• Editorial: Science Fiction - The Mythology of the Future
• Creativity and Wisdom   
• New Essay: Creative and Imaginative Wisdom: Where Is It in Today's World? by Walter Mos
• Archive: Futurodyssey and Wisdom Page Updates   

Do we live in a creative era? Of special note, are we creatively addressing the problems and challenges within our contemporary world? And, if we are being creative in our problem solving, are we also being wise? To hit the nail on the head, are we demonstrating creative wisdom in how we guide and orchestrate our journey into the future? 

Walter Moss, Ph.D., retired professor of history from Eastern Michigan University, Wisdom Page Advisory Board Member, and author of the excellent overview of the twentieth century, An Age of Progress?, recently submitted to me a new essay on creativity and wisdom. The essay is included below in this newsletter, linked to The Wisdom Page. 

Walter and I engaged in a brief dialogue regarding his essay and what my thoughts were regarding its themes and arguments. At one point in the dialogue, Walter stated: "I find it very interesting that you (a futurist) and I (a historian) agree so fundamentally."  I replied, based on Jeanne's input, that: "You can't be a good futurist without a real grasp of history." Understanding the past, its major trends and themes, is foundational to the development of heightened future consciousness. 

One central issue we discussed, introduced in Walter's essay, is the need for creative wisdom in contemporary times. In Walter's mind, we don't demonstrate anywhere near enough creative wisdom in addressing the problems and challenges of our modern world. I agreed, and as my editorial for this month, here are some of my thoughts, edited and polished, as I explained them to Walter in our email dialogue. 

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For many years I worked in an educational institution that believed and openly professed that it was a highly creative, cutting-edge organization, in continual growth and transformation. But I didn't find the organization creative at all. I saw the institution as highly controlled from the top down, engaged in group-think, and very conservative. In my mind, their basic approach to education was rather commonplace and traditional, and what they thought they were creative about was superficial and trivial. They didn't address the primary goals and issues of education (What is education all about? What is its value?) but rather secondary issues such as delivery and convenience. 

Similarly I also think that, in spite of all the hype, our popular culture and general way of life in contemporary USA are not very creative or transformative either. There is a steady stream of quick and little things popping forth--a lot of noise on the airways--but nothing of depth or real substance changing underneath. Lots of bits of data and streams of punctuated flashy images, lots of frenzy and speed, lots of stress and agitation, and yet, regarding the fundamentals of our way of life, nothing much is really changing. 

Perhaps I am over-generalizing, perhaps I am being too cynical, perhaps creativity is in the eyes of the beholder, but the issue, it seems to me, is how deeply new ideas or "memes" penetrate into the paradigm of our fundamental existence. Following Thomas Kuhn, from his book The Structure of Science Revolutions, we seem to be engaging in "normal science" (lots of little things, lots of slightly improved new models, lots of problem solving within the accepted paradigm), rather than engaging in "revolutionary science" where the paradigm (general mind set, values, and way of life) is being transformed. 

Interestingly, people are proclaiming all over the place (as they did at my educational institute) that they are creating "paradigm shifts" (an expression taken from Kuhn), but if they understood the meanings of a "paradigm" or a "paradigm shift" (as understood by Kuhn) they would see that what they are doing is not participating in a paradigm shift at all. A paradigm shift is traumatic, earth shaking, and disorienting; it is pervasive and mind altering. You can't have multiple paradigm shifts going on at the same time in the same mind (or groups of minds). If anything, what I see around me is paradigm shift avoidance, the preservation of the status quo, of power, of business as usual: Stay busy, stay rushed, stay distracted, jump from one new thing to the next, shuffle the papers and the numbers around, collect more data, and you really don't have to think deeply about what you are doing and why.   

Part of the hype and equally part of the stupidity of contemporary times is how frequently I see people proposing that: "Everything is changing." If everything were changing (which it isn't, for what about the constancies and laws of nature?), consciousness would be a "blooming, buzzing confusion." (I doubt we would even have consciousness.) In my mind, the 1960s were creative and transformative, but then there was an understandable backlash; in my mind, also, the turn of century from the late 1800s to the early 1900s was highly transformative, both technologically and culturally.

Walter Moss argues in his essay that economically and politically we appear to be stuck in a capitalist and consumerist culture, a culture that in many ways works against human well being and the highest good for humanity. Hence, our present system is not very wise, if wisdom is identified with the capacity to correctly judge and realize in practice the good life. The values being served in the present system are limited, if not destructive or counterproductive to either the individual good life or the common good life. 

Yet ways of life (paradigms) and the organizations that support them have incredible inertia and resistance to change; one could say that a paradigm has a drive or tendency to preserve its own identity and state of being. To be really creative with respect to politics, economics, culture, or philosophy, you have to threaten the very existence of the present status quo, and the status quo will resist this. Believers in the old paradigm do not want to give up their mindset, values, and ways of life; literally, they do not want to die. Proponents of the existing dominant paradigm will not only defend their way of life, but they will also attack any sufficiently strong perceived threats to their sovereignty. Or, they may "swallow up" upstarts and alternative modes of thinking and ways of life. Commercialism, for example, swallows up anti-commercialist mindsets and behaviors, commercializing them. 

Because our dominant present economic-political paradigm seems so resistant to change, Walter sees it as lacking in creativity. Hence, it is not only unwise (as a way of life) but uncreative. 

It seems to me that wisdom possesses as one of its key qualities a creative dimension; the creative nature of wise judgments and problem solving is a key feature of what we see when we recognize wisdom in thought and action. (See my article on creativity.) I would agree, though, with Walter that creativity does not necessarily produce wise actions, hence creativity is not sufficient for wisdom, but I think it is necessary. 

In so far as we agree that there is something deeply missing (or counterproductive) in our present values and ways of life, then, yes, in order to realize a better way of existence--being more wise in the sense of better serving the good life--then we have to be creative in the sense that we need to find a different paradigm of life from the one that presently dominates the modern world. (And I know lots of people and organizations have different ideas on what this alternative paradigm should be.) But where creativity and wisdom are really tested is in implementation, for we should realize full well that if our idea is creative enough to rectify a deep inadequacy in our present reality, then it will be resisted, if not attacked.