Replying to LO29074 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:
>I have a friend called Miriam, she posted me this yesterday,
>I have lightly-heartedly edited out a few terms in the
>sentences. They are too fruitful for inclusion here.
>
>(snip) ".....One cannot separate creativity from its social basis.
>The child's creativity accompanies and sustains his developing
>human relationships. In order to enrich ourselves as individuals
>we have to re-shape and change our human relationships
>without respite by projection and introjection. A frequent
>failure in human relationships is due to the same ego rigidity
>that impedes creativity. We have to give our substance freely,
>project it into other people or creative work for further
>transformation. As in creative work we must be humble and
>grateful to receive back far more than we ourselves have put
>in. Our personality will grow through this creative interchange,
>which underlies the metabolism of our social life."
Greetings dear Andrew,
I have linked this contribution to "LO in Public Schools LO29074",
but have changed the topic. You have clearly seen what my target was.
>I am now strongly suspecting that an organisation is not
>TALKED into becoming a LO, but is WALKED into
>emerging as a LO.
You gave Miriam (by way of her letter) as a powerful example. And the part
which I have quoted above tells just how much she is aware of creativity
and how it influences "social metabolism". Thank you very much for this
beautiful piece.
I became recently very much under the impression how many people are
little aware of their own creativity as well as that of other people. the
worst of all is that their leaders have just as little awareness as they
have.
It reminds me of a person who knows at most that he/she has internal
organs like a brain, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, pancreas and kidneys,
but knows nothing of their morphology nor their physiology. With such
little knowledge of the body, many can still lead a healthy physical life.
But with little knowledge of creativity and what it involves, people can
lead far less a healthy spiritual life. Some become complacent with the
raw deals of life while others grab with hubris at what life has to offer.
Some elevate their daily existence as the norm while others sell treasure
maps to make a living. Whatever they do, yesterday, today and tomorrow
follow the same patterns. Respect for the past, passion for the present
and commitment to the future are as scarce as chicken's teeth. Gradually
joyfully social life disintegrates into a social nightmare.
It is not less intelligent people which I am speaking of. Many are
graduated and some even have a PhD or two. But whatever their specialist
training, they are caught up in the vicious circle of self-referential
thinking based on mental models which they have taken over. They are
incapable of questioning such mental models. Yet they are hyper critical
of others who dare to differ even slightly from them. Getting them to work
together for a common purpose is as difficult as mixing oil with water.
It seems as if the previous two paragraph I have been judgemental.
However, I merely try to describe a behavioural problem with its many
facets which I observe clearly. This problem cannot be solved without
describing it clearly.
What happened to their creativity? As Einstein once noted, children
usually have an astounding creativity. The luckier children go to school
where their creativity gets destroyed, bit by bit. (The other children get
their schooling in the streets with all kinds of social misfits as their
teachers.) By the time they reach college or university, their creativity
is almost non-existent. How did it happen? By telling them that
information which exists outside them has a higher standing than knowledge
which lives within them. By not telling them how knowledge is generated
through authentic learning.
How can their creativity be restored? I think that the worst solution is
to sell them treasure maps like creativity is a left-right brain activity,
creativity is a mind mapping or creativity is a the manufacturing of
novelties. Taking any facet of creativity and selling it as creativity
itself is like presenting an organ of the body as the body itself.
Human creativity is extremely complex. It cannot be restored or developed
in one big lesson. It has to be done with many brush strokes which
gradually under many moons join into one compelling painting. Furthermore,
as Miriam pointed out, it is not one who has to paint, but all together.
This painting is not the one which appears on the wall, but the one in the
souls of those who participate.
How will we define human creativity? Most definitions are derived from
Arthur Koestler's profound study "The Act of Creation" -- to connect two
seemingly unrelated things in such a manner that a novel whole emerge
which is more than the two things taken together.
But definitions are dangerous to creativity! A definition usually excludes
the path of thinking which let to that definition. A definition without a
history is pretty much useless for creativity. A definition may also begin
with one of several related aspects of creativity. The other aspects are
then excluded. It is like defining a mammal to be a dog. What about rats
and monkeys?
The following is also a possible definition of creativity -- to change any
structure into an improved structure. The previous definition employed a
pattern which can be called fruitfulness ("connect-beget"). The latter
definition employs a pattern which can be called liveness
("becoming-being"). The following definition explore, for example,
wholeness ("unity-associativity") -- to seek the unity between all things
related.
The obvious question now is how many such patterns do creativity have
which can be used for its definition? We will first have to make sure that
all such patterns are essential to creativity. In other words, without
such a pattern creativity is not possible. In a study (the nature of which
is reported in other contributions) I have found seven patterns essential
to creativity. They are
liveness ("becoming-being")
sureness ("identity-context")
wholeness ("unity-associativity")
fruitfulness ("connect-beget")
spareness ("quantity-limit")
otherness ("quality-diversity")
openness ("paradigm-transfer")
I call them the 7Es (seven essentialities of creativity). They are of the
same kind. Their kinship lies in the fact that they describe together the
form of creativity.
