Conflict resolution is a creative paradigm. It involves using key strategies that help build stronger, more cohesive culturally safe social organization, built on inclusively driven, productive relationships, throughout society.

We need to learn to use our nations diverse knowledge to embrace a genuinely engaging people approach.

We need to learn to problem solve.

We need to check better the interests of all parties, so we learn to deal with these interests through openness and transparency.

Listening with empathy is our key national challenge. We need to discuss, inform and clarify more our assertiveness by also listening better.

We need a cultural map that draws focus to the opportunities we each have. Spell out the options that would help resolve our social and national conflicts… with a will to resolve.

In Australia we have become a nation of bullies, the doctors of spin down-under.

Our culture vilifies and victimises those whose power balance does not have access to administrations at government or community levels. Be it at economic or social levels. Be it through health or before the law.

Yes, I am saying we alienate those who may think differently.

I believe the ”key flash” here, is to understand the value of conflict resolution.

We need to be able to trust the people we are dealing with and that could help us over come our co-dependence to rely on gangs or factionalised bully mentalities.

Government is a two way communication process. To each assert this value alone would be a creative, innovative revolutionary step.

http://www.miacat.com

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I am in full agreement with the idea that we need more creativity in this nation and with the general trend of the article.

But to "study the mutability" of creativity would, I feel, be as pointless an excercise as trying to teach it. Both are, I consider, self-defeating.

I have always found it amusing that creative writing is offered as a taught subject: if there is a system or curriculum to teach such writing or thinking then the product is a learned or acquired skill: which is the direct antithesis, surely, of creative or imaginative skill?

I take issue with the idea too that "all" human beings are creative animals: yes, there exist some in the species who are genuinely creative...but this means only that we are a species wherein exists, in some, the ability to be creative - not that this is an ability found throught the species. Creativity is a product of the imagination and although in many of us imagination can indeed be stimulated, in many it cannot. While even some extremely imaginative people are incapable of genuine creativity.

The very essence of creative thought is individualism and once we try to study and categorise this essence it, like any essence or vapour, simply dissolves.

I agree wholeheartedly therefore with the author's cry for more acceptance of individualism; a climate wherein imagination is a valued commodity and creativity is allowed expression. Sadly, in a country where idiosyncratic behaviour was once hailed as a national attribute, all deviations from a rapidly narrowing norm are attracting ever more visible - and sanctioned - intolerance.

And Miacat - I followed your link and admire what you are doing. I think your open door policies - in fact all that you are striving to achieve, are wonderful. However, I consider that the term "creative paradigms" is, by definition, an oxymoron.

Thanks Romany and Miacat for your comments.

I wrote this article because I had been flicking through job tenders (I run a media business) and coming from a teaching background, I was surprised how liberally organisations use the word 'creative' as a catch all phrase to denote almost anything they wanted.

I don't totally agree with Miacat's take on conflict resolution and the creative paradigm but I can see how conflict resolution certainly involves social interaction and being involved with high order complexity. I tend to think this pursuit has really been captured by HR where as creativity has been captured by 'everything'.

The problem with my article was that I failed to define creativity (there are so many definitions) as I would have had to go in to the psychological, sociological, business, perspectives and I didn't want to write an essay.

Romany is right in so far as there was a political motive behind my piece and it is individualistic rather than communitarian.

I was alarmed that many businesses - and I include unis as businesses - treat creativity as an 'end product' rather than a complex process of thoughts, histories, potentialities, actions, etc.

I used creative writing schools as an example but it really goes wider than that. It's impossible to teach creativity because we don't really know what creativity is. It's as hard to pin down as mercury, yet we can put a market price on an object which has high 'creative values'.

It's unusual that governments and organisations use terms such as 'knowledge economy' and 'creative nation' yet they can't define from first principles what creative is. I think that it's not only a philosophical question but one that goes to the core of psychology.

Malcolm aka Cheryl

ah, The "creative" phenomenon is a symptom of the "New Economy" or the "Service Economy", where nothing of actual value is actually really created and where bullsh ite walks. We invent new and wonderful creative services to sell to each other, the only problem is they aren't really worth anything. We do however sell it "creatively". Which is why in general we have an enormous debt in the middle of a resources export boom. We in essence borrowing money to buy services off each other in the larger picture(and in some cases overinflated goods like housing)

We have a generation of marketers,consultants etc (Apparently Creative stuff). The only problem is, they don't actually do anything. Which is also why we have an enormous skills shortage, even though we have 1 million unemployed people. We have run out of people who actually do something, or what I believe simply stopped training enough of them.

