Disrupting Perception: How Creativity Became a Universal Value of Our Time?

Source: Quantum Number

In today's society, "creativity" has become an almost indisputable universal value. From classroom education to corporate strategy, from personal development to urban planning, "creativity" seems to be everywhere. We praise it, pursue it, measure it, commodify it, and even build an entire ideological system around it. But is creativity truly an enduring human talent? Does its rise have other historical roots and cultural motivations?

In the book "The Worship of Creativity: The Rise of a Modern Ideology," historian Samuel Franklin systematically outlines the development of the concept of "creativity" from nothing to its present state, revealing how it evolved in mid-20th century America from a cultural stress response to institutional anxiety into a core belief that is nearly unchallengeable today. He traces how psychologists have attempted to quantify creativity, how governments and corporations have institutionalized it, and how the tech industry has leveraged it to shape its image. At the same time, he points out that this fervent adulation of creativity conceals underlying structural issues of inequality, anxiety, and illusory promises.

Recently, MIT Technology Review interviewed Samuel Franklin, and in this article, he gives us the opportunity to delve into a seemingly simple yet highly controversial question: why are we so obsessed with "creativity"? As artificial intelligence increasingly approaches the traditional boundaries of human abilities, how should we reinterpret this trait that was once considered unique to humans? This is a journey of knowledge about the evolution of ideas, as well as a profound inquiry into the value system of modern society. Please continue reading.

Today, it is difficult for people to reach a consensus on many matters. However, even in an era where consensus seems to be collapsing, there is one modern value that almost everyone agrees on: creativity.

We instill creativity in education, measuring it in various ways, envying it, nurturing it, and endlessly worrying about its demise. It's no wonder. From a young age, we are taught that creativity is the key to personal fulfillment, professional success, and even solving the world's most challenging problems. Over the years, we have established "creative industries," "creative spaces," and "creative cities," and we refer to the entire class active within them as "creative people." Every year, we read countless books and articles on how to unleash, inspire, nurture, enhance, and even "hack" our personal creativity. Following that, we read even more to master how to manage and protect this precious resource.

In this frenzy, the concept of creativity seems to be a common sense that has always existed in human civilization, a proposition that philosophers and artists have been pondering and debating for eternity. This assumption may seem reasonable, but it is wrong. As Samuel Franklin points out in his new book, The Cult of Creativity, the earliest written use of the word "creativity" was in 1875, "as a word, it's still a baby." Even more surprisingly, he writes, before 1950 "it is almost impossible to find any articles, books, essays, essays, hymns, courses, encyclopedia entries, or the like devoted to the subject of 'creativity.'" ”

This inevitably raises a series of obvious questions: How did we leap from almost never discussing creativity to talking about it everywhere? What is the essential difference between "creativity" and older terms like "ingenuity," "cleverness," "imagination," or "artistry"? Perhaps the most critical question is: Why do everyone from kindergarten teachers to mayors, CEOs, designers, engineers, social activists, and even starving artists all agree that creativity is not only a virtue—regardless of personal, social, or economic perspectives—but also the answer to all of life's problems?

Fortunately, Franklin provides some possible answers in the book. As a historian and design researcher at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, he points out that the concept of "creativity" as we know it today gradually took shape in the cultural context of post-World War II America, functioning like a form of psychotherapy to alleviate the tension and anxiety brought about by the growing rigidity, bureaucracy, and suburbanization.

"Creativity is often defined as a trait or process that is vaguely associated with artists and geniuses, but theoretically anyone can possess it and it applies to any field," he wrote, "it provides a way for individuals to release themselves within order, and it revives the lonely inventor spirit in the maze of modern enterprises."

