NotitiesThe Emerging Goddess
Albert Rothenberg
Creativity is a complex process that involves the emergence of new ideas, often met with societal ambivalence due to its deviation from norms. While creators are celebrated for their contributions, they can also face neglect and criticism for challenging established values. The relationship between creativity and psychological health is historically viewed as intertwined, suggesting that creativity may carry elements of madness.
Creators, while they are engaged in the creative process, do not, and generally cannot, pay very much attention to keeping track of exactly what they think and do, or of the nature and origins of their thoughts and behavior. When they complete their work, moreover, they themselves are often awestruck by the immensity of their accomplishment and, standing back or introspecting, they too adopt the mythic view. In such cases, a view of the accomplishment as both inexplicable and arising virtually full-grown from an unknown or outside source seems somehow valid; such a view is at least more comfortable than fully bearing the otherwise weighty pride and responsibility. To understand creating scientifically, then, requires some means of viewing or figuratively photographing the goddess as she is emerging. (Location 135)
In the most literal dictionary definition sense, creating is merely "bringing something into being." As generally used, however, the term almost invariably has a connotation of positive value. "Bringing something into being" does not include a specification that the "something" be new, but we must also add this specification if we are to draw distinctions between creations and mere productions, manufactured or spontaneously generated. (Location 155)
The creative process, 2 as conceived and discussed here, consists of the series of thoughts, acts, and functions that results in a product with attributes of both newness and positive value. (Location 158)
Though creativity is a hallowed, honorific term, creative people are not always accepted and recognized. To some extent, the reasons for this are clear. Creative thinking deviates from ordinary modes and is sometimes at odds with standard rules and conventions. Creative people sometimes oppose and seriously criticize the dominant values of the society in which they live. Such deviance and confrontation can be so threatening as to preclude any social recognition of creative achievement. Even without direct confrontation and criticism, however, the appearance of anything moderately or radically new has, throughout all cultures and history, tended to produce an experience of discomfort and a pressure to resist it. A good deal of neglect has occurred. Mendel's work on genetics was not at all accepted until long after his death and Copernicus did not publish his work during his lifetime out of fear of serious reprisal and criticism. Galileo's travail, Mozart's, Rembrandt's, and Poe's ignominious deaths, arid past rejection of many great creators is well known today. (Location 221)
New theories, styles, or forms of behaviors should not be accepted merely because they are new. Routine and obsessive seeking for the new can be a way of denying the truly valuable. Merely seeking and accepting the new can be an avoidance of effort or thoughtful evaluation. As it then becomes fruitless, obsessively seeking the new can be an insidious way of maintaining the status quo. (Location 230)
Society and creative people tend to be ambivalent toward each other. On the one hand, society rewards creations with its highest honors and holds creators in awe and esteem. On the other hand, there is a tendency to suspiciousness and even fear because of the creator's deviance from rules and his emphasis on the new. (Location 233)
Note: Status quo
Related to this mutual ambivalence is an issue that constantly comes up in discussions about the psychology of the creative process, or of creativity: the relationship between creativity and psychological illness. Centuries ago, the Roman savant, Seneca, insisted that "the mind . . . cannot attain anything lofty so long as it is sane," and he referred, both to Plato's connecting poetry with madness and quoted Aristotle—from an unknown source—as saying, "no great genius was without a mixture of insanity." 5 (Location 240)