Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Prefaces
- Preface for 1 Lithuanian edition
- Preface for 2nd Lithuanian edition
- Preface for English edition
- Acknowledgment
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- I. Concepts of creativity and culture
- 1. Terms and concepts of creative society
- 1.1. Terms and concepts of creativity
- 1.2. Philosophical and cultural terms of a creative society
- 1.3. Sociological and communicative terms of a creative society
- 1.4. Economic and management terms of a creative society
- 2. The creative society, its research methods, and problems
- 2.1. Methods of creative society’s research
- 2.2. Problems of a creative society
- 3. Concepts of culture
- 3.1. Sources of cultural concepts
- 3.2. Development of cultural studies in Lithuania
- 3.3. Differences in culture
- II. Culture industry and creative industries
- 4. The criticism of the culture industry and the problems of creative industries
- 4.1. The criticism of the culture industry
- 4.2. Creative industries: the concepts and problems
- 4.3. Economic principles of creative industries
- 5. Comparative analysis of creative industries’ lists
- 5.1. The list of the government
- 5.2. The Howkins’ list of CI
- 6. The Creative Class
- 6.1. Field of problems and hardships in defining Creative Class
- 6.2. Peculiarities of the Creative Class
- 6.3. The aims of the Creative Class
- 6.4. The classes of society from a creative point of view
- III. Managing creativity and the creative life-art
- 7. Creative and social capital
- 7.1. Vertical and horizontal social ties
- 7.2. Ideology, globalism, and crisis of social capital
- 8. Managing creativity
- 8.1. The forms of control and management in a mediated society
- 8.2. Peculiarities of managing creative workers
- 9. Life-art in creative environments
- 9.1. Work, income, and life-art
- 9.2. Rhythm of creativity and sexuality
- 9.3. Art of creative life and ignorance principle
- 9.4. Labour relationships of creative workers
- IV. Creative ecology, creative ethics, and creative geography
- 10. Creative ecology
- 10.1. Creativity as a form of violence
- 10.2. Expansion of creative regions
- 11. Creative ethics
- 11.1. Ethics and social capital
- 11.2. Ethics of creativity: the limits of otherness
- 12. Creative maps
- 12.1 Maps and regions
- 12.2. Cultural regionalism: creative and value aspects
- 12.3. Meta-map of creativity
- V. Creative regionalism and creative urbanism
- 13. Creative regions
- 13.1. Place and environment of creativity
- 13.2. Globalities and localities: creativity and sports
- 13.3. Politics of creative regions and regions of media
- 14. Creative city: myths and utopies
- 14.1. Urban space from a creative point of view
- 14.2. City, countryside, and media
- 14.3. Ideal creative city
- 15. Whether the city is a creative environment?
- 15.1. Cosmopolitan and global city
- 15.2. “Yong” and “mixed” city, entertainment in a city
- 15.3. City and Creative Class
- VI. Policy of creativity and entertainment
- 16. Creativity of politics
- 16.1. Politics as a professional activity
- 16.2. Politics as creative activity
- 16.3. Politics and media
- 17. Policy of creativity
- 17.1. Policy of creativity and happiness society
- 17.2. Politics, creativity, and education
- 17.3. Institutional obstacles of creativity and the politics of immortality
- 18. Entertainment from a creative point of view
- 18.1. Entertainment as an exit
- 18.2. Entertainment and creativity
- 18.3. Happiness and entertainment
- VII. Sociability of creativity
- 19. Creativity of entertainment and entertainment character of creativity
- 19.1. Rims of entertainment regions
- 19.2. Entertainment as a bypass of creativity
- 19.3. Sport as entertainment: creative aspect
- 20. Social aspects of creativity
- 20.1. (A)sociality and social rings of creativity
- 20.2. Social mobility and media
- 20.3. Whether a wealthy society is a creative one?
