Making room for the non creative a cultural psychological perspective

 Making  room  for  the  ‘non-­‐creative’?  A  cultural  psychological  perspective      Vlad  Petre  Glaveanu    Aalborg  University      This  chapter  asks  the  question  ‘what  is  non-­‐creative?’  and  tries  to  answer  it  from  the   perspective  of  cultural  psychology  It  is  argued  that,  while  current  scientific  and  lay  understandings   tend  to  make  creativity  the  exception  within  daily  life,  cultural  psychologists  are  inclined  to  think   differently  Theorised  as  acting  in  the  world  by  either  widening  or  reducing  three  main  types  of   difference  –  between  self  and  other,  between  sign  and  object,  and  between  past,  present,  and   future  –  creativity  emerges  as  a  quality  intrinsic  to  human  action  On  the  contrary,  the  ‘non-­‐creative’   is  associated,  within  this  view,  with  an  active  denial  of  difference,  something  specific,  among  others,   to  the  logic  of  totalitarianism,  formalism,  and  assessment  It  is  argued,  in  the  end,  that  ‘making   room’  for  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  in  our  theories  is  a  necessity  since  this  category  not  only  helps  us   preserve  the  meaning  of  creativity  but  demonstrates  why  creativity  is,  in  fact,  fundamental  for  our   dignity  and  humanity         The  term  creativity  undeniably  became  very  popular  in  recent  decades  in  both  scientific  and  lay   discourses  Often  paired  up  with  innovation,  these  are  some  of  the  most  common  words  one  finds  in   educational  and  governmental  policies,  not  to  mention  the  sector  of  art  and  technology  It  is  so   frequently  used  in  fact  that  unthinking  repetition  risks  making  the  word  ultimately  useless  (Williams,   1961)  Indeed,  the  presumed  importance  of  creativity  for  individuals,  communities,  and  society  as  a   whole  is  widely  recognised  and  this  importance  resides  in  the  fact  that  creativity  is  assumed  to   generate  value,  including  economic  value  (see  for  instance  research  on  ‘creative  industries’;  Caves,   2000)  In  this  context,  in  both  science  and  everyday  life,  creativity  moves  from  being  an  attribute  to   becoming  an    ideal,  something  that  needs  to  be  not  only   studied  but    promoted  Among  the  few  topics  in  science  to   be  invested  with  ‘moral’  value,  creativity  is  all  about  generating  novelty  that  makes  a  positive  change   in  the  world  (for  exceptions  see  Cropley,  Cropley,  Kaufman  &  Runco,  2010)         But  in  order  to  promote  creativity  we  must  first  be  able  to  identify  it  and  this,  in  turn,   requires  us  to    define  it  There  are  plenty  of  definitions  of   this  phenomenon  in  the  psychology  of  creativity,  usually  focused  on  the  creative  product  Stein   (1953,  p  311)  proposed  that  “creative  work  is  a  novel  work  that  is  accepted  as  tenable  or  useful  or     satisfying  by  a  group  in  some  point  in  time”  The  ‘double’  criterion  of  novelty  and  utility  helps   differentiate  creativity  from  those  habitual  acts  that  may  be  valuable  but  are  not  novel,  as  well  as   the  vast  number  of  products  that  are  simply  bizarre  or  have  no  obvious  social  value  (e.g  children’s   expressions,  dreams,  etc.)  Moreover,  there  is  a  clear  assumption  that  creative  outcomes  describe  a    continuum  There  are  creations  that  may  be  important  for   the  person,  for  instance  they  help  the  individual  reach  a  solution  others  already  know  And  there  are   creative  acts  that  leave  their  mark  on  the  knowledge  of  large  groups;  for  example,  celebrated   inventions  or  artworks  The  above  ‘ends’  of  the  creativity  continuum  were  referred  to  by  Boden   (1994)  as  the  P-­‐creative  (creative  for  the  person)  and  the  H-­‐creative  (creative  on  a  historical  scale)   respectively  