A Community Vision: Principles of Creativity

Our vision of America will certainly reflect the value of “creativity.” The First of May seems like an appropriate time to explore some basic principles of creativity. Historically our young culture has been characterized by its capacity to ask the “why” and “how” questions. As soon as a culture grows satisfied with its present or years only for consumption, the creative edge becomes dull.

Fortunately, there are efforts in many communities to awaken the creative spirit. One such effort is the subject of this submission. The possibilities for a revitalized America are alive and well and will embody these kinds of creative efforts.

Every community needs a core of creative persons from all endeavors to increase the pool of its most important resource, ideas and positive energy. Tampa Bay in Florida has such a group, and the following is from their web site: http://www.creativetampabay.com/index.php:

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Creativity is fundamental to being human and is a critical resource to individual, community and economic life. Creative communities are vibrant, humanizing places, nurturing personal growth, sparking cultural and technological breakthroughs, producing jobs and wealth, and accepting a variety of life styles and culture.

CreativeTampaBay is committed to the growth, prosperity and excellence of communities, and all who live and work there.

We believe in the vision and the opportunities of a future driven by the power of ideas. Ideas are the growth engines of tomorrow, so the nurturing of the communities where ideas can flourish is the key to success. Ideas take root where creativity is cultivated and creativity thrives where communities are committed to ideas.

Creativity resides in everyone, everywhere, so building a community of ideas means empowering all people with the ability to express and use the genius of their own creativity and bring it to bear as responsible citizens.

These principles are our call to action.

PRINCIPLES:

1. Cultivate and reward creativity. Everyone is part of the value chain of creativity. Creativity can happen at anytime, anywhere, and it’s happening in our communities right now. Pay attention.

2. Invest in the infrastructure that fosters creativity. That includes arts and culture, nightlife, the music scene, restaurants, artists and designers, innovators, entrepreneurs, affordable spaces, lively neighborhoods, spirituality, education, density, public spaces and third places.

3. Embrace diversity. It gives birth to creativity, innovation and positive economic impact. People of different backgrounds and experiences contribute a diversity of ideas, expressions, talents and perspectives that enrich communities. This is how ideas flourish and build vital communities.

4. Support the connectors. Collaborate to compete in a new way to get everyone in the game.

5. Value risk-taking. Convert a “no” climate into a “yes” climate. Invest in opportunity-making, not just problem-solving. Tap into the creative talent, technology and energy in our communities. Challenge conventional wisdom.

6. Be authentic. Identify the value you add and focus on those assets where you can be unique. Dare to be different, not simply the look-alike of another community. Resist monoculture and homogeneity.

7. Invest in and build on quality of place. While inherited features such as history, climate, natural resources and population are important, other critical features such as arts and culture, open and green spaces, vibrant downtowns and centers of learning can be built and strengthened.

8. Remove barriers to creativity, such as mediocrity. Those carriers include intolerance, disconnectedness, sprawl, poverty, bad schools, exclusivity and social and environmental degradation.

9. Take personal responsibility for change in your community. Improvise. Make things happen. Development is a “do-it-yourself” enterprise.

10. Honor the creativity in every person. High quality, lifelong education is critical to developing and retaining creative individuals as a resource for communities.

We accept the responsibility to be the stewards of creativity in our communities. We understand the ideas and principles in this document and will adapt them to reflect our communities’ unique needs and assets. We commit to ourselves and each other that we will go back to our communities and infuse these ideas in our personal lives, social lives, work lives, neighborhoods, homes, organizations and habits and share the accomplishments with each other so that we all can move forward and succeed together in a more creative Tampa Bay.

Perhaps their work and spirit can encourage others around the country to develop their own version of the “principles of creativity.”

Toward A Vision Borne of Optimism

We have squandered our moral capital. We were once a beacon of freedom and hope; now we are too often a power to fear, a focus of hate. Our hubris, our distain for the views and interests of others exhibits a most unbecoming arrogance. We come across as bullies who use others and the natural order for our own small, petty and selfish perceived self interests. This must change. . We need a new vision, a vision borne of the optimism, a love for others, and a respect for difference, and a pervasive decency.

Hugh LaFollette, Cole Professor of Philosophy, University of
South Florida

Now that we have sketched out the geography of the American ideological map, one can see that while there is much that may divide us, there is “something” that also unites us as a nation. This “national spirit” may now be what can hold us together again as a nation and provide the foundation for a renewed vision of America.

A word of caution is in order. This effort is not a return to the post W.W. II exceptionalist view that America, unlike Europe, does not have deep differences that are reflected in our various regions. Yes, we did have a civil war; and between the two coasts is a great heartland, more rural and traditionally conservative than the more urban coastal regions. Those legacies will remain for many years. These regional differences must not be glossed or trivialized, for we need this diversity to forge a future for America.

