does society surpress creativity

[Frank Grimes]

,,

,
What will people think? There is strong social pressure to conform and to be ordinary and not creative.


Here are some overheard examples:


Creative Person: "I like to put water in my orange juice so it's less sweet."
Ordinary Person: "You're weird, you know?"



Ordinary Person: "What are you doing?"
Creative Person: "We're painting our mailbox."
Ordinary Person: "You're crazy."



Creative Person: "Why don't we add a little garlic?"
Ordinary Person: "Because the recipe doesn't call for garlic."



Ordinary Person: "Why are you going this way? It's longer."
Creative Person: "Because I like the drive."
Ordinary Person: "Did anyone ever tell you you're strange?"


Everyone is creative to some extent. Most people are capable of very high levels of creativity; just look at young children when they play and imagine. The problem is that this creativity has been suppressed by education. All you need to do is let it come back to the surface. You will soon discover that you are surprisingly creative.

 

[Ghetto_Ghost]

fuck what people think just do your own thing
my parents for example, they take the rug outside and lay it on the driveway and wash it and they dont give a fuck what people think.
they also take out the blinds and wash them too

 

[bigmack]

the person is more at fault than society so to speak.reason being that one must be their own person and make decisions based on what they think is right.If someone tells you you're strange for doing something and you stop doing it,then you are weak.I would blame you and not society. Of course,we are talking about things that arent negative.For example , if you do drugs and someone tells you you're stupid for doing it,thats justifyable since it has a negative result.But if we're not talking about negatives,its the other way around

 

[PuffnScruff]

whose to say what is ordinary?

 

[Valeoz]

^^Exactly

There is strong social pressure to conform and to be ordinary and not creative.

I noticed this is most evident in the teenage years. When everyone is trying to get an identity and be "somebody" i.e. a sub-culture. This is where I believe a person loses that genuine sense of creativity because every teenager is being self-peer pessured to conform to a particular system, the sub-culture. That sub-culture tells you what music you listen to, your appearance, and any other expectations that it may have. Even the so called non-conformists are conforming even tho they do not realize it. Also everything that is not conforming to their system is considered wierd or stupid. So like PuffnScruff said who has the right to say what's ordinary. This phase is most evident in high school and college years. After college is where it gets hard for these people.

So now they're out of college and realized that creativity is one of several keys to success. They may think they're creative but in reality they're not. If it becomes difficult for that individual to think different or have a difficult problem getting along with people who do think different, then you are not creative. So now your stuck in somebody elses world and universally you are a ghost. The only time that you could be a somebody is when you are with others that are also stuck in that world.

I do believe education is not much of a suppressor, the individual is more of the suppressor than anything. But education should take on great responsiblity to push for genuine creativity.

Also note that what is creative is not really creativity because true creativity has no name. We innovate majority of the time.

My 2 cents

 

[Jokerman]

All the posts have been good and on target so far.

bigmack raised the interesting point that the person is more at fault than society, so to speak. That's a useful insight. And, of course, people make up society. So if the majority of people need someone's approval before they do something, this is how society in general will condition the individual. And you have a vicious circle.

Do you live your life in this tentative, on-approval mode, not really finalizing anything until you've got someone else's go-ahead? For instance, do you dress for someone else? Do you do your hair for others?

It does start with you the individual. When you need someone else's approval, you set the stage for problems. You run the risk of not getting the approval you seek or of getting it for a while and then being cut off from it. If you are cut off, you internalize that by feeling a silent sense of betrayal. Then you start to resent the other person.

If I want to do something creative, whom do I seek out for support? Creative people. Look for ppl who have succeeded at what you are attempting to do. An uncreative person has no framework to help you.

This issue is not just about being creative; it's about your whole life. You must define your life by the needs and beliefs that are important to you, not by the standards of other people. Many people are a product of their upbringing, cultural heritage, peer pressures and other people's expectations. The process of re-evaluating your needs and redefining your life is ongoing. If you don't like yourself, perhaps you are not acknowleging your true needs and living honestly. Instead, you are living out the stereotypes dictated by your earlier conditioning.

I didn't intend to make this post long, but it's a big issue and lots of things come to mind.

The professional community often divides ppl into type A (high stress) and type B (passive) personalities, but this is an overly simplistic paradigm. Many ppl thrive under stress; they work day and night and socialize night and day. These ppl manage to commingle their personal and work lives. They create balance by doing the things they love to do.

Creative ppl, by their very nature, often are volatile and expressive because they allow the energy of the unconscious (the emotional, the unexpected) to disrupt the dominance of the ego. An overly strict ego or an overly structured external environment can discourage creativity. What would happen if you were to tell an artist such as Picasso or Dali that he must work from nine to five, or that he must not be so highly excitable? You would destroy the basis of their creativity.