In  fact,  these  contrasting  examples  are  so  extreme  that  one  might  wonder  if  we  are  still   referring  to  the  same  phenomenon  There  is  a  long  history  in  psychology,  and  not  only,  of  focusing   on  the  highly  creative  at  the  expense  of  the  mundane  and  associating  ‘pure’  creative  expression  with   the  figure  of  the  genius  or  the  eminent  individual  (Glaveanu,  2010)       And  it  is  this  kind  of  essentialist  and  exclusivist  view  of  what  creativity  is  that  explains,  at   least  in  part,  our  societal    fascination  with  it  While  most   would  agree  that  everyone  has  at  least  the  potential  for  creativity,  what  we  expect  of  the  people   actually  called  creative  is  to  make  visible  and  long-­‐lasting  contributions  This  pervasive  association   between  creativity  and  genius  or  creativity  and  radical  change  has  also  deep  consequences  for  how   we  identify  it  Unsurprisingly,  the  most  common  assumption  in  both  science  and  applied  fields  is  that    we  don’t  have  enough  creativity,  that  we  live  in   cultures  of  conformity  (Sternberg  &  Lubart,  1995)  that  crush  creative  initiatives  and  lead  us  towards   living  unauthentic,  boring,  passive  lives  Often  schools  are  accused  of  being  the  instrument  of  such   conformist  cultures,  of  discouraging  creativity  at  an  age  when  it  should  be  flourishing  (see  Fasko,   2001)  If  creative  expression  is  all  about  risk-­‐taking,  challenging  norms,  and  going  against  the   habitual,  then  certainly  not  many  people  can  be  said  to  act  creatively       Of  course,  such  reasoning  is  flawed  To  begin  with,  it  promotes  a  view  of  creativity  as   something  that  only  a  few  are  capable  of  and,  in  an  effort  to  promote  it,  in  fact  makes  it  more  and   more  out  of  reach  Second,  at  a  practical  level,  one  should  imagine  how  a  school  would  be  like,  for   instance,  if  populated  only  by  highly  creative  students  and  teachers  according  to  the  understanding   referred  to  above  Third,  and  most  importantly  for  the  present  chapter,  this  view  portrays  creativity   as  the    exception  in  human  life  and  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  as   the  default  mode  of  our  existence  It  is  precisely  this  last  point  that  I  want  to  challenge  here  with  the   means  of  cultural  psychology  The  argument  I  will  make  is  that  things  are  exactly  the  other  way   around:    creativity  is  intrinsic  to  our  human  existence     while  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  is  rare,  an  almost  hypothetical  construct  In  the  end,  however,  I  will  argue   (creatively?)  that  we  need  to  make  an  effort  to  ‘save’  the  category  of  the  ‘non-­‐creative’,  to  make   room  for  it  within  cultural  psychological  theory  because  this  is  the  only  way  to  properly  understand   the  true  importance  of  creativity  for  individuals,  society  and  culture        Identifying  the  ‘non-­‐creative’     It  might  seem  at  first  that  detecting  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  is  more  than  straightforward  As  argued   above,  the  comparison  term  for  creativity  is  often  high  performance  and  revolutionary  achievement   so,  through  this  prism,  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  seems  to  engulf  all  of  everyday  life  Think  for  instance   about  what  you  did  yesterday  Most  probably  you  spent  a  considerable  amount  of  time  doing   ‘normal’,  typical  activities  like  walking,  cooking,  cleaning,  greeting  other  people,  etc  These  types  of   mundane  activities  don’t  usually  end  up  being  novel,  original,  and  useful  (or  they  might  be  useful  but   certainly  not  very  original)  Going  back  to  the  school  example,  where  is  the  creativity  in  teaching  the   same  content  in  the  same  way  year  after  year  and  expecting  pupils  to  memorise  and  present  it  back   to  the  teacher?  