Is it true?

I recently have faced several proposals that to become truely creative people we must hold up freedom of speech as the pinicle goal of democratic society.

But, creativity demands restriction. Creativity flourishes under oppression. Creativity is the intelligent response to a problem. In a world without problems how can creativity possibly exist. What is creativity anyway? Ken Robinson defines it as the ability to have original ideas that have value. This is a very useful definition as we can look at how we create value in an idea and how we produce original ideas.

As I have suggested original ideas are predicated by problems. If there was no need to solve problems, if there was no need to find new ways to express ourselves within the limits of our time our context our location and our human and other relations, there would be little creative activity beyond the asthetic production of things. But the production of various forms of art as only one very narrow part of the whole of creativity. I argue quite the opposite that creativity flourish best under circumstances of restriction, of oppression, suppression of free speech and the threat of these things.

Let's look at some of the great creative moments. During the Rennaissance there was barely a paltry freedom of speech. And yet that time produced great minds like DiVinci and Michalangelo. It was following the return of the King when freedom of speech was greatly curtailed in England that Milton wrote Paradice Lost, a work that through and through demonstrates a creative outlet for Milton's perhaps controversial political views. Even Christ, if we look at him as just a man who in history had some good advice about how to live, brought forth his ideas against a strongly oppressive regime. We could look to Mohammed too and see that his time no more encourage free thought or action, and yet he produced (transmitted?) a greatly creative work that looked at the problems of his contemporary world and sought to offer new and original solutions that have proved to be very valuable. Further let's look at the Manhattan project, a spectacular demostration of human creativity driven by the fear of forced changes in freedom of thought. If we didn't find away to end aggressions we would be engulfed by war and the possibility of colonization/annexation by various members of the "evil empires".

As I look into my own experience and think about some of my most creative moments it is when I have been somehow restricted, by time, by resource, by motivation, by expectation that I have produced some of my most creative work. Not just of art and writing, but I think in methods of learning material, in means of facing the challenges of school.

Freedom of speech must be valued and allowed, but not because it causes creativity. I think quite the opposite that restrictions and problems in the world cause creativity, a bi-product of which is the valuing of free speech.