Anxious Creativity

When Imagination Fails

David Trend

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000650570
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Creativity is getting new attention in today's America––along the way revealing fault lines in U.S. culture. Surveys show people overwhelmingly seeing creativity as both a desirable trait and a work enhancement, yet most say they just aren't creative. Like beauty and wealth, creativity seems universally desired but insufficiently possessed. Businesses likewise see innovation as essential to productivity and growth, but can't bring themselves to risk new ideas. Even as one's "inner artist" is hyped by a booming self-help industry, creative education dwindles in U.S. schools.

Anxious Creativity: When Imagination Fails examines this conceptual mess, while focusing on how America's current edginess dampens creativity in everyone. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Anxious Creativity draws on current ideas in the social sciences, economics, and the arts. Discussion centers on the knotty problem of reconciling the expressive potential in all people with the nation's tendency to reward only a few. Fortunately, there is some good news, as scientists, economists, and creative professionals have begun advocating new ways of sharing and collaboration. Building on these prospects, the book argues that America's innovation crisis demands a rethinking of individualism, competition, and the ways creativity is rewarded.

Part I

Creative Subjects

This section introduces Anxious Creativity by looking at how individuals perceive their own creativity (or lack thereof)—as well as ways advertising and self-help encourage consumers to “create” better versions of themselves. To many, creativity means making something from nothing—as in sagas of the “creation of the universe” or the birth of the species. With roots in Greek mythology, this ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) principle deeply influenced the Western mind, especially as seen in Christian faith and American-style capitalism.¹ In cultures worldwide, creation stories provide explanations for civilization’s most vexing questions: the origins and purpose of life, the meaning of individual existence, mysteries of the cosmos and the unknown. And, of course, in today’s world the concept implies a host of enviable abilities. Saying someone exhibits a “creative personality” or finds “creative solutions” imbues the person with a knack for invention or helpfulness, but of a sort that can’t quite be identified. The ineffability of creativity is part of what gives it its celebrated “magic.”

But anxious times bring changes in temperament. In an America proud of its inventiveness and “can-do” spirit, more and more people worry they can’t measure up. Creativity has joined qualities like beauty and fitness as things everybody wants but nobody has in sufficient measure. The resulting insecurity feeds broader anxieties, as economic worries make people more cautious in their thinking and less generous to others. Creativity suffers as companies spend less on research, people give less to arts institutions, government funding gets cut, and creative education dwindles in schools. The crisis isn’t just in creative fields. Economists now speak of a sweeping innovation crisis in science and technology, as the U.S. shows signs of falling behind other nations. Heightened competition and social isolation only seem to make things worse.

The book begins by looking at an America plagued by writer’s block, along with other anxieties over money, politics, and cultural controversies. Chapter 1, “Anxious Moments: Anticipation Meets Uncertainty,” examines anxious creativity through the writings of Brené Brown, Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard, Jacques Lacan, Joseph LeDoux, and Rollo May. Among other questions, discussion examines how and why manageable anxiety can become a destructive force. While creativity can accompany mild forms of worry and sometimes alleviate stress, its advocates overstate their case in pushing it as a universal cure-all. In his canonical 1964 work The Anxious Object, art critic Harold Rosenberg wrote of the difficulties that result when definitions of art lose coherence and societies become confused about aesthetic meaning.² Might today’s advocacy of the “creative industries” be doing the same thing? Drawing on recent studies of working artists, this chapter points out that not everyone in the “creative class” is faring well in today’s ebullient embrace of artistry.

Worry over America’s declining innovation is bringing creativity into the public spotlight as never before. Chapter 2, “Creative You: Self-Help to the Rescue,” looks at how the resulting “crisis” talk (and its reality) makes creative qualities all the more desired, even as they grow more elusive and rare. In personal terms, most people feel creativity is missing in their lives—evidenced in a rising self-help industry catering to one’s “inner artist” or forgotten childhood. Amazon.com currently lists over 57,000 books devoted to creativity, representing a 30 percent increase in the past year alone.³ Analyzing this in her book Self-Help, Inc., sociologist Micki McGee explained the growing demand for self-improvement as a symptom of widespread worry over money and jobs.⁴ Such insecurities underlie the anxious “self” obsession infecting the U.S. today, much as Christopher Lasch described the malady decades ago in The Culture of Narcissism. ⁵ Further symptoms now appear in new evidence-based programs in wellness and arts therapy from entities such as the National Endowment for the Arts. These issues are examined through the thinking of Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Hillary Davidson, Melanie Klein, Christian Smith, and Slavoj Žižek.

Donald Trump’s infamous antics as “Performance Artist in Chief” open Chapter 3, “The Neoliberal Imagination: When More Is Not Enough.” While initially startling, the President’s slash-and-burn agenda of upending Washington soon was revealed as a corporatist scam. Economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the expression “Creative Destruction” in 1942 to describe the aggressive upending of liberal orthodoxies in favor of market-friendly agendas. Indeed, critics of neoliberalism now note the doctrine’s frequent use of crisis and confusion to get its way, not unlike the tactics of fascist regimes. Schumpeter said that “the creative impulse incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one,” concluding that “the process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.”⁶ Drawing on thinking by Michel Foucault, David Harvey, Naomi Klein, and C. Wright Mills, this chapter links creative destruction to the heightened emphasis of the creative industries on privatization and individual competition, as well as the structural precarity the industries generate in workers’ lives.

Notes

1 Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1933) p. 179.