Teaching  based  on  problem  solving  can  be  a  solution  but,  even  in  this  case,  the   ‘products’  of  learning  are  not  original  enough:  pupils  get  to  know  what  everybody  else  does  or   should  know       Of  course,  such  assumptions  are  being  contested  today  and  the  present  chapter  will   contribute  to  this  critique  It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  most  people  would  agree  with  the  fact  that   they  might  show  some  spontaneity  in  their  everyday  activity  (an  expression  of  ‘little-­‐c’  creativity;   Craft,  2001),  but  are  reluctant  to  consider  themselves  ‘creative’  in  a  more  substantial  sense  (Big-­‐C   creativity)  (see  Karwowski,  2009)  This,  of  course,  does  not  mean  they  see  themselves  as  lacking  all   creative  potential,  but  it  does  indicate  that  we  often  draw  a  (too)  sharp  line  between  ‘higher’  and   ‘lower’  creativity  And  this  despite  current  scholarship  arguing  that,  in  fact,  the  processes  specific  for   creative  thought  are  not  dependent  on  level  of  achievement  (Weisberg,  1993)  Both  geniuses  and   ‘average’  individuals,  when  creative,  associate  or  combine  ideas,  but  ‘non-­‐creative’  thought  relies   more  on  stereotypical  associations  and  algorithms  for  solving  problems  It  might  be  highly  effective   in  dealing  with  existing  obstacles  but  produces  nothing  new     What  makes  it  easy  to  spot  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  is  the  clarity,  but  also  rarity,  with  which  the   highly  creative  presents  itself  Some  of  the  first  studies  of  creativity  in  psychology  considered  the  life   and  work  of  recognised  creators  in  the  arts  and  sciences,  either  by  analysing  their  outcomes  or   conducting  psycho-­‐biographies  This  is  certainly  not  a  thing  of  the  past  and,  in  recent  decades,  some   of  the  best  known  books  in  the  field  focused  on  ‘exemplary  creators’  in  an  effort  to  uncover  their     characteristics  (see  for  example  Gardner,  1993;  Csikszentmihalyi,  1996)  There  are  several  direct   benefits  associated  with  exploring  in  detail  the  activity  of  recognised  creators  To  begin  with,  it  helps   us  solve  the  criterion  problem  as  nobody  would  doubt  these  individual  are  or  were  in  fact  creative   Second,  this  study  of  high-­‐level  creativity  can  perhaps  tell  us  something  central  about  the   phenomenon,  it  might  reveal  the  ‘core’  of  what  it  means  to  create  Even  if  these  core  elements   might  not  be  available  to  everyone  (in  the  end,  we  do  have  only  one  Freud  or  Einstein),  at  least  we   will  be  able  to  understand  better  what  creativity  is  all  about  And  if  we  study  the  personality  or   cognition  of  these  creators  perhaps  we  can  build  general  profiles  for  different  domains  that  could   ultimately  be  used  as  diagnostic  tools  Of  course,  many  of  these  aims  remain  desirable  end-­‐points   and  need  more  research  to  materialise  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  also  serve  to  show  us  clearly   what  socially  recognised  creativity  is  and  place  it  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  ‘non-­‐creative’       How  is  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  identified  though  in  the  case  of  lower-­‐level  creative  achievement?   Today,  the  notion  of  creativity  has  been  ‘democratised’  (Bilton,  2007)  but  how  exactly  is  this  more   ‘mundane’  creativity  detected?  