But if a growing number of our current republicans and democrats believe that we need to do more than tinker with our institutions then mere reforms are not enough. There is a mounting consensus that the structures of our governing systems now inhibit participatory democracy and we have drifted into a deeper divide between those who govern and those who are governed. Various voices are beginning to call a new national discussion about a renewed vision for America. Perhaps through this discussion we can restore that phrase, “the public good,” that has all but disappeared from American political discussion and upon which our nation was founded.

One recurrent theme in our national psyche that might be a good place to start is with the feeling of “optimism” that has always been present (expressed in many different ways) since the bold writing of a constitution in 1776. Those root passions have never died and expressed themselves in reform movements from Jacksonianism to the New Deal and the Great Society. This root optimism believes that our democracy has the internal strength and wisdom to solve problems and that we do have some control over our destiny. Perhaps we still carry that Augustinian “city upon a hill” vision of the authors of the constitution, mixed with the spirit of the Enlightenment. This optimism argues that our democracy is “exceptional” in the belief that the purpose of our government is to protect the voices of the minority, for it is not always the majority that is right.

Of course, the irony of our current era is that this spirit of optimism has been given a new twist since the era of “Reagan optimism” in American politics. Our national spirit of optimism has been given an apocalyptic spin by religious fundamentalists and our foreign policy has been empowered by a “manifest destiny” to democratize the world, whether it wants it or not.

But is it really our historical spirit of optimism that leads our leaders to believe that we can “win” the war in Iraq, despite the evidence of civil war? Is it true “optimism” that leads us to think that we can use our military might to maintain and guard the “empire” despite the fact that we have not won a major conflict since the end of W.W. II? NO. We must distinguish national arrogance from the historic optimism that believed in the power of truth and goodness, not military might, to free persons from tyrannies and oppression, whether political, social or economic. It is that form of optimism that can perhaps form the foundation for a new vision of America.

Liberals and progressives will help develop the vision of a future in which America uses its wealth to respect cultural diversity while leading the developed nations in the agenda to end poverty and hunger (U.N. Millennium Goals). Conservatives and evangelicals* will help us reunite with our past, releasing new energy for the present and future.

The kind of future, empowered by this American optimism, will respect national sovereignties and build international alliances to protect the peace. America will assume new leadership in forging these alliances and lead the way on issues of the environment, human rights social and economic justice.

· Jimmy Carter, who describes himself as an “evangelical” makes the following important distinction between fundamentalists (who he believes represent a serious danger for America’s future) and evangelicals. He characterizes fundamentalism with the terms, “rigidity, domination, and exclusion.” More specifically, he finds that this new form of American political and religious fundamentalism, as expressions of an international phenomenon:

1. “Almost invariably, fundamentalist movements are led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.”

2. “Although fundamentalists usually believe that the past is better than the present, they retain certain self-beneficial aspects of both their historic religious beliefs and of the modern world.”

3. “Fundamentalists draw clear distinctions between themselves, as true believers, and others, convinced that they are right and that anyone who contradicts tem is ignorant and possibly evil.”

4. “Fundamentalists are militant in fighting against any challenge to their beliefs. They are often angry and sometimes resort to verbal and even physical abuse against those who interfere with their implementation of their agenda.”

5. “Fundamentalists tend to make their self-definition increasingly narrow and restricted, to isolate themselves, to demagogue emotional issues, and to view change, cooperation, negotiation, and other efforts to resolve differences as signs of weakness.”

(See Jimmy Carter, “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis,” Simon & Shuster, New York, 2006, p34f.)

Summary

Hugh LaFollette, a good friend and the Cole Professor of Ethics at the University of South Florida, summarized my somewhat rambling thoughts more succinctly, so it is the alpha and omega of this submission:

We have squandered our moral capital. We were once a beacon of freedom and hope; now we are too often a power to fear, a focus of hate. Our hubris, our distain for the views and interests of others exhibits a most unbecoming arrogance. We come across as bullies who use others and the natural order for our own small, petty and selfish perceived self interests. This must change. Reform won’t do. We need a new vision, a vision borne of the optimism, a love for others, and a respect for difference, and a pervasive decency.

Slicing Your Bread ?

“Sliced Bread” is a wonderful example of how we can begin building a vision for a new America based on non-partisan politics. If you don’t know about this site, here is an introduction: See http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/about/overview

Since Sliced Bread is a national call for fresh, common sense ideas - a call for ideas that will strengthen our economy and improve the day-to-day lives of working men and women and their families. It’s also a place where ordinary Americans and experts alike can discuss the important economic issues of our times.

Our goal: An America where the American Dream is alive and well in the new global economy of the 21st Century. Global competition and the fast-changing world of work create opportunities and challenges that require bold thinking from political leaders. Not only is Washington not delivering, but policies are made without talking to ordinary Americans — yet who is better equipped to offer common sense ideas?

Since Sliced Bread seeks ideas that are original and creative, have the best chance of practical success and would most effectively:. . . .

