Dealing with creativity, but avoiding disciplinary metaphors: A response to Rubenson and Runco

Abstract

Creativity, be it in business, sciences, the arts or politics, means a deviation from customary behavior. Thus if one wants to explain why some people bet on a new idea and try to bring it to life-call it the “supply” of creativity, if you wish-and why others adopt them-call it the “demand” for creativity-one must be able to explain two things: -When are people more likely to deviate from customs and traditional ways of thinking and offer new ideas? -When is the rest of society more willing to abandon the beaten tracks, and be more open to accept such ideas, enabling them to come to life? Models of human behavior which do not address these two questions cannot say anything about creativity or innovations in any domain. For, the two words“creativity” and “innovations”+annot even be defined if the arguments make no reference both to a society’s customs and to its traditional ways of doing things, be they in technology, business or the arts, and to what is involved when people try to abandon them. If some people try to use essentially static models and vocabulary for discussing creativity, the results turn out to be nothing more than obscure linguistic exercises. It is not surprising that such articles about creativity make no reference to facts about creativity in any domain, and turn out to be mere play on words. Unfortunately, the article by Daniel Rubenson and Mark Runco belongs to this category.