Brainstorming, as a new method to stimulate creative thinking, became popular in the American business community in the 1950s. This method not only responded to the demand for new products and new marketing approaches but also reflected people's panic over social homogenization, sparking intense debate: should true creativity be an independent act of individuals, or can it be systematically and mechanistically utilized by enterprises? (Image source: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research / Monachelli Press)

The MIT Technology Review interviewed Franklin to discuss why we are still so fascinated by creativity, how Silicon Valley has become the so-called "center of creativity," and what role technologies like artificial intelligence may play in reshaping our relationship with creativity.

I am very curious about your relationship with creativity since childhood. What motivated you to want to write a book about it?

Like many children, I believed from a young age that creativity is an innate virtue. For me—and I think for many people like me who are not outstanding in sports, math, or science—having creativity at least means that you have some potential in this world, even if what that potential specifically is remains unclear. By the time I got to college, thought leaders similar to TED speakers—like Daniel Pink and Richard Florida—had already exalted creativity as the most important quality for the future. Basically, the future belongs to creative talents; society needs them to solve various overlapping problems.

On one hand, as someone who likes to think of themselves as somewhat creative, it is hard not to be attracted and moved by such statements. But on the other hand, I also feel that this rhetoric is greatly exaggerated. The so-called "victory of the creative class" has not truly brought about a more inclusive or more creative world order. Moreover, within what I refer to as the "worship of creativity," some of the implicit values are starting to seem increasingly problematic—especially the overemphasis on ideas like "self-actualization," "do what you love," and "follow your passion." Don't get me wrong—this is a beautiful vision, and I do see some people benefiting from it, but I also begin to feel that, from an economic perspective, this rhetoric merely obscures the struggles and setbacks that many people face.

The staff at the University of California's Personality Assessment and Research Center designed a situational interactive experiment called the "Bingo Test" in the 1950s, aimed at understanding which factors in people's lives and environments influence their creative potential. (Image source: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research / Monachelli Publishing)

Nowadays, criticizing the culture of "following passion" and "working hard" has become commonplace. However, when I started this research project, the idea of "acting quickly, breaking the norms," disruptive thinking, and the innovation economy was almost unquestioned. In a sense, the idea of this book comes from this — I found that creativity has become, to some extent, a bridge connecting two worlds: one side is the world of innovation and entrepreneurship, while the other side is the more emotional, bohemian aspect of culture. I want to delve deeper into the historical relationship between the two.

When did you begin to view creativity as a phenomenon of "worship"?

Just like the "cult of domesticity," I am trying to use this concept to describe a certain historical moment in which an idea or value system gained widespread and uncritical acceptance. I gradually discovered that various products are using "enhance your creativity" as a selling point—whether it’s new office space designs, new urban planning, or content like "try these five simple tips."

You begin to realize that no one will stop to ask, "Hmm, why do we all have to be creative? What exactly is creativity?" It has become an unquestionable value, and regardless of a person's political stance, they wouldn't think to question it. To me, this phenomenon is quite unusual and indicates that some very interesting things are happening.

Your book focuses on how mid-20th century psychologists attempted to transform "creativity" into a quantifiable psychological trait and sought to define the "creative personality." How did this effort ultimately develop?

In short: the results are not ideal. To study anything, one must first have a clear consensus on the object of study. Ultimately, I believe that these groups of psychologists feel quite frustrated in defining what constitutes a scientific standard for "creative personality." One of their approaches is to directly seek out those who are already famous in fields considered to be creative—such as writers Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, architect Louis Kahn, and Eero Saarinen—and then conduct a series of cognitive and psychological analysis tests on them, compiling the results into a written form. This kind of research is mostly led by the Institute for Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) at the University of California, Berkeley, with Frank Barron and Don MacKinnon being two of the most important researchers involved.

Another explanation from psychologists is: "Well, this case study is not suitable for establishing a scientific universal standard. What we need is a large amount of data and enough people to validate these 'creativity standards'." The theory proposed by this group of psychologists is that "divergent thinking" may be a key component of creative achievement. You may have heard of the "brick test", right? That is, coming up with as many uses for a brick as possible within a limited time. They basically sent variations of these tests to various subjects - officers, elementary school students, ordinary engineers at General Electric... a diverse range of people. Tests like these eventually became representative measures of "creativity."