Let’s  take  the  case  of  creativity  tests,  most  of  which  are  considered   to  evaluate  creative  potential  rather  than  actual  achievement  One  very  well-­‐known  set  of  measures   are  the  Torrance  Tests  of  Creative  Thinking  (TTCT;  see  Torrance,  1966),  widely  applied  in  schools  but   also  work  contexts  around  the  globe  Based  on  a  definition  of  creativity  as  divergent  thinking,  they   invite  respondents  to  generate  as  many  creative  ideas  as  they  can  in  response  to  verbal  or  non-­‐ verbal  stimuli  The  results  are  scored  typically  for  fluency  (number  of  ideas),  flexibility  (number  of   different  categories  of  ideas),  originality  (rarity  of  ideas),  and  elaboration  (how  developed  the  ideas   are)  Let  us  focus  on  the  criterion  of  originality,  central  for  current  definitions  of  creativity  What  is   an  original  /  creative  idea?  One  that  was  not  formulated  by  many  others  when  answering  the  test   Conversely,  a  ‘non-­‐creative’  idea  is  a  common  one  and  examples  of  such  widespread  ideas  are  listed   in  the  TTCT  manual  Being  ‘non-­‐creative’  is  thus  described  by  being    similar  or  identical  to  others,  their  thinking  and  action  In  general,  creativity   researchers  would  agree  that  people  are  not  (or  are  less)  creative  when  they  reproduce  what  others   are  doing,  even  when  they  reproduce  what  they  themselves  did  in  the  past  But  such  an  assumption   is  deeply  problematic  as  human  life,  at  both  the  level  of  the  individual  and  society,  is  marked  by   regularity  and  often  drives  people  towards  ‘sameness’  Once  more,  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  appears  as  the   rule  rather  than  the  exception  of  our  existence          Revising  the  ‘non-­‐creative’:  The  contribution  of  cultural  psychology       As  described  before,  my  aim  here  is  to  reverse  this  relationship  between  the  creative  and  the  ‘non-­‐ creative’  and  ‘democratise’  creativity  even  further  through  a  thorough  ‘socialisation’  of  the  concept   (see  also  Vygotsky,  1991)  In  order  to  reveal  the  intrinsic  creativity  of  our  action  and  experience  in   and  of  the  world  we  need  however  new  theoretical  lenses,  different  from  the  usual  cognitive  and   psychometric  ones  that  define  much  of  today’s  psychology  of  creativity     Cultural  psychology  is  a  discipline  that  is  primarily  concerned  with  emergence  and   developmental  phenomena  (Valsiner,  2007)  Although  not  many  cultural  psychologists  discuss   creativity  per  se  (mostly  due  to  its  individualistic  overtones ),  they  are  concerned  with  knowledge   construction  and  meaning-­‐making,  improvisation  and  action,  imagination  and  everyday  life  From   this  perspective,  creativity  is  not  a  mental,  individual  process  but    a  quality  of  human  action  that  captures  its  flexibility,  intersubjective  nature,  and   value  for  both  self  and  others  This  is  also  the  pragmatist  position  (see  Joas,  1996)  that  considers   how  acting  is  always  situated  and,  as  such,  responsive  to  constant  changes  in  the  environment  As   the  most  basic  level  we  can  understand  creativity  as  our  capacity  to  live,  adapt,  and  grow  within  a   world  that  is  constantly  in  motion,  marked  by  the  passing  of  irreversible  time  Acting  in  and  on  this   world  and  creating  meaning  about  it  necessarily  has  to  take  into  account    sociality  (self  –  other  relations),     materiality  (sign  –  object  relations)  and    temporality  (the   relation  between  past,  present,  and  future)  (see  also  Glaveanu,  2014)  These  are  all  captured  by  a   basic  cultural  psychological  framework  presented  in  Figure  1:         Figure  1  Creatogenetic  differences,  a  cultural  psychological  model  (from  Glaveanu  &  Gillespie,  2014)         The  model  above  highlights  three  important  ‘differences’  in  the  genesis  of  creativity  (for   details  see  Glaveanu  &  Gillespie,  2014)  In  essence,  what  this  perspective  argues  is  that  without   these  differences  there  would  be  no  (possibility  for)  creative  expression,  although  they  are  necessary   but  not  sufficient  conditions  