Creativity was undoubtedly a boon for our ancient ancestors. Creativity allowed hunter-gatherers to create tools such as fire, spears, and fishing nets to dominate other species. Creativity also allowed ancient man to use metaphors, humor, and threats to influence other humans. And perhaps most importantly, creativity gave us song, dance, and other forms of art to woo women.
However, the agricultural revolution marked the beginning of a radical transformation in the realm of creativity. The more ‘advanced’ humanity became, the more increasingly abstract ideas emerged.
In some ways this transformation was beneficial as man developed monumental works of art and deepened our understanding of the natural world. In other ways we found more creative–and efficient–ways to increase human suffering. The holocaust, automatic machine guns, and privatized health care are highly creative endeavors.
What went wrong? Well, for our ancestors creativity was more constrained. Creativity had to be highly relevant to one’s tribe of a few dozen people–high-brow art would have limited value with such a small group. Creativity was also more limited by time–one could not frequently eschew physical labor and spend hours in solitude.
After the agriculture revolution, there was an unprecedented opportunity for solitude. For the first time people could put up walls to physically separate themselves from others for long stretches of time. Some could even separate themselves from the demands of daily and exhausting labor. And the more solitude a person has, the more creative–and unhinged–their ideas can become.
What can we do? Now to be creative is to be human. We cannot turn off our ability to be creative even if it were in our best interest. And not all creative ideas are bad, but what is bad is indiscriminately celebrating creativity in all forms. It would behoove us to have far greater skepticism for new ideas and far greater knowledge of the past. Our collective failure to recognize that most new ideas are variants (usually lesser) of old ideas has encouraged the adoption and rehashing of ideas that have been proven detrimental by history.
Reforming the education system or driving mass cultural change would certainly help, but there are also more modest things you can do to help as an individual. If you create, try to make something for someone important in your life–e.g. write a story to help a friend vs impress strangers.
You can also become more knowledgeable about the history of ideas and luckily there are a few fantastic books to accelerate your studies:
- The Metaphysical Club
- Justice
- Sapiens
- Anathem (fiction, but is a great read and highlights the importance of the history of ideas–shout-out to all my Lorites!)
Now, I readily admit the title is clickbait (but that’s the age we live in). The real question should be ‘is creativity no longer good for mankind’ and like most good questions the answer is ‘it’s nuanced, but increased awareness would certainly help’.
Be well 🙂