Are these tests still in use?

When you see those news headlines about "artificial intelligence making humans more creative" or "artificial intelligence being more creative than humans," the tests they rely on are almost always some form of "divergent thinking tests." This presents problems on multiple levels, the main one being: these tests have never been proven to be predictive. In other words, a third grader, a 21-year-old college student, or a 35-year-old adult performing well on divergent thinking tests does not necessarily mean they will achieve success in creative fields in the future. These tests were designed to identify and predict "individuals with creative potential." However, so far, no test has truly been able to do this.

The cover of Samuel Franklin's book "The Cult of Creativity."

When reading your book, I noticed that "creativity" has been a vague, and often contradictory concept from the very beginning. You describe this vagueness in the book as "a trait, not a flaw." Why do you say that?

Nowadays, if you ask any expert in creativity what "creativity" means, they will likely tell you that creativity is the ability to create something new and useful. This thing could be an idea, a product, an academic paper, or even any form of output. However, "novelty" is always the core focus of creativity, and it is precisely one of the fundamental distinctions that set it apart from other similar terms like "imagination" and "ingenuity." But you are not wrong: creativity itself is a sufficiently flexible concept that can be applied in various contexts, meaning various different (even contradictory) things. I mentioned in my book that perhaps this term is not precise, but its ambiguity is precisely what makes it accurate and meaningful. It can be playful or practical; it can be artistic or technical; it can be exceptional or ordinary. And this is an important reason for its widespread popularity.

Is the emphasis on "novelty" and "practicality" also one of the reasons why Silicon Valley views itself as the center of contemporary creativity?

Absolutely. These two standards are not mutually exclusive. In an environment like Silicon Valley where technological utopianism coexists with super capitalism, novelty is meaningless without practicality (or at least market potential); and without novelty, practicality also becomes worthless (or hard to market). This is why they often undervalue things that seem ordinary but are extremely important, such as craftsmanship, infrastructure, system maintenance, and incremental improvements; they support art only because it can, to some extent, inspire practical technology — while art is essentially often a resistance to practicality.

At the same time, Silicon Valley is also happy to package itself with "creativity" because it carries the symbolic meaning of artistic temperament and individualism. They deliberately distance themselves from the traditional image of engineers in neatly dressed uniforms working in the R&D labs of manufacturing companies, instead shaping an anti-mainstream culture of the "garage inventor"—a rebellious figure who operates outside the system, tinkering with intangible products and experiences in their own garage. This shaping has, to some extent, helped them evade a lot of public scrutiny and questioning.

We have always believed that creativity is a unique trait of humanity, with perhaps some exceptions in the animal kingdom. Is artificial intelligence changing this perception?

In fact, as early as the 1950s, when people began to define "creativity," the threat of computers replacing white-collar jobs was already emerging. At that time, the prevailing thought was: well, rationality and analytical thinking are no longer exclusive to humans, so what can we do that machines can never do? And the answer is "true creativity"—this is humanity's last bastion. For a long time, computers did not pose a substantial challenge to the definition of "creativity." But now the situation is different: Can they create art and write poetry? Yes. Can they create novel, reasonable, and practical products? Of course.

I believe this is exactly what Silicon Valley intends. Those large language models are deliberately shaped to conform to our traditional definitions of "creativity." Of course, whether what they generate truly has "meaning" or "wisdom" is another level of question. If we are talking about "art," I personally think that "embodiment" is a very important factor. Nerve endings, hormones, social instincts, a sense of morality, intellectual honesty—these may not be necessary conditions for creativity, but they are key factors in creating "good works"—even those works that have a touch of retro "beauty." That is why I say, "Can machines really possess creativity?" This question is not so important; rather, "Can they have wisdom, honesty, and care?" is what we should really be thinking about, especially as we are preparing to incorporate them into our lives, making them our advisors and assistants.