for  creative  acts  to  occur  Creativity  becomes  impossible  in  a  world   where  the  self  is  not  differentiated  from  others,  where  signs  and  objects  have  a  one-­‐to-­‐one   relationship,  and  there  are  no  temporal  changes  One  might  object  that,  in  such  a  world,  it  would  be   impossible  for  psychological  life  to  develop  more  broadly,  and  this  cannot  be  contested  However,   there  is  something  particularly  important  about  creativity  in  relation  to  these  three  types  of   ‘difference’  Werner  and  Kaplan  (1963)  proposed  a  similar  model  to  theorise  symbol  formation  and,   indeed,  there  is  a  close  connection,  from  a  cultural  psychological  perspective,  between  the    symbolic  function  and  creativity  The  capacity  to   acquire,  generate  and  use  /  transform  symbols  is  at  the  core  of  creative  expression  as  it  involves  the   action  of  the  self,  always  in  relation  with  others,  within  the  context  of  the  material  world  and  its   inherent  temporal  flow  Following  Winnicott  (1971),  we  can  see  how  the  emergence  of  the  first   symbols  used  by  the  child,  opening  up  what  he  called  the  third  or  potential  space  of  existence,   represents  the  first  manifestation  of  both  creativity  and  culture  After  the  quadratic  universe  of  self,   other,  object,  sign  comes  into  existence  it  continues  to  ‘expand’  in  order  for  the  person  to  both   accumulate  from  and  add  to  the  cultural  life  of  his/her  community       What  exactly  is  the  movement  specific  for  creativity  within  the  socio-­‐material-­‐temporal   world?  Most  would  believe,  based  on  existing  conceptions  and  definitions,  that  to  demonstrate  this   quality  one  should  try  to    increase  the  ‘distance’  between   self  and  other  (by  generating  perspectives  that  are  not  easy  to  reconcile),  sign  and  object  (by   violating  conventions  about  their  relationship),  and  between  past,  present,  and  future  (by  breaking   with  what  already  exists  and  being  oriented  towards  the  ‘not-­‐yet  there’)  This  is,  for  instance,  one  of   the  essential  features  of  artistic  expression  Successful  artists  often  defy  the  expectations  of  their   audience,  re-­‐create  meaning  about  the  objects  they  work  on,  and,  when  part  of  the  avant-­‐garde,   challenge  the  ‘past’  and  its  institutionalised  forms  Conversely,  it  might  be  assumed  that  the  contrary   move  of    bridging  the  ‘gaps’  inscribed  within  the  three   axes  of  Figure  1  will  result  in  non  or  less  creative  action  For  instance,  the  attempt  to  make  the  views   of  self  and  other  more  uniform,  to  stabilise  the  meaning  of  objects,  to  generate  a  solid  continuity   between  present  and  past  Where  is  the  creativity  in  this  case?     Specific  for  a  cultural  psychology  approach  is  the  fact  that  it  recognises  the  creative  value  of   actions  that,  otherwise,  seem  uncreative  Let’s  take  the  very  mundane  example  of  writing  a  report   for  work,  describing  in  detail  what  has  been  discussed  during  a  certain  meeting  Surely  there  are  few     less  exciting  tasks  than  this  one  and  many  would  quickly  catalogue  such  an  activity  as  mindless,   routine,  fundamentally  ‘non-­‐creative’  And  yet,  let  us  consider  it  from  the  socio-­‐material-­‐temporal   perspective  developed  here  What  is  essential  in  this  activity  is  the  person’s  effort  to  ‘transcribe’,  in   the  most  accurate  manner,  what  had  happened  during  the  meeting  As  such,  the  person  needs,   based  on  notes  and  memory,  to  produce  a  report  that  will  be  scrutinised  by  others  in  light  of  their   own  notes,  memories,  and  interests  Negotiating  differences  in  perspective  and  coming  to  an   agreement  often  takes  place  in  a  more  or  less  explicit  manner  Second,  the  person  in  question  needs   