Culture and Creativity
After all that has been said, it is obvious that culture and creativity are inseparable. Surprisingly, the interrelations between culture and creativity are not that clear (beyond this book). This can be seen by looking at many dictionary definitions of culture, such as these taken from the OneLook (www.onelook.com), which, in turn, takes entries from a great deal of other dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Cambridge International Dictionary of English, and others: Quick definitions (culture):
- noun: the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group
- noun: the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization (e.g., the developing drug culture)
- noun: a particular society at a particular time and place
- noun: all the knowledge and values shared by a society
- noun: a highly developed state of perfection; having a flawless or impeccable qualit
All the above definitions of culture lack a most notable point—its development. Development is necessarily “part and parcel” of the very idea of culture and, thus, must be reflected in its definition. For example, “culture is the development of the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group” or “culture is the development of the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization” or “culture is the development of a particular society at a particular time and place,” and so forth. In other words, all of the stated above definitions are related to the current subject at hand (the culture of humankind) in the sense that they were born within culture and continue to give birth to other forms of culture. If we disregard the continuous process of development as an aspect of culture’s nature, all that will remain will be nothing more than complex forms of behavior. Culture and creativity are interrelated
