Creativity Tradition and Transgression

Recently I was given the privilege of writing a small piece for the Pusat Dialog Peradaban - Centre for Civilisational Dialogue, at the University of Malaya. The subject related to the issue of creativity and tradition. This piece of writing appeared in the October 2015-January 2016 edition of the Bulletin, Number 31, pages 4-5. In my article I discussed the issue of the relationship between creativity and tradition in light of UNESCO's commitment to sustaining cultural tradition. I began with a brief critique of modernity which is deeply influenced by Philip Rieff and also Weber's famous critique of the 'nullity' that characterizes modern culture. I hope this piece of writing provokes some thought.

Creativity: Transgression or Higher Purpose

'Modernity is characterized by the fragmentation of our social world, desacralization of institutional life and the relativisation and individualization of our moral perspectives. Such processes undermine and destabilize our sense of shared common values in a society (Berger and Luckmann 1995; Berger, Berger and Kellner 1974). Buffeted by constant change and social fragmentation tradition and cultural heritage in such a world is increasingly hard to sustain and yet all the more important. In many respects, the policy direction of UNESCO with its pursuit of respect for tradition and cultural heritage and its recognition of the creative and important contribution that heritage and tradition make to our societies represents a critique of these modern trends referred to above.

Given the important aims of UNESCO the discourse of creativity and its relation to tradition is therefore of far more importance than we may at first think. How we view creativity will determine the extent to which tradition and heritage can be defended or even understood in modern societies. Creativity and innovation are routinely referred to as a central and defining characteristics of successful modern societies. The importance of creativity and innovation to economic growth and social well-being to the development of knowledgeable and dynamic societies is widely accepted in public policy in a range of domains from the economy through to education.

At times this demand for increased creativity with a bias towards breaking tradition, and transgressing cultural norms and conventions leads to disquiet over the direction of modern societies. If certain tendencies of contemporary creative culture mock traditional culture and celebrates instead pure self-expression, self-fulfilment and emotional release for its own sake then creativity in such a society must exist in tension with tradition. Philip Rieff’s famous argument that modern societies are increasingly characterized by the ethos of individualized self-expression and transgression is exemplified in our constant desire to reinvent ourselves and our surroundings (Rieff 2006; Rieff 2007; Rieff 2008). Such reinvention is often at the expense of traditional moral norms (Elliott 2013). Rieff critiques this kind of modern culture as being infatuated with what Oscar Wilde referred to as the ‘primacy of possibility’(Rieff 2007, p.22).

So called ‘creative art’ works such as Andres Serrano’s, Piss Christ and video games such as, Grand Theft Auto are clear examples of excessiveness, unrestricted transgression and destruction: they are works that point not to the better angels of our natures, to the higher goals of our humanity but rather to the abyss and nullity (Lasch-Quinn 2006, p.29; Rieff 2006, p.99). Such is the result of creativity without reference or grounding in tradition or values. The endless possibility of reinvention and the right to all forms of creative self-expression manifests as creativity that is limitless in its possibility. The breakdown of our sense of a sacred order upon which authority rests suggests that creativity has no limits, no boundaries and that there are no limits to human action.

Weber captured the trend of desacralization in his description of modern societies as ‘disenchanted’(Weber 2004, p.13). In Max Weber’s famous formulation we become ‘specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved’(Weber 2001, p.124). Creativity without spirit, creativity without heart. Such creativity is conducive to a culture of ‘nullity’ of endless possibility and endless self-expressive reinvention and ‘newness’ which becomes increasingly mundane (Weber 2001, p.124). In such a culture the promise of the knowledge society, our ability to learn to live together and our capacity to defend and understand our heritage and traditions becomes increasingly difficult when all that is important, is the individuals self-expression stripped of concern for others, tradition and ethics.

Viewed against this criticism of modernity, the problem of creativity and heritage, innovation and tradition are not as simple as we may at first think. Our sense of debt and respect for heritage and tradition is the key. Currently we struggle to ground and institutionalize creativity and possibility in reference to normative principles and moral limit. We appear to be seduced by the promise and expectations of a discourse of creativity which claims that we have limitless possibility and can endlessly reinvent and express ourselves with the only limit being our imagination. Our traditions provided they remain vital can provide an ethical anchor for our knowledge and ensure that our creativity is not increasingly reduced to nullity and vacuous forms of self-expression and the false promise of endless possibility. Creativity owes as much to remembering the vitality of our traditions and heritage as it does to conceiving the possibilities of our future. How we grasp the relationship between creativity and tradition is central to the cultivation of moral sensitivity and selfhood. We forget this at our peril.'

References

Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1995. Modernity, Pluralism and the Crisis of Meaning. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers.

Berger, Peter L., Brigette Berger, and Hansfried Kellner. 1974. The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. New York: Vintage Books.

Elliott, Anthony. 2013. Reinvention. London: Routledge.

Lasch-Quinn, Elisabeth. 2006. "The Mind of the Moralist." The New Republic (August 28):27-31.

Rieff, Philip. 2006. My Life Among the Death Works: Illustrations of the Aesthetics of Authority. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

—. 2007. The Crisis of the Officer Class: The decline of the Tragic Sensibilioty. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

—. 2008. Charisma: The Gift Of Grace, And How It Has Been Taken from Us. New York: Vintage Books.

Weber, Max. 2001. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge.

—. 2004. "Science as a Vocation." pp. 1-31 in Max Weber: the Vocation Lectures, edited by David Owen and Tracy B. Strong. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.