The Social Need For Creativity

I maintain there is a desperate social need for the creative behaviour of creative individuals.

Many of the serious criticisms of our culture and its trends may best be formulated in terms of s dearth of creativity.

(C.R.Rogers, Towards a Theory of Creativity (1954); in Creativity, Penguin Books 1970)


Education

In education we tend to turn out conformists, stereotypes, individuals whose education is "completed", rather than freely creative and original thinkers.

Leisure Activities

Passive entertainment and regimented group activities are overwhelmingly predominant, whereas creative activities are much less in evidence.

Business and Industry

Creation is reserved for the few - the manager, the designer, the head of the research department - whereas for many life is devoid of original or creative endeavour.

Individual and Family Life

In the clothes we wear (see below), the food we eat (see below), the books we read, and the ideas we hold, there is a strong tendency towards conformity, towards stereotypes. To be original or different is felt to be "dangerous".

(C.R.Rogers)

Note:

Apart from the fact the majority of people are now eating from the limited set menu choice of the main supermarket "chains", and wearing a limted range of clothing from an increasingly limited choice of shops, What amazes me even more so, is the way that everyone seems to be wearing their scarfs in exactly the same way! You cannot have failed to notice that very specific style of scarf knot. Who invented that? Why is everyone copying it? and how did people manage to tie their scarfs before this eminent breakthrough?