Creativity, we are told, is the key to problem-solving and success. But the concept has become an empty buzzword of the corporate world, glorifying rampant individualism. We need to reclaim creativity as a collective attribute of communities, not individuals, and look to people at the margins of society, not Silicon Valley executives, for new ideas on how to be creative, argues Oli Mould. 

One night in New York, I exited a Midtown bar with a friend, having just taken in a typical Broadway mega-musical. Before we had the chance to get our bearings, an unkempt man dressed in an ill-fitting bomber jacket and a New York Yankees beanie confronted us. Before I could formulate an excuse to leave, he broke into song. He had the most exquisite voice. It would not have sounded out of place in the show I had watched that night.

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The lyrics included a request for money. He was (or so he sang) only a few dollars short of the price of a Broadway musical course in which he was going to be top of the class. Of course, I obliged. Could my money help him turn his life around and enter the magical and creative world of Broadway? Would his name soon be inscribed in neon above the bustling Manhattan streets?

Here was a guy down on his luck, sleeping rough in the streets, but possessing a talent for song, comedy and salesmanship, hoping to be the next Broadway star. He was being very creative, wasn’t he?

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Creativity has become a neutral, vacuous and universally appealing buzzword for processes that for centuries have been shown to create unequal and unjust societies.

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The more I thought about it though, the answer I hit on was no. Talented? Absolutely. Creative? This man clearly had a gift, and he was using it in a way that many others with similar talent use it: he was selling it. This man, who found himself without a home at the hands of a society that has excluded him, was doing what he thought he must do in order to survive. He was using the talents he had just to scrape by, so he could perform again the following day, and every other day, over and over and over again. 

Creativity, as its evangelists will tell you is what we all need to excel in this world. A great new product, the answer to a stubborn problem, using old things in new efficient ways; human creativity is the fairy dust that will propel society towards liberty and progress.

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But dig a little deeper and what is it that we are actually being told to do? Business leaders are asking us to be more creative with lower wages and no safety net. They are proposing out-sourcing, freelancing and zero-hour contracts because they encourage flexible – and therefore a more creative – working life. Politicians tell social and public services that have had their funding slashed, to find alternative funds via creative means. But this rhetoric masks the usual tropes of the increased precarity of the workforce, austerity and the spread of commercialised activities. 

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Creativity needs to be redefined as a collective attribute that looks beyond inward, competitive and profit-generating practices toward a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous future.

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