Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 2. November 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094
Creativity and the Society
Let us start our argument with something less
intimidating than “creativity”. Maybe we should use the word “the creative
power”, because our society is afraid of it, and especially our young minds.
They feel that there is some sort of responsibility for them to be answerable
to society. Once a product of creativity is produced, they look at you with
narrow eyes. It is dangerous, offensive, and malicious. That is what our young
minds are made to believe. Hence, they take a step back. They read what others
have read, they follow the rules, they write what others have written, and believe
what the others believe.
One has all the right reasons to be afraid of
it. Because the history of creative minds is not a splendid one. One can never
forget how Joan of Arc was burnt alive in Rouen, France on May 30, 1941. Of all
the reasons that led to her capture by Duke of Burgundy’s men, one was
“cross-dressing”. The historian Helen Castor in her 2015 book Joan of
Arc: A History, says that the opening of the trial record noted: “The
report has now become well known in many places that this woman, utterly
disregarding what is honourable in the female sex, breaking the bounds of
modesty, and forgetting all female decency, has disgracefully put on the clothing
of the male sex, a striking and vile monstrosity. And what is more, her
presumption went so far that she dared to do, say and disseminate many things
beyond and contrary to the Catholic faith and injurious to the articles of its
orthodox belief” (Castor 2015). If one reads this quote carefully, one would
notice how society corners those who are creative. Most of the time they are
made the Other. Such a vast set of allegations against Joan of Arc was posed,
just for being creative. And by creativity, here I mean the quality and ability
of “cross-dressing”. Not many women in her time dared to do it. She was killed
at the end, but her name was written on the golden pages of history.
One is well aware of how the first translator
of Bible, William Tyndale was strangled and then burnt. And his creative
ability? He thought about translating the Bible and making it available to the
common people. He opened new doors of knowledge just by translating the Bible
from Greek and Hebrew to the language of the common people. One who reads the
example of Joan of Arc, or William Tyndale, becomes afraid of being creative or
wonders if the cost of creativity is death. But what creative people have given
to our society has far-reaching effects on mankind.
What is a better example of creativity than
books? They have the power to carry words and thought processes across
continents. But society has had its own way of resisting this form of
creativity too.
Book burning and banning are another of
society’s malicious censorship over one’s creative ability. In Areopagitica:
A Speech of Mr John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the
Parliament of England, Milton defends the liberty of the press. His essay
is an argument in favour of the freedom of expression and against the
censorship that society puts on creativity. In the essay titled “Books”, Milton
speaks in favour of books: “…for books are not absolutely dead things, but do
contain a potency of life in them to be as active as the soul whose progeny
they are;” (Milton 9). An example of society’s censorship over the written word
is the publishing of the book Angarey by a group of writers of
the Progressive Writers’ Association, India, 1932. The book created controversy
in the Muslim community and the British government. People were so agitated
that they burnt the copies in public, in some places of Aligarh and Lucknow.
Another example of creativity is “magic”. Let
us go back to the last of Shakespeare’s plays- The Tempest. One who has read
the play knows how Sycorax, the sorceress, was never given a voice in the play,
she was only given descriptions by other characters. She was othered in the
play, just for being creative. Maybe she was the most creative of all the
characters of The Tempest because she is known to have
allegedly built the island on which Prospero employs all the nymphs in his
service through his creative abilities because she is the one who gave birth to
Caliban, a creative creature against the rules that Prospero wants to teach
him. One can see how Caliban represents an Oriental’s response to the Colonial.
Thus, creativity gives rise to new themes and layers in the world.
Creativity and insanity, have also been very
close to each other in the history of our art and literature. One can never
forget how Virginia Woolf filled her overcoat pocket with rocks and walked into
the River Ouse, never to emerge again, or what Sylvia Plath did with her
microwave oven. One of the most famous paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, “The
Starry Night”, was painted in a mental asylum in 1889 France, where he lived
for over a year following a breakdown and the mutilation of his left ear.
Creativity, in some, disturbs their perception of the linear order of
things.
Creativity is like a foundation to all the
discoveries. While it brings new things into this world, it also makes old
things irrelevant. It disturbs the established social structures. Once a new
cultural form is invented, or something new in the same cultural form is
implemented, the resistance of the society follows. It takes a very long time
for a society to accept any kind of change. And creativity is the only way to
bring about developments and improvements not only in people’s lives but also
in their thought processes. The increasing representation of the LGBTQ
community in the Indian cinema, like the recent Netflix show Ajeeb Dastans, is
another example of a creative step in the direction of changing the thought
process of people who are still ignorant to such things.
All in all, creativity promotes new ways of
thinking, which can bring about radical changes in our beliefs and values. What
we are today is only because of the virtue of creativity inherent in human
beings. For some it is evil, but it is necessary. It breaks boundaries, only to
create new opportunities. It breaks rules, only to create new possibilities.
References:
Castor, Helen. Joan of Arc. Faber
& Faber, 2014.
Selected Essays: An Anthology of English Essays for Undergraduate
Students.
University of Lucknow, Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. 2014.