关系的透镜。富兰克林在书中用九个章节介绍了 "创造力 "的表现形式、用途和作用。书中向我们介绍了教育心理学家埃利斯-保罗-托伦斯(Ellis Paul Torrance)的作用,他是 "托伦斯创造性思维测试"(Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking)的创造者,从 20 世纪 60 年代起,他就开始重新配置美国学校系统,以支持 "创造性儿童"。在教育中拥抱创造力,有望释放儿童的个人能力,使其成为诺贝尔奖获得者,或至少是快乐的工作者。富兰克林指出,亚伯拉罕-马斯洛将创造力的真正潜力视为 "自我实现 "的手段。(马斯洛为男性规定了硬科学,为女性规定了更多家庭式的自我实现)。管理思想家们接受了马斯洛的观点,并为我们提供了快乐员工和快乐底线相结合的(公认)理念。麦迪逊大道上的创意革命是创意概念力量的又一次体现:广告业获得了其作为文化和社会价值创造者的身份(广告教会我们 "与众不同 "和 "说干就干",或至少假装如此)。富兰克林论证的优势在于揭示了许多隐藏的、相互矛盾的假设及其轨迹,这些假设和轨迹在我们每次呼唤创造力时都会发挥作用,而其不足之处则在于,当创造力这种受人珍视的 "东西 "被撕裂之后,幻灭感可能会袭来。将创造力视为特定时期特定社会安排的产物或建构,会导致某种学术冻结。一旦天平从我们眼前落下,我们该如何对待创造力呢?富兰克林在他的结论中提出,创造力的概念是......
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来源期刊
Technology and Culture
Technology and Culture 社会科学-科学史与科学哲学
CiteScore
0.60
自引率
14.30%
发文量
225
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: Technology and Culture, the preeminent journal of the history of technology, draws on scholarship in diverse disciplines to publish insightful pieces intended for general readers as well as specialists. Subscribers include scientists, engineers, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, museum curators, archivists, scholars, librarians, educators, historians, and many others. In addition to scholarly essays, each issue features 30-40 book reviews and reviews of new museum exhibitions. To illuminate important debates and draw attention to specific topics, the journal occasionally publishes thematic issues. Technology and Culture is the official journal of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT).
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