Creativity

Creativity is a human mental phenomenon based around the deployment of mental skills and/or conceptual tools, which, in turn, originate and develop innovation, inspiration, or insight.

Social attitudes to creativity

'Creatitivity' is much praised in principle, but much derided in practice. Those in logical and ordered organisations may praise it but be reluctant to set a creative individual 'loose' in their ordered system. Business is increasingly claiming that professional "creatives" do not have a monopoly on the concept of creativity, and that Problem solving in general may require a flexible mind. Employers may value lawyers, accountants, people in sales, and others more highly if such people can use a "creative" approach to their work, albeit within the confines of a logical and constraining system. The phrases "thinking outside the box" and "thinking outside the square" express this idea.

Related Topics:
Profession - Problem solving - Lawyer - Accountant - Sales

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Ambivalence to creativity in the West may perhaps be due to the culture's image of creativity; the ingesting of drugs to generate visions; the celebration of eccentric behaviour; the possible cross-over between creativity and mental illness; the often bohemian sexual tastes of artists; the cultural association of artists with a life of poverty and misery.

Related Topics:
Drugs - Visions - Eccentric - Mental illness

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