The strange thing is any heptagram (7) (like the 7Es), octagram (8),
enneagram (9) points on a circle, each point having sufficient
complexity, can be used to promote creative thinking. These points
need not to be of the same kind as in the case of the 7Es. Richard N
Knowles, for example, use the following 9 points in his enneagram
with remarkable success:
identity, itention, issues, relationships, principles, work, information,
learning, structure/context.
(See "Self-organising Leadership" -- Emergence 3(4), 112-27)
Perhaps the one thing which most thinkers on creativity have overlooked,
is its Janus face -- creativity can be constructive or destructive. They
want to think of creativity in terms of the good rather than the bad. For
example, breaking a novel idea into its separate parts is just not
creativity to them. Yet often ingenious thinking has to be done to
accomplish such analysis.
The quest now is how to ensure that creativity is constructive rather than
destructive. For example, peace is gained by constructive creativity while
war is waged by destructive creativity. Love blooms upon constructive
creativity while destructive creativity lets hate erupt.
The 7Es give us a way whether a person's creativity will be constructive
or destructive. When one or more of them are impaired with respect to a
certain level of complexity, the creativity will be destructive. This
causes an imbalance between constructive and destructive creativity. Only
one possibility exists for all 7Es to be mature, but 6x5x4x3x2x1=720
possible combinations of them can be immature. The ratio of 1:720 shows
clearly how massive this imbalance is.
This imbalance caused by one or more impaired essentiality is clearly
visible in the metabolism of a society. People will far more easily
splinter into different purposes than unite in one common vision. People
will far more easily criticize each other than participate in an open
dialogue for their common edification. People will far more easily seek
own satisfaction than care for each other through thick and thin. People
will far more easily conform to information (jump the bandwagon) than
developing their own personal knowledge. People will far more easily
defend themselves with offense than working towards peaceful solutions.
People are usually very dissatisfied with affairs in the communities in
which they are involved. They want constructive actions, yet they are
incapable of leading such constructive actions. It is because they have a
tacit knowledge of constructive actions, but do not know how to articulate
it to the benefit of others. To lead is to excel in each of the 7Es. But
to fail in even merely one of the 7Es is to lead from behind. One by one
the followers step into the drift sand.
Very few people know that as the complexity of their creative acts
increase, the complexity of understanding each of the 7Es also have to
increase. For example, Jan Smuts, the father of holism, saw holism as
increasing wholeness. However, most people who write on holism, see it
merely as restoring wholeness. Yes, wholeness has to be restored where
fragmentation had its bout, but it also has to be increased beyond any
past level to have a constructive outcome. The same applies to the other
six 7Es.
Consequently, getting aware of creativity entails for me learning more of
each of the 7Es. This learning cannot be based on information on the 7Es
since information, except little for its physical representation, is
devoid of the 7Es. Nothing which I wrote so far has anything of the 7Es to
it. This is one of the great differences between information and
knowledge. Knowledge which produces information is far richer in the 7Es
than the information itself.
Learning resulting in knowledge has to follow another course than merely
memorising and disclosing information. This course involves sensations
through the five sense organs which lead to experiences. When these
diverse experiences combine into an integrated whole, they emerge as tacit
knowing. This tacit knowing can be recognised in the information supplied
by others, but the ultimate purpose is to articulate it self as
information, thereby emerging into formal knowledge.
Sadly, the members of a dysfunctional society will not know this course.
Thus somebody with guts like Miriam have to organise them into doing
together. In this doing together destructivity will abound, but by careful
leadership this person will home in constructive acts, applauding them and
forking from them to further constructive creativity. Walk with them
rather than talk with them.
If you fellow learners are concerned about creativity and how it sustain
higher spiritual activities, I want to suggest that you learn as much as
possible about the 7Es. Do not search for information on them, but first
contemplate your own tacit knowing on them. What I had to say on the 7Es
are but a few drops on understanding of them. To fill the bucket you have
to do it self with your own understanding. Nobody else can help you here
because nobody else had the experiences which you had.
If you fellow learners are concerned that people around you are not aware
of their creativity and that of others, I want to suggest that you let
them experience the 7Es through your actions. Here it is deeds which
count, not words.
It is through your deeds that they will begin to change their own lives.
It is through your deeds that they will begin to dismantle their own
mental models. It is through your deeds that they will begin to focus
on their common destiny. It is through your deeds that they will begin
to reach out to others. It is through your deeds that they will begin to
discover just how much they can accomplish self. It is through your
deeds that they will begin to respect each other's unique personalities.
It is through your deeds that they will begin to open up to creativity.
Getting aware of creativity involves more than personal mastery. It also
requires team learning. The vision to be shared is a developing community
in which bickering dwindles away. The most serious mental model to undo is
that the creativity of the many will always be inferior to the creativity
of a few. To accomplish all this the systems thinking has to be enriched
continuously in each of the 7Es. In other words, getting aware of
creativity involves learning organisations and not merely learning
individuals.
Dear Andrew, I have written the above to honour Miriam. Will you please
send a copy to her. Miriam, we admire your guts.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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