Creativity: The flawed forge of tomorrows

Abstract

Creativity and novelty have been central to the foresight enterprise and the importance, of creativity, imagination, and novelty are a constant refrain in the futures and foresight literature. There is an emerging literature about the shadow or dark side of creativity. It might be wise to question our assumptions about the benefits of creativity. This article poses the question “what if creativity is a threat to human survival?” seen particularly through the lens of postnormal times analysis and theory. Issues addressed include:the accelerating nature of change itself, particularly driven by globalization and technology innovation, and the disruptive aspects of creativity, negative, and amoral creativity. The bridge between postnormal times analysis of creativity and foresight is the application of the Three Tomorrows scenario-building approach to explore the dark side creativity. Recommendations are made and questions posed to inform foresight work about creativity.