EP 470: Rethinking Creativity—A Cautionary Tale

Good luck going anywhere today without running into a message about creativity.

I was going to say, "anywhere online," but really, it's just about anywhere. We get creative in the kitchen. Creative in our workouts. Creative in bed. And of course, creative at work. Creativity is somewhat of a "cult object," as Samuel Franklin put it in his cultural history of creativity.

Today, I want to get uncomfortably close to that cult object and ask, "What is our fascination with creativity hiding?" So join me as I venture onto the third rail of the 21st-century economy.

Footnotes:

• The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History by Samuel W. Franklin
• "The Surprising Origins of Our Obsession with Creativity" by Samuel W. Franklin in Behavioral Scientist
• "The Origins of Creativity" by Louis Menard (book review) in The New Yorker
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

Also in this series:

• Organizing Indie Labor with Chiarra Lohr of the Indie Sellers Guild
• Figuring Out the Creator Economy with Charlie Gilkey & Kate Tyson
• Building Solidarity in the Creator Economy with Charlie Gilkey & Kate Tyson

Find an essay version of this episode at whatworks.fyi

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I'm teaching a new workshop on May 15 & 16, 2024! It's called World-Building for Business Owners, and it's based on a process I've been honing for more than a decade. I'll help you apply creative, even playful thinking to your business strategy—and help you create an internally consistent business that causes fewer headaches, meets your needs more efficiently, plays to your strengths, and creates satisfying work.

Click here for all the details or go to explorewhatworks.com/world

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• (00:00) -
• (00:07) - Creativity is everywhere
• (02:04) - Introduction
• (03:14) - Samuel W. Franklin's Cult of Creativity
• (04:33) - A surprisingly recent history
• (06:17) - 4 reasons for the creativity explosion
• (09:48) - The idea of creativity cannot be separated from its political & economic valence
• (11:08) - Creative entanglements
• (12:00) - Meet, "the creative"
• (15:27) - Introducing "the creator"
• (17:15) - Creativity can still be source of radical power

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What is What Works?

Work is central to the human experience. It helps us shape our identities, care for those we love, and contribute to our communities. Work can be a source of power and a catalyst for change. Unfortunately, that's not how most of us experience work—even those who work for themselves. Our labor and creative spirit are used to enrich others and maintain the status quo. It's time for an intervention. What Works is a show about rethinking work, business, and leadership for the 21st-century economy. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.