In light of having read some deconstructionist philosophy, I feel compelled to make a comment about the narrowness of our perspective on creativity.  This also works in conjunction with what I was saying earlier about dispelling the myth that creativity is an inborn trait.

Although the point has been raised in class--about other cultures who may not prize creativity in the way that we do--I feel as if we have not given it enough or a properly radical consideration yet.  A good part of the field of creativity research works off the assumption that creativity exists and that there is A WAY to be creative.  The very question, "how can I be more creative," should be read: "creativity definitely exists in this fashion and is attainable."  But we are working from the perspective that to be creative is to generate masterworks, masterworks that are almost always Western.  Beethoven and Einstein, in our opinion, are immensely creative, having produced these foundational hallmarks of our culture.  But even if they were innovative, we only accepted them because they came within a specific tradition.

Philosophy, music, science, etc. IS the way that it is because of its predecessors.  We find something cool or valuable because it adheres to rules that society has produced.  Those rules are NOT to be found fully-formed within the brain/body when a person is born.  Perhaps the capacity to absorb and manipulate those rules is an innate capacity, but the rules themselves are totally constructed.  And once a certain art/discipline starts down a particular path, it seems difficult to alter it entirely.  Thus what we ultimately have on our hands are arbitrarily brilliant things.  

In other words, what would an Aborigine do with a Bach fugue?  What would a 19 year old male do with traditional Chinese guqin music?  Creative things are senseless to someone unless they are indoctrinated into a specific culture.  So how can we hold them us as shining perfect beacons of universal brilliance?    

In class on Tuesday, when, as a last class exercise, we re-visited the questions that incidentally BEGAN the class, I found that my attitude toward answering them had changed dramatically. Whereas during the initial question-asking period, I felt disconnected and almost disinterested in the topics, I felt very strongly about each of the questions when re-posed a second time after our experience with the research.  Clearly, a lot of that has to do with the whole pre/post-test distinction.  I've always viewed pretests as a kind of cruel joke on the part of the teacher.  It's like the message of pretests are "Haha!  Look at all of the knowledge that you do NOT have!  Let me PROVE to you that you know virtually nothing."  So it was not surprising that my attitude toward the whole process was standoffish and a bit disdainful.  But I would argue that, if anything, my experience in the class made me recognize the relevance of these questions such that I felt an actual need to be engaged.

The particular question that really hit home for me asked whether or not we thought that people were born with a certain amount of creative ability.  If one were to support the thought that creativity is an inborn trait, then creativity has to be considered an entity: a physical thing to which we can point.  I have problems with that thinking, because to me, creativity is a a totally social creation.  I think we believe that creativity is its own function because we lump different brain processes like memory, language us etc into one amalgam that fits a kind of social use.  Furthermore, that social use differs from place to place: thus the brain-definitions of creativity would have to change as well.  Creativity, the "force" is a social consideration.

I am pleased with the realization that now, with more information about creativity research and after having had a good amount of time to reflect on this information, I too am invested in dispelling creativity myths.