We have many,many inventions and developments sitting at universities waiting for businesses to invest in them and use them. Manufacturing, Advanced Medical Equipment etc. The reason is lack of investment by private industry. When you have a economy where the Service Industry is a primary focus & the linchpin of the "New Economy", don't expect much investment in actual technology that maybe of use. The Service sector generally don't do much R&D or investment.

I particularly hate reading PR rubbish coming out from Companies. What the hell does "Synergetically" actually mean? What does "We are for the people" mean? What does we "Embrace Diversity" actually mean? I can't believe people get paid to write this rubbish. It is however the perfect monument to this age. The Age of Creative bullsh ite.

We need to get away from this creative bullshi tery, and get back to inventing things and building things with tangible value that we can export. We need focus more on hard science,engineering and manufacturing. That's where true creativity is.

Bobalot, you've hit the nail on the head. Thanks.

In the last few years I've rewritten two humanities degrees which had an accent on the 'creative industries'. I had to redraft them everytime and remove the vocational aspects as they were considered too expensive or not within the 'market demographic'.

I don't pine for more tariffs but clearly we need to inject more money in to research and development in manufacturing for a start. I know all of the arguments about the quantification of information and how it has real capital value - but it's rubbish. It only has capital value if (a) there's a demand and (b) people can understand what you're selling.

There's no doubt that multimedia, faster computing power, the web, etc, etc, has changed the way we do business, but we still operate in a market. People have to sell 'stuff'. and whether we like it or not, that stuff is generally hard material.

People say in an off-hand way, 'we're turning in to a service sector economy so we won't need line production anymore.' Utter, utter rubbish - and dangerous thinking too.

Universities sell information to students (ignoring the cultural benefits here) but in the humanities, they are being groomed for positions in marketing, advertising, PR and HR. These are all services. They do not actually make anything, and I don't dismiss their importance, but they are adjuncts to the market.

What I do have problems with is the appropriation of the term 'creativity', especially by HR managers and university programs directors, when they are actually far removed from any creative pursuit at all. They treat creativity as one part of a cog which is thrown in to a machine and we'll produce 'creative people'. Rubbish.

Can I have $40,000 of HECS creativity please? Spare me.

Creativity is a mantra used by people who can't define creativity and can't explain what they do or make to people who are becoming suspicious of anything branded (!) 'creative'.

Malcolm

Listening, hearing and feeling out creativity is key. I think the idea I wanted to make most was about the value of true listening.

I feel our creativity is about being individuals and about the ways we share that experience. Creativity is about building on the individual and our shared creative ideas, with others.

Can I say this is how creativity grows, inspires and becomes valuable as a commodity?

For example if we consider a point I got out of John Carey's article recently;

" The same part of your brain that allows you to enjoy a painting is also the place that processes, humour, joy, sex and, believe it or not: meditation and prayer!"

For me IF we say this it true – Then IT is tremendous – Why?

It means creativity comes from the same place as does our intelligence. So ALL the gurus were right?

I believe creativity connects us to each other through our inter-relations, in the ways we communicate, and the ways we capitalise on the values that makes this engagement transparent.

I.e.: For me a strong independent team that individually respects and acknowledges the creative ideas of others is bound to succeed over a team that is based on co-dependence, conformity, or straight jacket bias and denials.

Thank You Romany and Cheryl. I value your feedback - wholesale - TA

http://www.miacat.com/

"Creativity is a mantra used by people who can't define creativity and can't explain what they do or make to people who are becoming suspicious of anything branded (!) 'creative'."

I agree totally. What happens when someone genuinely comes up with a creative idea that is successful, is that an ecosystem of parasites tags along, because they can't afford not to. Their main stock in trade is a few jargon terms that have no resonance.

I work in the public service and have seen bucketloads of managerialist jargon being trucked out to staff that is 100% meaningless dribble. After a while everyone just switches off. However it doesn't stop the professional dribblers getting away with it (and making a lot of money in the process).

Another manifestation of the all-talk-and-no-substance attitude is the commentariat's fixation over the past 30 to 40 years or so with idealism as opposed specific ideas. The idealism industry keeps bombarding us with fell-goodisms, platitudes, cant, etc, but for some reason specific ideas keep getting murdered one way or another by the media. If we're ever going to be successful as a country we need to ditch the idealism and replace it with specific ideas that we can debate, research, analyse, implement and measure against a benchmark. These are much more productive activities than just telling all and sundry that things need to improve.