to  find  the  best  semiotic  means  to  describe  the  world  From  the  choice  of  words  to  organising  the   narrative  thread,  these  are  potentially  challenging  tasks,  especially  for  a  novice  In  essence,  the  signs   and  symbols  used  will  strive  to  capture  reality  but  there  can  never  be  a  perfect  alignment  between   world  and  its  re-­‐presentation  Finally,  as  time  passes,  self,  others  and  objects  change,  the  entire   context  of  writing  the  report  changes  and  its  author  will  have  to  take  this  into  account  (e.g.,  it  would   be  useless  to  finish  this  task  if,  meanwhile,  the  company  goes  bankrupt!)  What  this  example  wanted   to  argue  is  the  fact  that  creativity  is  intrinsic  to  cases  in  which  nothing  ‘new’  is  seemingly  generated:   the  effort  to  reproduce  what  exists  is  never  a  duplicate  but  a    re-­‐creation  (Ingold  &  Hallam,  2007)        Is  there  room  for  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  in  cultural  psychology?     One  immediate  question  for  cultural  psychologists  who  use  a  framework  similar  to  the  one  discussed   in  the  previous  section  is:  what  exactly  is  the  ‘non-­‐creative’?  Is  every  form  of  human  expression   creative  and,  if  so,  doesn’t  this  make  the  concept  useless?  In  other  words,  what  are  the  ‘limits’  of   creativity?  (for  similar  concerns  see  Negus  &  Pickering,  2004)  In  answering  this  important  question   we  need  to  make  a  distinction,  similar  to  the  one  made  in  the  psychology  of  creativity  between   potential  and  manifestation  Saying  that  creativity  is  an  ever-­‐present    potential  in  the  case  of  human  action  doesn’t  mean  that  each  and  every  act  will   make  use  of  this  potential  or,  at  least,  make  full  use  of  it  Going  back  also  to  the  idea  of  a  ‘creativity   continuum’  we  can  see  how,  in  some  instances,  our  actions  considerably  diverge  from  what  seemed   to  be  their  ‘normal’  path  and  transform  both  person  and  environment  But,  as  argued  above,  even   those  actions  that  follow  a  well-­‐rehearsed  script  cannot  be  denied  any  creativity  It  is,  in  these  latter   cases,  the  creativity  required  to  adapt  to  ever-­‐changing  contexts  marked  by  the  passing  of  time   What  is  essential  for  the  cultural  psychology  approach  though  is  the  fact  that,  instead  of  operating   with  an  easy  distinction  between  Big-­‐C  and  little-­‐c,  between  the  ‘high’  and  the  ‘lower’  level,  it   recognises  the  emergence  of  any  creative  act  within  the  framework  of  self  –  other,  sign  –  object,     past  –  present  –  past  depicted  in  Figure  1  In  this  sense,  both  visibly  creative  acts  and  more  habitual   forms  of  creative  expression  (see  Glaveanu,  2012)  emerge  out  of  a  common  ground  of  social,   symbolic  and  material  relations,  all  organised  within  irreversible  time  (Valsiner,  2007)             And  yet  if,  as  previously  argued,  both  actions  aimed  at    expanding  and    reducing  the  differences  inscribed   into  the  three  ‘axes’  should  be  considered  creative,  what  exactly  is  the  ‘non-­‐creative’?  A  short   answer  is  that,  within  the  logic  of  the  model  presented  here,  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  emerges  from  an  act   of    denying  the  difference  instead  of  acting  on  it   This  negation  of  difference  does  not  translate  into  identification  as  the  opposite  of  creativity  since,   indeed,  every  creative  act  relies  as  much  on  identity,  repetition  and  stability  as  it  does  on   differentiation,  change  and  transformation  We  can  think  here  about  the  role  played  by  what  seem   to  be  very  ‘stable’  features  of  reality  in  the  creative  process,  for  example  language,  habits  and   traditions  However,  the  acts  of  identification  that  give  substance  to  the  