IF we want to make a more creative society, we could do worse than copy the example of Elizabethan England and London in particular.
The city of Shakespeare and Marlowe was densely urban, rewarded innovation, welcomed travellers and trade and, most importantly, was more literate than other European centres.
Add to the mix such high-achievers as Walter Raleigh, John Milton, John Donne, Edmund Spenser and Francis Bacon -- and overlook the poverty, bear-baiting, plague and other infelicities of the era -- and 16th-century London starts to look like a case of what statistician David Banks called "excess genius".The city of Shakespeare and Marlowe was densely urban, rewarded innovation, welcomed travellers and trade and, most importantly, was more literate than other European centres.
Or, in words that today's policy-makers would recognise, London was home to a creative class, a network of innovation and cultural industries.
US writer Jonah Lehrer considers the London case in his new book Imagine: The Science of Creativity. Shakespeare is a reminder, he writes, that creativity is largely determined by the culture that produces it. "When you look at these ages of excess genius through history, you see some recurring patterns, and the most important pattern is expansion in education," Lehrer says on the phone from Los Angeles.
"Shakespeare's father was a glover, signed his name with a mark, was probably illiterate.
Shakespeare was given lessons in Latin at the age of eight, and that's because of education reforms. There was a vast expansion in the pool of human capital."
A double-major in neuroscience and French literature, and a Rhodes scholar, he has written three books (his first, published in 2007, was Proust was a Neuroscientist) and contributes to such publications as Seed, Wired, The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal.
Like authors Malcolm Gladwell and Oliver Sacks, Lehrer is interested in the science that can help explain ordinary, or extraordinary, human experience.
In Imagine, he argues that while we cannot all be artists of the magnitude of Shakespeare, Picasso or Bob Dylan, everyone has the mental power of creativity: it's the way our brains are made.
Lehrer is no musician -- "I'm so bad at it, it seems like an otherworldly talent" -- but watching and listening to recordings of Dylan, John Coltrane and Miles Davis was his gateway to trying to understand creativity.
In Imagine, he describes the fatigue and creative block that Dylan experienced during his 1965 tour, and his intention to get away from the music business.
The singer left New York and headed to a cabin in Woodstock, not even taking his guitar. The mental impasse, Lehrer writes, was the necessary precursor to a creative breakthrough.
Within days, Dylan began the outpouring of lyrics -- "this long piece of vomit, 20 pages long", as Dylan described it -- that would become Like a Rolling Stone. The next week he was in the recording studio, cutting one of the most influential singles of all time.
Lehrer links Dylan's surprising rhymes and free-associative verse with the right side of the brain: specifically, an area called the anterior superior temporal gyrus. This is where insights, epiphanies and "a-ha!" moments happen. It helps us understand jokes and poetic metaphors by linking seemingly unrelated ideas.
But the aSTG (sic) is only one part of the creative nerve centre.
The prefrontal cortex is the "executive" part of the brain responsible for decision-making: it's where ideas are honed. Lehrer uses the example of W.H. Auden tapping into his prefrontal cortex -- admittedly under the influence of Benzedrine -- as he reworks poetry.
Dylan's free-associative technique is known as divergent thinking, while Auden's highly focused method is convergent.
Or, to put it another way, Dylan represents the euphoric Dionysian impulse and Auden the enlightened Apollonian. Classicists and students of philosophy will recognise the distinction from Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.
"What interests me is when the neuroscience aligns with these anecdotes, these philosophical theories: that to me is when the science is most convincing, when it aligns with things we intuitively understand," Lehrer says.
Drawing on scientific studies, Lehrer tests some myths and theories about creativity. For example: do better ideas happen among teams of long-term collaborators or groups of relative strangers?
One study that analysed the teams that worked on classic Broadway musicals came up with a Q score: a measure of connectedness between people.
The most creative teams had a mid-range Q score, indicating a mixture of old and new talent.
Is criticism constructive or destructive to creativity?
Lehrer describes the bracing assessments that went on at Pixar, when Steve Jobs was chief executive, during the making of Toy Story 2.
Constructive criticism leads to better ideas because it helps eliminate bad ones, Lehrer writes. Brainstorming is a more enjoyable way of generating ideas but, because criticism is forbidden, it is also less effective.
Lehrer's chapters on the conditions necessary for creative societies will interest city planners and policy-makers, not least those in Canberra drafting the national cultural policy. Arts Minister Simon Crean says he wants to "join the dots" between traditional art forms, creative industries and such policy areas as education, regional development and the National Broadband Network.
The best model of a creative society is the city: places where people and ideas continually bump up against each other, Lehrer says.
"Yes, this research has direct application to cities, but it should also make planners and mayors a little bit modest," he adds.
"One of the things that makes cities so successful is that they are inherently unruly.
"That's one of the differences between cities and companies. Cities live forever: as cities get bigger, people become more productive. In companies, the opposite happens: as companies get bigger, people become less productive. That seems to be why cities never die and companies always die: companies have a very short lifespan."
The one constant in creative societies is the level of education.
"This is something you see again and again throughout history: when we figure out new ways to discover talent in parts of the population that were previously neglected, you get these flourishings," he says. "If you're a policy-maker, I'd focus on that before anything else. At least in the States, we're leaving so many people out there, so much talent which never has a chance to develop."
Lehrer, who recently has become a father for the first time -- he and his wife, Sarah, have a daughter, Rose -- believes that everyone has creative ability.
The difference between mere mortals and creative giants such as Shakespeare and Mozart, he says, is one of "degree and not kind".
Gifted people work hard to develop a talent -- whether it be writing drama or opera -- and intuitively understand how to think creatively.
"Part of developing a talent is also realising what one can do with it, realising your inherent limitations," Lehrer says.
"People are naturally drawn to stuff that they're good at. We've got a natural sense of how we're learning and progressing. If people are telling you you're great at the piano when actually you're pretty mediocre, then you're being set up for disappointment. But I think people intuitively have a sense of what we're cut out for."
Imagine: The Science of Creativity by Jonah Lehrer is published by Text, $32.95.
From The Australian
NB. I would recommend watching “Anonymous”.
Not going to spoil it for you!
Related:
Shakespeare’s World Revealed In 400-year-old Handwriting
Bob Dylan Releases A Night They Called It A Day Video
'American Pie' Lyrics Sell For $1.2 million In New York
Bob Dylan Named Greatest Songwriter Ahead Of Lennon and McCartney According To Rolling Stone
Shakespeare First Folio found on Scottish Isle of Bute
The Book Of Kells: A Medieval Treasure
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Press Pass for the Spanish Civil War Found