- 21. The social environment of creativity
- 21.1. Outstanding-ness as a creative adventure
- 21.2. Welfare environment and society of happiness
- 21.3. Social structure of creativity
- VIII. Technologies and creative identity
- 22. Technologies in the creative society
- 22.1. Technologies, politics, and media
- 22.2. Etymology of technology, the technique of life, and of art
- 22.3. Technology industries, ecology of technology, and technological subclass
- 23. Talent and (in)tolerance
- 23.1. Manifestations and forms of talent
- 23.2. Dialectics of tolerance and intolerance
- 23.3. (In)tolerance and creative communication
- 24. Narrativity and creative identity
- 24.1. Creative roles: identity mobility
- 24.2. Narrativity and the thresholds of identity
- IX. The empiricism of creativity
- 25. The difficulties in empirically researching creativity
- 25.1. Methodological problems of creativity indices
- 25.2. Bohemian Index
- 26. Creativity indices of society
- 26.1. High-Tech Index and Innovation Index
- 26.2. Gay Index
- 26.3. Talent Index and Melting Pot Index
- 26.4. Integrative creativity indices
- 27. Alternative creativity indices
- 27.1. Emigration and Sexual Minorities Indices
- 27.2. Suicide Index
- 27.3. Economic Growth, Sociality, and Urbanism Indices
- X. Creative phenomenology
- 28. Creative dialogue in a cultural environment
- 28.1. Cultural environment of identity and ethos of creativity
- 28.2. Creative dialogue
- 29. Creative phenomena
- 29.1. Creatials and nothingness of creative phenomena
- 29.2. Consciousness of creative society
- 30. Creative regions and edges
- 30.1. Bracketing, epochē, and creative edges
- 30.2. Region of creativity and environment of the phenomenon
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- The published articles on the topic of monograph
- Literature
- Films
- Music and art works
- Appendices
- Appendix 1. Elite and mass culture under the conditions of the media
- Introduction to Appendix 1
- Elite, mass, global, and local culture
- Elite culture in the media environment
- Elite culture and its communication
- Appendix 1 conclusions
- Bibliography of Appendix 1
- Appendix 2. The paradoxes of creativity management
- Introduction to Appendix 2
- Creativity and innovation in the perspective of management
- Management of creativity
- Appendix 2 conclusions
- Bibliography of Appendix 2
- Appendix 3. Creative and social capital: concepts, problems, and contradictions
- Introduction to Appendix 3
- Social capital: concepts and problems
- Criticism of social capital and problems of creative capital
- Discussions and conclusions of Appendix 3
- Bibliography of Appendix 3
- Index of names
List of abbreviations
AIDS |
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome |
AG1 |
aggressiveness towards nature |
AG2 |
aggressiveness towards other creativity |
BC |
before Christ |
CC |
creative capital |
CCoI |
Creative Communication Index |
CoI |
Communication Index |
CI |
creative industries |
CSI |
Creative Suicide Index |
DCMS |
Department for Culture, Media and Sport |
DJ |
disc jockey |
E1 |
universal ethics |
E2 |
professional ethics |
E3 |
individual ethics |
GP |
great paradox |
I |
identity |
ISO |
International Organization for Standardization |
IT |
information technologies |
MP |
minor paradox |
MTV |
music television |
SC |
social capital |
SI |
Suicide Index |
TV |
television |
UI1 |
Urbanism Index in large cities |
UI2 |
Urbanism Index in medium and small cities |
UK |
United Kingdom |
USA |
United States of America |
VMU |
Vytautas Magnus University |
Introduction2
The concept of creative society is both old and new. By developing arts and sciences, as well as seeking political and military achievements, every historical society has established itself as a creative one. In other words, creativity, which is often identified with culture, is that which allowed the society or civilization to stand out above the others. We can talk here about creativity in both narrow and broad senses: the former covers the professional activities of a society’s members, and the latter covers social creativity, including searching for a safer, more sustainable, and more fruitful coexistence. A society’s creative advantage has ensured its happiness and longevity as well. Here a question emerges regarding which form of political coexistence ensures the most effective social creativity in both senses. Nevertheless, by warranting social mobility and novelty, creativity constitutes a threat to social identity that should be connected with certain stability. An unstable social environment disturbs not only social and individual identities but also creativity itself. If identity should be connected with accumulated social capital, creative capital should not be exchanged with social capital like a new currency during a monetary reform (which commonly impoverishes society) but rather interact with it by appealing to creative identity inseparable from the social one.
Even though the importance of creativity has been considered by both historical actors and social theoreticians (since at least Plato), treating creativity as a measure of civilization in historical investigations presents many obstacles. First, it is unclear what kind of creativity criteria should be used and to what parts of society, they should be applied. Second, it is unclear whether creativity and ingenuity are the distinctive features of an outstanding society or civilization. Third, it is unclear to what area should creativity’s advantage be attached. For example, military ingenuity does not guarantee outstanding creative achievements. Here follows the fourth problem: can untrammelled creativity be considered an unconditional good? In other words, it is unclear what creativity’s limits are.