self  and  allow  us  to  think   using  stable  concepts  recognise,  assume  and  manage  difference  (think  about  identity  formation  as  a   simultaneously  personal  and  social  process)  Equally,  the  mere  existence  and  recognition  of   difference  simply  constitutes  the  premise  for  creativity  but  not  its  realisation  (something  that  raises   the  important  pragmatic  question  of    which   differences  actually  end  up  making  a  difference  in  creative  work  and  how)  It  is  precisely  when  the   positions  of  self  and  other,  sign  and  object,  past  and  future  are  made  to  ‘collapse’  that  we  are   effectively  denying  the  possibility  of  creative  action  But,  is  such  a  denial  ever  possible?     Let’s  take  the  example  of  self  –  other  differences  of  position  and  perspective  This   fundamental  distinction  between  the  ‘me’  and  the  ‘not-­‐me’  is  achieved  early  on  in  development   through  what  Piaget  referred  to  as  decentration  (Piaget,  1954)  Following  the  Piagetian  logic,  such   developmental  achievements  can  never  be  reversed,  at  least  not  under  normal  circumstances   However,  people  find  other  ways  of  denying  this  differentiation  and,  in  essence,  imposing  their  view   of  reality  on  others  (sometimes  they  are  too  centered  on  their  own  perspective  to  notice  that  such   difference  even  exists!)  In  this  sense,  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  materialises  in  those  relations  of  power  that   effectively  ‘cancel’  the  other  and  his/her  alternative  position  or  perspective  Interestingly,  there  has   been  research  conducted  regarding  the  relationship  between  creativity  and  the  ‘totalitarian   mindset’  In  the  words  of  Montuori  (2005,  p  20),  “this  mindset  manifests  in  a  specific  way  of   thinking  and  discourse,  focusing  on  the  elimination  of  ambiguity,  complexity,  and  difference”  and  is,   therefore,  the  antithesis  of  pluralism  and  creativity  When  placing  totalitarianism  within  inter-­‐ personal  relations  we  can  notice  how,  at  times,  we  are  unable  to  entertain  even  the  possibility  of   difference  in  relation  to  a  certain  course  of  action  Such  reactions  define  the  ‘non-­‐creative’       With  reference  to  the  sign  –  object  relation,  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  is  distinguished  by  applying   fixed  meanings  that  lead  to  automatic  action  The  creativity  of  semiosis  resides  in  the  fact  that  our   contact  with  the  material  and  social  world  is  multiply  and  flexibly  mediated  by  signs  and  symbols  An   object  might  be  called  differently  in  different  circumstances  (think  for  instance  about  literal  and   metaphorical  uses  of  the  word  ‘rose’)  just  as  the  same  sign  can  be  applied  to  a  multitude  of  objects   (and,  indeed,  any  category  of  objects  is  defined  itself  by  variability)  What  is  the  ‘non-­‐creative’?  In   line  with  Ricoeur’s  (1973)  thinking,  we  can  conceive  a  fully  formal  language,  in  which  there  is  only   one  symbol  representing  one  object,  as  an  ultimate  example  This  aspect  of  formalism  stands  in   contrast  to  the  dynamic  nature  and  productivity  of  ‘natural’  language,  in  Ricoeur’s  terms  The  latter   is  described  by  its  finitude  but,  simultaneously,  it  is  open  to  an  infinity  of  potential  (creative)  uses     Finally,  temporal  differences  can  also  be  ‘collapsed’  or,  rather,  unified  into  one  single  point   (which  is  not  the  same  as  the  ‘eternal’  present)  Human  creativity  relies  on  our  capacity  to  ‘travel’,   back  and  forth,  between  past  (even  a  historical  past  we  did  not  witness)  and  future  (again,  also  a   distant  future  long  after  we  are  gone)  These  imaginative  loops  (Zittoun  &  Cerchia,  2013;  Zittoun  &   de  Saint  Laurent,  2014)  open  new  perspectives  for  action  and  make  it,  at  once,  present  in  its   unfolding,  continuous  with  the  past,  and  oriented  towards  the  future  Our  capacity  to  experience   and  semiotically  construct  multiple  dimensions  in  parallel  to  the  constant  flow  of  irreversible  time   makes  human  beings  capable  of  escaping  the  ‘here  and  now’  of  existence  The  ‘non-­‐creative’,  in  this   case,  is  represented  precisely  by  being  incapable  of  escaping  a  here  and  now  that  becomes   ubiquitous  It  means  to  deny  development,  more  specifically,  to    close  developmental  paths  How  does  this  happen?  