Between October 5 and December 5, 2005, ordinary Americans submitted more than 22,000 ideas to SinceSlicedBread.com—and launched an unprecedented national conversation about how to strengthen the economy and improve life for working men and women and their families.

Here (http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/finalists) are the 21 finalists that the judges announced at the beginning of the first round of voting, on January 9, 2006.

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On Easter Sunday, 2006, Robyn Blumner, columnist for the Saint Petersburg Times, offered her own list of four key issues: http://www.sptimes.com/2006/04/16/Columns/Some_simple_ways_to_b.shtml

- Education: I don't understand why the richest country in the world isn't producing the best-educated citizenry. By skimping on education, we are handicapping the future for our workers and nation.

There is no real trick to raising student achievement. It takes excellent teachers, a small student-teacher ratio, a vibrant and challenging curriculum and a lengthening of the school day and calendar. (How many of us still need the summers off to help bring in the crop?) Vocational education for those not college-bound should be universal.

We should substantially increase teacher pay while raising teacher qualifications. You want to teach physics in high school? Then you should hold at least a masters degree in the subject. But then your pay should be commensurate with engineers'.

Schools should provide a place where children could be engaged all day long, from say 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with either academic or athletic pursuits. Then working parents wouldn't have to struggle to find after-school care. I'm not suggesting that the formal school day be that long, just that schools offer constructive supervision before and after class, giving working parents a valuable benefit and keeping kids engaged in broadening activities.

- Transportation: Our nation's fixation with the car has taken us all for a ride. We are dependent on unfriendly and undemocratic nations for our energy supply, we pollute the environment and warm the planet, we have paved over America's fruited plains and we waste our lives stuck in traffic.

Since a new rail system isn't practical, a better idea for today's reality is Rapid Bus Transit. Riding the bus can be made desirable by making it convenient, quick and comfortable. There should be a dedicated bus lane on all major roads. A new innovation gives bus drivers the ability to electronically hold green lights, allowing for an even smoother ride in congested cities and an express ride in from the suburbs. Beyond the energy and pollution savings, consider the thousands of dollars every year that a family could defray in insurance, gas, maintenance, parking and car payments by getting rid of one car. For more information go to www.gobrt.org.)

- Health care: Two words: single payer. The national health insurance programs in Canada, Japan and Britain might not be perfect models, but our system is irretrievably broken. Employer-based health insurance is failing. It is hurting the viability of the private sector, particularly what's left of our industrial base, and holding workers in jobs that no longer challenge them. Imagine the employment mobility and entrepreneurialism that would be unleashed if workers could leave their jobs without losing medical coverage. If much of the rest of the developed world can do it, why can't we?

- Retirement: Social Security's solvency can buy itself another 37 years, to the year 2079, by simply removing the wage cap. In 2006, Social Security taxes will be paid on wages up to $94,200. Eliminate the ceiling and the system's prospects become much brighter.

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Please share what is on your list!

Merle

The Democracy Project

The “Democracy Project” of the Society for Values in Higher Education is one significant example of the movement to rethink America’s basic values and seek a clearer vision for America. The following posting is designed to acquaint the reader with this important undertaking. You can receive more information about how you might participate by contacting the project’s director, Nancy Thomas at democracyproject@aol.com

About the Democracy Project *

Overview

Americans are discovering that discourse can be a persuasive tool and source of strategic power. There clearly is a national movement toward greater citizen engagement in the resolution of critical social problems, including those related to race, educational reform, environmental protection, community growth, and, more recently, homeland security in the post 9/11 era. A deliberative democracy engages citizens, encourages participation and collective action, and leads to meaningful, sustainable change.

The application of deliberative democracy in higher education has occurred simultaneously with the national movement to support democratic education, a movement that connects a number of educational goals: democracy building, globalization, civic education and engagement, diversity and intercultural learning, ethics, interdisciplinary studies, leadership programs, student activism, and others. As these conversations have begun to intersect, colleges and universities are turning to structured dialogue tools such as intergroup dialogue, study circles, national issues forums, and public conversations models. These tools have been incorporated in new classroom pedagogies (e.g., case method teaching, service learning, and other forms of interactive learning) as well as in decision making processes, thus creating a greater alignment between the values of liberal education and the experiences of students and faculty on campuses.

The Democracy Project began in 1999 as an exploratory initiative that examined models of deliberative democracy and higher education's capacity to engage those models. Working with pilot campuses and partner organizations that champion tested models - Study Circles Resource Center, National Issues Forums, Public Conversations Project, the Interaction Institute for Social Change, as well as SVHE's own "values audit" approach - we found that higher education can learn a lot from exemplars in public discourse and community action. WE now serve as a resource and advocate. We work with individual campuses and other national education associations.
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· http://www.svhe.org/node/11

For a draft copy of the “Wingspread Declaration on Religion and Public Life: Engaging Higher Education” (1/24/06) go to:

http://www.svhe.org/files/WingspreadDeclaration.pdf

Merle