The Future of Creativity

Yes, sorely disappointed as I was at Gioia's speech at Stanford. We no longer need people to tell us what is wrong but instead we need people to tell us their visions and dreams and desires. We need people who are willing to take risks for their vision. Gioia took some positive actions such as enacting "The Big Read," but to me while listening to his speech at Stanford, all I could think was this man has the power in his hands and all he can tell me is what I shouldn't do as a parent or participant in this society. I wanted to hear action statements. I want to hear them now...........Mr. Landesman?

The disappearance of free play from childhood--not just because of addictive technologies but because of children's growing alienation from nature--is a looming catastrophe every bit as frightening as worldwide climate change, but much less widely recognized. The sky is not falling, but the seas are in fact rising. Luckily, many people are working to educate the public on both issues. For more about play, see www.allianceforchildhood.org.

The disappearance of free play from childhood--not just because of addictive technologies but because of children's growing alienation from nature--is a looming catastrophe every bit as frightening as worldwide climate change, but much less widely recognized. The sky is not falling, but the seas are in fact rising. Luckily, many people are working to educate the public on both issues. For more about play, see www.allianceforchildhood.org.

As a professional “creative”, I looked forward to Utne’s article on the Future of Creativity, only to be sorely disappointed to find yet another “The Sky is Falling” rant. Our children are growing up differently than we did---poor things, let’s save them.
The topic is huge, perhaps too huge for a tidy article in a magazine to tackle. But how unfortunate for it to be reduced to a rolling snowball of fearfulness (ADD! Autism! Those damned videos games!)
Looking forward into the face of creativity takes outrageous courage, because we are in the midst of tremendous change, and our children are the enactors of that change. And change, like progress, has always beaten a path that leaves some damage along the way. This is not new. But it is more acute and more visible than it’s ever been before, acute due to the rate of change and visible due to our burgeoning media.
I’m not talking about our children being damaged, but rather our (adult, hence, old-world) view of creativity or even intelligence, really, taking the hit. The fact of the matter is, the dominance of the left brain, alpha-numeric paradigm is slipping. Rather than envisioning a trip back to the dark ages, we might spend some time looking forward to a more fluid, less materially ambitious, less regimented society. Just imagine what it might create?
--Shannon Keegan

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