We  can  think  for  example  about   psychological  assessment  and  the  common  practice  of  attributing  scores  to  abilities  like  intelligence   and  creativity  itself  These  forms  of  evaluation  are  a-­‐temporal  since,  once  formulated,  they  ‘reflect’   the  person  at  time  X  but  not  necessarily  at  time  X+1  Moreover,  the  results  of  assessment  can  be   used  to  categorise  the  person,  to  place  him  or  her  within  a  certain  educational  or  professional  path   and,  concurrently,  irrevocably  close  potential  futures            Concluding  remarks  on  why  we  need  to  theorise  the  ‘non-­‐creative’     My  aim  in  this  chapter  was  to  address  the  question  ‘what  can  be  considered  non-­‐creative?’  I  have   shown  that  while,  from  both  a  scientific  /  psychological  and  lay  perspective,  the  answer  is  that  many   things  and  people  can  be  described  as  either  less  or  non-­‐creative,  a  cultural  psychological  approach   reverses  this  claim  If  our  existence  as  human  beings  in  a  social,  material,  and  temporal  world  is   described  by  plurality  of  perspectives,  flexible  semiotic  processes,  and  recursive  experience  of  time,     then  creativity  becomes  the  norm  and  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  the  exception  Any  one  of  our  acts  has  at   least  the  potential  to  be  creative  by  integrating  various  perspective,  re-­‐signifying  reality  and  being   oriented  towards  an  essentially  open  future  But  if  this  is  the  case,  are  we  to  do  away  with  the   category  of  the  ‘non-­‐creative’  altogether?  Does  it  become  useless  because,  if  so,  the  risk  is  that  its   ‘pair’,  the  notion  of  creativity,  might  be  equally  futile  as  a  scientific  and  lay  notion     Not  only  I  have  tried  above  to  identify  cases  in  which  we  can  legitimately  talk  about  ‘non-­‐ creative’  action  (or,  better  said,  tendencies,  in  action  and  attitude,  towards  the  ‘non-­‐creative’),  in   ways  that  ‘make  room’  for  it,  but  my  overarching  aim  was  to  show  that  creating  a  space  for  the  ‘non-­‐ creative’  in  the  cultural  psychology  of  creativity  is  a  theoretical  and  practical  necessity  Saving  the   ‘non-­‐creative’  from  its  dissolution  doesn’t  merely  preserve  the  notion  of  creativity  but,  as   conceptualised  here,  demonstrates  its  crucial  role  for  the  life  of  individuals  and  society  as  a  whole  If   totalitarianism,  formalism  and  assessment  are,  based  on  their  relation  to  difference,  instances  of  the   ‘non-­‐creative’  (among  others),  then  creativity  has  value  not  only  because  it  generates  novel  and   useful  outcomes  but  because  it    preserves  our  dignity   as  human  beings  and  contributes  to  healthy  psychological  living  (see  also  Winnicott,  1971)  To  exist   in  a  world  that  is 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?non- ­? ?creative? ??  from... ? ?for  instance  they  help ? ?the  individual  reach ? ?a  solution  others  already  know  And  there  are   creative  acts  that  leave  their  mark  on ? ?the  knowledge  of  large  groups; ? ?for. ..  of  creativity  What  is   an  original  / ? ?creative  idea?  One  that  was  not  formulated  by  many  others  when  answering ? ?the  test   Conversely, ? ?a  ? ?non- ­? ?creative? ??  idea  is ? ?a  common