These mentioned problems do not disappear by analysing contemporary society and its features. Moreover, the environment of new media presupposes new questions, the most relevant of which are as follows: how could creative ←21 | 22→tendencies emerge in a unified media environment and what advantages does creativity enjoy in a society oriented towards uniform seeing and thinking? In addition, following the Frankfurt School, the culture industry ensures not only permanent production and consumption of cultural products but also the serial formation of individuals as elements of the happiness’ mechanism. For mass communication, the individuals become an easily hunted “meat”. Nevertheless, the mass distribution of happiness guarantees neither a happy society nor a happy individual within it. Finally, this mechanism becomes a source of social neurosis and psychosis.
It seems that the rise of the creative industries’ discourse, in contrast to the culture industry, presupposes the creative society, in which creativity provides a competitive advantage and serves as a factor of rallying. The creative industries are often considered a tangle of the arts, technology, and business. Understanding these different areas of activity demands corresponding knowledge and skills. Moreover, the creative industries are inseparable from the mediated environment, to which they owe not only their spread but also their rise. Nevertheless, technology, business, and media precisely, constrict creativity by directing it to the narrow rut of mass demand. Similarly, art, that is creativity in a narrow sense, has been forced to be receptive to technologies, to be demanded, and to be easily distributed in the media, even though these also allow new forms of art to emerge.
The rise of creative industries enables the formation of the Creative Class as a new social body. The Creative Class is the core of creative society; its abundance, gravity, and activity determine the role of creativity in society. Nevertheless, some problems arise. First, the Creative Class is not a new social body. It could even be considered as a criterion of an outstanding historical civilization. Second, there is no clarity on how to define the Creative Class. For example, do the engineers and technologists, who play an important role in the creative industries, belong to this class or not? If we define the Creative Class too narrowly (e.g. only the artists), its role in society would seem insignificant. If we define it too broadly (including not only the engineers but also the doctors, financiers, and businessmen) it would lose its identity as a class within the creative society.
What is the relationship between the knowledge society and the creative society? By demanding ever more knowledge and skills within a media- and technology-rich entrepreneurial environment, it seems that creativity emerges as merely one aspect of the knowledge society. Nevertheless, creative interactions presuppose very different social relations that affect both labour relations and life-art. Furthermore, creative priorities determine as well as change in politics. Finally, the inseparability of creativity and knowledge does not imply that ←22 | 23→a former is an aspect of the latter and not vice versa. Considering how it stresses certain tendencies of social development, a discourse of the creative society is neither replaced nor subordinated by a discourse of the knowledge society.
A creative society’s environment is a postmodern one. This vague though oft-used term presupposes eclecticism, diversity, and dynamism while a critical and ironic view towards its predecessors predominates. Postmodernity continues the “endless discourse of modernity” (Jürgen Habermas) and appeals to modern phenomena: the “post” signifies an intangible limit between different cultural layers that do not negate but rather supplement each other by constituting the new folds in the cultural robe. Other facets of the postmodern creative society include the post-industrial, post-mediated, post-soviet, post-rational, post-ethical, post-democratic, post-creative, post-economic, and post-capitalistic.
The post-industrial society signifies changes not only in industry but also in leisure and entertainment. Automation and robots have deprived workers of positions in the manufacturing industry. If not for the subsequent loss of income, this freedom from both hard physical work and the forty-hour week would herald the liberation of the masses to pursue creative lives. For example, in ancient Greece, slavery gave citizens the liberty to engage in creative activity (poetry, philosophy), politics (meetings, randomly assigned official duties), and entertainment (theatregoing, physical exercise in gymnasia). Post-industrial relationships assume the emptying of not only factories but also offices. Means of communication and new media have enabled an employee to work remotely, either from a forest or a beach. However, this merge of work and leisure does not mean the end of employee exploitation; on the contrary, after hours on the clock disappear, (hopefully creative) work crowds out time for leisure and entertainment. An account of work (and creativity, leisure, and entertainment) is impossible both in time and space. Industry in postmodern society assumes unusual forms. Every media consumer becomes a media product. Although it seems that this “product” is inconsistent with creativity, it can also stimulate a creative resistance to this unified mediated environment.
A mediated environment is not the result of a postmodern creative society. Every historical period of creative humanity has had its media, from cave painting, Greek theatre, political rhetoric, ecclesiastical stained glass, to incunabula, books, and newspapers. These media both stimulate further creativity and establish a uniform creative environment by pushing outstanding creative works from the mainstream of communicated knowledge. Nevertheless, postmodern society has “demanded” these so-called new media that have inconceivably both increased the transferred message’s content and reduced its duration. By “combing” the life-world, these media not only overload creative workers ←23 | 24→with cultural fragments imported from distant times and places but also produce a total market environment where both economic and ethical values can be exchanged. This exchangeability is the “revenge of the system” (Jean Baudrillard) for the inability to account for an individual’s work, either in time or space. Nevertheless, the existential aspirations (including those of existential creativity) of an individual is that which can disturb this turnover.