2 Harold Rosenberg, The Anxious Object: Art Today and Its Audience (New York: Horizon, 1964).

3 Laura M. Holson, “We’re All Artists Now,” New York Times (Sept. 4, 2015) www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/were-all-artists-now.html?_r=0 (accessed Mar. 26, 2019).

4 Micki McGee, Self Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

5 Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: Norton, 1979).

6 Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (London: Routledge, 1994) pp. 82–3.

Chapter 1

Anxious Moments

Anticipation Meets Uncertainty

Imagination may be one of humanity’s greatest gifts. But the toll it takes is anxiety. Philosophers long have argued that the ability to see beyond the present is the engine of artistry, innovation, and even freedom itself. Yet this capacity for abstraction also is a window to what might go wrong, especially when the future seems uncertain. Anxiety is one of those feelings that people accept in the right doses, but know is toxic when out of hand—as when healthy caution devolves into paranoia. Stress can prompt an author to start typing, but also paralyze with writer’s block. This chapter is about the widespread jitteriness now palpable in American culture, the damage it inflicts on creativity, and what can be done to fix things.

It’s become cliché to speak of an “anxious America,” overcome with worries about a sluggish economy, terrorist threats, and, in many people’s minds, a generalized loss of hope. Nervous about the future, individuals retreat into worlds of familiarity and self-interest. Business seems to follow similar patterns, with short-term thinking now inducing a mood of risk-avoidance. None of this is good for innovation, as firms lean toward predictability and certainty. “Politicians like to say the U.S. is the most innovative country in the world. But our economy may be too risky for many entrepreneurs,” a recent report stated.¹ Worse still, economists now say novelty is suffering on the “demand” side of the equation, as consumers seemingly prefer more of the same over anything new. Experts have been warning of a U.S. “innovation crisis” for over a decade—as other nations seem to be pulling ahead. American companies won’t gamble on new ideas, government research is dwindling, and school arts programs continue to decline.

“Creativity” has become a new buzzword in this panic over innovation—manifest in policy summits, think-tank meetings, TED talks, and news accounts. At research universities, disciplines like science, engineering, and medicine are clamoring for creativity to spur fresh thinking. Following the success of Richard Florida’s bestselling book The Rise of the Creative Class, so-called “creative industries” also have garnered attention as their own economic force, prompting a projection of creativity into many non-artistic fields—along with quasi-creative ones like entertainment and advertising.² Advocates for the arts have joined a movement claiming that America’s expanding “creative economy” accounts for over $800 billion and exceeds many conventional sectors. Along the way, the hype boosts a self-help industry asserting that one’s inner creativity can calm a fretful mind.

Keep in mind that artists never have been especially well paid. Aside from a handful of gallery superstars, most artists can’t make a living from their professional work. They piece together part-time jobs or compete for adjunct gigs at universities. The creative industries have perpetuated such fractional or temporary hiring, while promoting the benefits of “flexible” employment. And indeed, surveys show that many young people seem willing to sacrifice good pay and benefits for the personalized rewards of “meaningful” work. This takes a toll on creatives, and not just in monetary terms. One of the little-discussed consequences of poverty is stress—and the worries of late bills or looking for work. This makes artists vulnerable to clinical strains of anxiety and depression, which together affect one in four Americans.³

Is it possible to reconcile these anxious conditions with the promises of the creative economy? In many ways this question is as old as American capitalism itself—and the inherent tensions it generates. The challenge of the new creativity lies in finding answers without succumbing to extremism. Dualisms tend to generate oppositions, which easily fall prey to ideological suasion. Certainly no political party can own an idea as large as creativity—a premise attaching over time to comforting pleasures, radical disturbances, and everything in between. Trying times breed anxiety, suspicion, and, as recent history has shown, often new forms of contention and inequity. In such a moment it remains all the more important to remain wary of familiar-sounding solutions to complicated problems.

This chapter highlights the contradictions of anxious creativity. While America’s economic worries seem to call for new ideas and better products, these impulses often are pushed aside by the certainties of tried-and-true formulas and goods. The much-publicized creative industries get promoted as an economic panacea, but they tend to see artistry only in commercial terms. Meanwhile, citizens are encouraged to “think creatively” or develop the resilience of artists, even as real-life working artists and other creatives remain poorly paid and often marginally employed. Rather than emphasizing the nurturing values that give artistry its emotional appeal, the “new” creativity seems more driven by individual competition and profit than humanistic impulse.

The Anxious Moment

Let’s talk about the pervasive jitteriness in America—and how it affects creativity. Common wisdom holds that anxiety helps to motivate people and that artists in particular are driven (sometimes “tortured”) by such negative feelings. The truth is that anxiety is a mixed bag, helpful in certain amounts but damaging when excessive. Contrary to popular stereotypes, studies of artists show they produce little when in the throes of clinical mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, often unable to conjure new ideas or do much of anything. Famously “mad” artists like Byron or Van Gogh only were productive when their conditions were under control. The same can be said about American business these days. Panicked by earnings worries, many companies are losing their abilities to innovate. They run to the safety of familiarity and predictability rather than investing in novelty and experiment. Clearly a sense of balance needs to return.

Despite a rising economy and the lowest crime rates in decades, polling shows most people believing matters are worsening. Gallup reports, “Pessimism has increased despite a strong stock market, rising consumer confidence, and a persistent low unemployment rate.”⁴ The same is true with ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction: Imagination in Crisis
• PART I: Creative Subjects
• PART II: Creative Differences
• 7. Factories of Knowledge: Why Schools Kill Creativity
• 8. Industries of Culture: Masterpieces vs. Dream Machines
• 9. Creative Economies: “Big Magic” or Empty Promises?
• PART IV: Creative Societies
• Index