Imagineering
Series
Cultures of Society
ISBN
978-3-8376-4509-5
Type
book section
Author(s)
Abstract (De)
In The Invention of Creativity, Andreas Reckwitz provides a cultural history of contemporary Western society in late modernity in terms of the meteoric rise of the imperative to be creative, which serves as the guiding star in the constellation of the globalized post-Fordist world of work: “If there is a desire in contemporary society that defies comprehension, it is the desire not to be creative. It is a desire that guides individuals and institutions equally” (2017: 1). But it does not seem to guide society as a whole, at least not insofar as it works on the joint project of shaping a desirable, livable, and viable future capable of sustaining human life. In terms of visions of the future, the opposite is true. In parallel to the rise of the creativity dispositif, there has been a decline in the collective imagination since the last third of the twentieth century (*Deaestheticization). With respect to the prospects of living together, we do not seem to be capable of imagining anything new that would also be both attractive and engaging for our senses (the two main criteria of creativity in Reckwitz’s analysis). In a pointed summary of this lack of collective creativity, Richard Barbrook states that “contemporary reality is the beta version of a science fiction dream” (2007: 9).The cultural imaginary appears to be empty, society to lack the imagination, emotion, and solidarity required to break through, meaningfully and emphatically, to any shared future. While various technological promises and material desires continue to be fulfilled, there is a lack of ideas about how cities, countries, and entire continents might live differently in the face of climate change, social inequity, advancing (financial) capitalism, and mass migration movements. As social psychologist Harald Welzer observes, “the great anarchist utopias about the general end of hierarchy and domination, the communist ones about the end of alienation, the situationist ones about a fusion of art and life – they all belong to the nineteenth and twentieth century. The twenty-first century has still not produced any great utopias” (2018: 8).
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SHSS - Kulturen, Institutionen, Maerkte (KIM)
Book title
The Creativity Complex: A Companion to Contemporary Culture
Publisher
transcript
Publisher place
Bielefeld
Volume
36
Start page
148
End page
153
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
268852