Post-mediated society appeals to the diversity of (new and old) media, to the turnover of economic and ethical values, and the existential resistance to these tendencies. Similarly, post-democratic society covers the anti-creative attitudes of the majority, policies encouraging creativity, and democratic opportunities that emerged under the new media. Tendency of the move from capital accumulation to its consumption until remnants are removed indicates that this society is post-capitalistic. Beside economic capital and social capital, a new form of capital, creative capital, emerges. Unlike resources to be accumulated, creative capital is aligned with a changing environment and dynamic phenomena. Nevertheless, creative and social capitals are inseparable: a sufficiently rich social environment always entails creative activity.
Although creativity often depends on economic relationships (order) and one region of creative industries is the economy (creative business and business as creativity), by orienting itself less to economic welfare as opposed to happiness, creative society is nonchalant towards the economy. This nonchalance ensures a base level of economic activity that doesn’t suffer during economic crises and recessions. On the other hand, the economy etymologically refers to oikos, i.e. the home that is unhappy without a certain minimum of material comfort. Finally, the economic activity itself demands creativity. This lump of contradictions forces a consideration of the post-economic tendencies of the creative society.
The diversity of the creative society also presupposes the different regions of ethics (individual, community, and society), whose triple agent is the creative worker. Creative ethics has been based on a fragile principle of distribution between these ethics: an individual’s autonomy is vulnerable once her (his) ethical decisions have been delegated to society. The other side of post-ethics is post-rationality: in place of general, rational ethics, we now see creative and “regional” ethics. A certain un-ethics of creative ethics map the flexibility of ethical limits as different ethical regions interact with each other. In other words, a creative society’s context demonstrates that the essence of ethics is not at all ethical.
The above-mentioned “post”s depend on the post-creativity of the creative society. First, the mediated character of creative society leads to uniformity. Second, the tritest phenomena of mediated culture emerge as the creative factors (“creatials”) that inspire an individual’s outstanding creativity that forces the relations ←24 | 25→of creative society to recreate themselves. Furthermore, the phenomenon of outstanding-ness is possible only in the uniform environment of mediated society. Within cultural diversity, even the most exceptional individual’s creativity is unable to achieve outstandingness as an influential creative phenomenon. As result, postcreativity appeals both to the creativity deficit in a mediated environment and to the social creativity initiated by the creativity of an individual.
Another phenomenon of the creative society is the outstandingness that emerges in different aspects. There is the outstanding artist in the narrow sense and creative worker in the broad sense. Their outstandingness is problematic. First, any artist or creative worker is influenced by her (his) environment, so standing out over the environment becomes an impossible mission. Next, individual outstandingness fails to bridge hermeneutic and communicational gaps. Her (his) creativity remains misunderstood and ignored. Additionally, in a mediated environment ruled by ratings and mass audiences, individual outstandingness fails to gain traction. Second, we can speak about the outstandingness of a community including a class. For example, the Creative Class (if we recognize such a thing) is outstanding in both its creative achievements and its influence on society, despite not being the largest class. The problem is as follows: a comparatively sparse Creative Class can hardly stand out to influence political decisions in a democratic society under majority rule. The consequence that follows is the unpleasant idea that democratic and creative societies are incompatible. A scholar like Florida tries to solve this problem by extending the Creative Class, which causes an identity crisis for the class.
Finally, we can speak about the outstanding creative society. Now, we face another difficulty: if we perceive society as a social whole made up of individuals and communities, from what perspective could it be outstanding? I intentionally use the singular “creative society” instead of the plural while considering its horizontal (transnational) relations. The creative society can only stand out if the knowledge or industrial society presupposes different theoretical approaches and different priorities. However, outstandingness refers not to different societies but rather to the development of society as a whole, as certain aspects become more and less urgent over time. Outstandingness remains one of the most important indices of creativity, though it is hardly measurable empirically. In general, we should not follow the euphoric dicta that creativity solves all problems. On the contrary, creativity generates many difficulties, clashes, and even obsolescences. Additionally, contradiction and conflict could be considered criteria of creativity.