By our willingness to adhere unquestioningly to meaningless conventions, we have dehumanized and depersonalized the society in which we live. We must not look to others to tell us who we are, what we should value, how to look, what to eat, how to feel. When Mao Tes-tung's cultural revolution sought to set universal norms for China's population, creative and artistic expression was suppressed. This most powerful and important source of social and personal renewal was denied, and China ended up with a sterile society.

Creative expression is the energy of life. People who have not found the courage to express themselves can easily become depressed. Long-term depression is the leading emotional disease in our society today. It's also the impetus of many physical diseases, since psychological depression decreases the body's immunity.

People who are open to creativity and personal growth will allow all feelings into their consciousness in order to learn from them. As long as you express your real feelings and maintain balance in your life, you will be creative and thrive. When you change, you challenge the reality of the people around you. And that opens the possibility for healthy change in their lives. And that begins to change the society in which we live.

 

[Frank Grimes]

^nice post, some interesting points which really made me think

 

[behind-my-eyez]

Whose to say what is ordinary?

Creativity can be anything considering the person’s point of view. Someone could think you’re creative if you come up with a catch phrase, but another individual would think you’re creative if you wrote a 500 page novel. The same with ordinary, something ordinary to one person can be completely strange to another. Just like most things, people make their own opinions and see it their own way.

the person is more at fault than society so to speak.reason being that one must be their own person and make decisions based on what they think is right.If someone tells you you're strange for doing something and you stop doing it,then you are weak.I would blame you and not society. Of course,we are talking about things that arent negative.For example , if you do drugs and someone tells you you're stupid for doing it,thats justifyable since it has a negative result.But if we're not talking about negatives,its the other way around

Society may have the image of the “big bad wolf”, but what about the people who built the weak “houses”. I like what bigmack posted, society might be the ones talking but why are you following? Personally I think creativity is something unique no matter if you can out paint Leonardo Da Vinci or make a ball out of play dough. Many creative and intelligent people were labeled in society as “strange”, “weird”, “crazy”, whatever it was they came out on top being free thinkers not just another voice that can’t be heard. I think the main reason people follow/listen are because they are afraid of being rejected and labeled. No one should hold back what they say or do because of what people might think or say. “Only God can Judge Me”, why become part of a dictatorship like society…

 

[Salar]

fuck what people think just do your own thing
my parents for example, they take the rug outside and lay it on the driveway and wash it and they dont give a fuck what people think.
they also take out the blinds and wash them too

Are you persian by any chance?

Anyway yes society does surpress creative thinking and independent thought for that matter. And many of us will become that 'ordinary person' when we hit around 30 because we just give in to it. Many people stop writing, dancing, reading, and many other things after the age of 30 and become robots always being told what to do because they don't want to face thought.
There was a study done on this and it went further on explaining how liberals at a young age generally end up becoming conservatives.

 

[Amara]

^^

Yes. I wonder that creativity is not conditioned or supressed but rather that it's not just part of, well laziness or acceptance of the norm. Liberal and idealistic at youth, but when the monotony of capitalism sets in - work, accumulate, work, accumulate, coupled with the realisation that not all goals are achievable just wears down spirit and drive to be creative or determine a different way, we submit to conservatism....a habitual routine gets us through and that, although a lower standard, is satisfying enough.

 

[Ghetto_Ghost]

Are you persian by any chance?

lmao
ya i am

damn, i told my parents that we are the only people doin this shit

 

[Salar]

HAHAHA
my parents do the same thing and my mates love it. They think it's like a persian tradition and you have to see the humor in it from their side of view.

and Amara, that's pretty much spot on.
Now this is going off topic a little, but don't you find it funny how the adults and elderly are saying that we've screwed up the world and we're the cause of everything bad in the world when we're the ones yelling 'stop'.
We're not throwing bombs, we're protesting against it, we're not cutting all the tree's down, we're protesting against it, we didn't make the ozone layer so thin, we're protesting in ways to make it smaller, and funny enough a few decades back, the same people that are continuing on in doing what their fathers did (if not worse) were protesting against wars and such. i don't know, i'm really having a hard time with conservtists right now. This whole VSU (voluntary student union) thing has me pissed off (amara and the rest in aus should know what i'm talking about)

 

[Ghetto_Ghost]

HAHAHA
my parents do the same thing and my mates love it. They think it's like a persian tradition and you have to see the humor in it from their side of view.

lol ya, it is pretty funny
why must we be such clean people

you know what else, they wash it, then they hang it on the gate at the side of the house that overlooks the sidewalk and the road

 

[Jokerman]

I don't see a big deal in washing a rug outside. How else are u gonna wash it? Now if it was your blanket....

 

[Ghetto_Ghost]

I don't see a big deal in washing a rug outside. How else are u gonna wash it? Now if it was your blanket....

tru
but i've never seen any other people doing this. in Iran its normal people just take it to the roof and wash it

 

[Jokerman]

tru
but i've never seen any other people doing this. in Iran its normal people just take it to the roof and wash it

That's because Persian rugs are worth washing. And most ppl don't have 'em.