Let's face it, it's easy to talk - and it's happening everywhere. Much better to actively do things. We'd all be better off if we did.

I currently teach at a University in China so am encountering firsthand what it is to live in a society purged of creativity or imagination since the Cultural Revolution.

Education here has traditionally been based on the Scholastic method which, in the West was ditched after The Enlightenment. Students learn by spewing forth large chunks of parroted material. Questioning or debating this material has not been allowed and so much of it has been stripped of actual meaning. The Sciences, Mathematics and History lend themselves well to this system (I can almost hear indignation rising at this statement but no, this is not a Paper either so am constrained from justification)but the Humanities do not, - which was why the Cultural Revolution was able to be so successful.

As you agreed, Malcolm, creativity cannot be taught. It can only be defined with difficulty: trying then to foster and encourage such an intangible force is immensely difficult. This is compounded by the fact that the imaginative capacities of the majority of my students have been stifled almost to the point of atrophy.

As China emerges into the global economy I consider the need for creativity emerges as a limiting factor. China is set to be the largest manufacturer of other countries technologies and ideas until such time as it is able to diversify from within.

The outlook for my students is grim with competition for jobs all placed within a single sphere intense. This is a country where I consider that the ancient argument revolving around the value of the Humanities to a society is unaruably illustrated.

Yes, I too agree we should do away with cant, jargon, and big business appropriation of the creative process. But from where I am sitting right now the value of true creativity is above rubies

I think one of the reasons we have so much trouble defining, using or harnessing creativity is that our thinking begins with managerialism and attempts to move outwards from there.

What can you do with creativity that strikes at 2am, out of office hours? How can you quantify it? Do you pay it an hourly rate? Can you realistically anticipate that someone who did something creative will ever do anything creative ever again?

You can't invest in it until after the fact, so as long as we're obsessed with management and a big return on investment we're stuffed. As a society we're just not geared for anything without ownership attached to it and we can't tell the difference between quality and quantity.

Romany, I've noticed that parroting myself when I taught international students. I thought it was an Confuscian obedience to authority but I think you're right.

I started this article after re-reading Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language' and it made me realise that while there is some relativity in language, governments and business have certainly over the last 30 years appropriated it for their own ends - almost unchecked.

I chose 'creativity' because it is so hard to define and as such has been co-opted by almost everyone and homogenised to fit every marketing occassion. If everything is creative, then nothing is not (sic) creative. Then what value is creativity?

I suggest that just 60 years ago creativity was associated with a complex mode of thinking. Now I believe it is tied to technics. That is, creativity and innovation are synonyms.

I'm starting to sound like one of those old Frankfurt School Marxists but if governments and business can manipulate our conception of terms such as 'creativity' then they are well and truly on their way to creating a new psychic reality for us.

Maybe I've read too much Orwell.

Chainsmoker, I'm afraid I was a part of the problem. Without shouldering the cross too much, I was one of those managers who spun and spun. I had to earn the dollars. Isn't it amazing how little of real productive worth managerialist philosophies have gained us?

Yeah but Malcom, the most governments and slick marketeers can do is to try to market and sell the IDEA of creativity. The creative force as I think we have established, is an intangible.

Therein lies its protection: it is incapable of being harnessed, packaged or sold on. While attempting to do so may appear to be an excerable diminishment it does nothing actually to tarnish or demean the genuine article. After all, no truly creative persons work either in Government or marketing.

It is only those who have no grasp of individuality who entertain the idea that it could be commodified. If they want to part with big bucks which they consider entitle them to write dodgy "pieces" with no punctuation, or stick shells on photo-frames well, as the old saw goes: there's one born every minute.

Businesses may dump truckloads of jargonised drivel on their hapless employees and Governments blather about creative solutions till they're blue in the face: most creative spirits eschew the mainstream anyway.

And ah...Orwell. That explains it. Yep. No matter what stage of our lives we're at when we discover or re-discover him the man truly does yer head in, doesn't he?

I guess that's because he is truly a creative individual?

Romany, if I may nitpick?

There are probably quite a lot of creative people working in government and marketing, it's just that Taylorism isn't the most salubrious environment creativity could hope for.

We've made a society that dictates that creativity is something you do in your spare time - valueless time.

Creativity is also non-conformist which is anathema to both governing and mass marketing, contrary to what Richard Florida would have us believe. Bicycle tracks and bohemians indeed. What was he thinking?