Even considering the above, new questions emerge. What is the relationship between creativity and entertainment? Is creative society the same as ←25 | 26→entertainment society? First, regarding its creative aspects, entertainment should be created in response to the demand in a postmodern, post-industrial, and post-mediated society. In a certain sense, entertainment constitutes the content of these “post”s. Second, creative activity is considered the largest form of entertainment. Third, entertainment emerges in the context of happiness. If the creative society is happy (or searching for happiness), entertainment as a short-term pleasure contradistinguishes itself from happiness as a long-term pleasure, thereby showing its characteristics. And vice versa, we can consider long-term entertainment (i.e. creativity) as happiness.
In general, the investigations of creative society are inseparable from those of a happy life. When unhappy, creative society loses its base of existence. Happiness is likely the biggest advantage of the creative society. The question is what role does creativity play in nurturing happiness. Is it one of the criteria of happiness or does it somehow flow through all of them? Theorists since Aristotle define happiness as a long-term pleasure connected with wise and virtuous activity and with satisfied life needs. Another criterion of happiness is the creativity found in activity. This criterion should be connected with the structure of happiness instead of with our subject of analysis, creative society. Also to be considered as criteria of happiness are the ability to stand out past material consumption and the resistance to the unifying technologies of media and politics. Nevertheless, creativity is a particular criterion of happiness not only because it flows through all of the other ones but also because the other criteria are considered as factors in a creative ecology that does not allow creativity to break through destructively.
The creative society works in concert with a creative life-art. We see this in our changed work relations, such as in the freedom to choose our work schedule, in the long vacations that are typically sacrificed for creative pursuits, in the informal work relations simultaneous with the decline of office culture, in the greater independence and responsibility for decisions made both inside and outside of work, and in uncounted work hours, whose other side is intensive work, short-term commitments to the employer, and a diminished social safety net. In other words, a creative worker balances a desire for distance from formal work relations and the necessity to stay in the labour market providing social security. In general, diversity is characteristic of the life-art of creative workers. Nevertheless, we often face intense work and self-discipline instead of waiting for rare moments of inspiration, or we feel the creative rhythm that determines our sexual lives instead of a creative content dictated by secret sexual desires. Finally, the principle of ignorance, which expresses itself not only in the uncertainty of the future influence of creative work but also in the importance of the assimilation of an unknown creative region, is characteristic both of the creative ←26 | 27→worker and the creative society. This is one more way in which the knowledge society does not coincide with the creative society, though creativity needs certain knowledge. On the one hand, knowledge relations are unable to cover creative relations. On the other hand, not knowing is no less important than knowing where previous creative experience has been phenomenologically bracketed.
We face a question regarding the role technologies have in the development of a creative society. Creativity is inseparable from how creative ideas are brought to life, i.e. from the techniques of art. The etymology of technē, after all, refers to art. Nevertheless, technology involves more than simply technique. The newly emerging component logos covers science and theoretical views in general. Yet the sense of this Greek compound has been reversed. Today we understand technology as an activity inseparable from practice, as vita activa. Sometimes technology is so active that it upstages any “passive” theoretical view. In this sense, they correspond to the creative work served by the activity. Creative industries as phenomena have emerged, thanks to certain technologies (new media, first and foremost). Nevertheless, media technologies make members of society mere passive users disinclined and unable to demonstrate their outstandingness in an environment of uniformity and averageness. The same could be said about political technologies that level out seemingly diverse democratic regions, within which both politicians and the voters towards whom the politicians seek to ingratiate themselves become equally passive.
Nevertheless, not only are activity and mobility characteristic of creative activity but so do is a certain passivity. First, an active actor requires a comparatively passive environment, in which she (he) can demonstrate her (his) outstandingness. A creative environment must be passive enough for its heroes to distinguish themselves. Second, creative activity demands certain passions and a certain amount of suffering. It manifests itself not only in incubating creativity but also in the long years during which the creative worker remains unrecognized. In general, one of the criteria of artistry could be a work’s lack of recognition. A work’s popularity suggests a preexisting subservience to the public, a desire to please, that shows itself with a short-term influence on society. In contrast, the “suffering” of an unrecognized artwork and the artist’s passivity in distributing her (his) work invites a kind of attention. Perhaps the artist, able to see more deeply than the public, is better able to guarantee the work’s future.
Details
- Pages
- 440
- Year
- 2022
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631888742
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631888759
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631888735
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20139
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2023 (January)
- Published
- Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2023. 440 pp., 2 fig. b/w, 9 tables.
Biographical notes
Tomas Kačerauskas (Author) 
Tomas Kačerauskas is Full Professor and head of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania. He is the chair of the Lithuanian Communication Society. He has written 6 monographs and more than 120 scientific articles in English, German, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian.
