Evolution Induced;

Singaporean Creativity and the Creation of Singapore

October 2003, Singapore

I find it quite interesting that at much the same time as concepts of “evolution” are proliferating in American Popular Culture, the Singaporean Government has meanwhile and on the other side of the world launched a campaign for increased “creativity” amongst its citizens.  Modernity and post modernity have in general seemed more than a little concerned with progress in its many forms – as certainly it now seems that life on earth is undergoing a series of changes at a highly accelerated rate.  The notion of human evolution arises quickly from a reflection on this rabid productivity of new forms and new ideas – and just as quickly this question of productivity brings to mind the notion of human creativity, and the role that it might play amidst all this change.  As I will demonstrate shortly, Singapore in particular seems to see a potential for a capitalization on creativity in as-yet unforeseen ways.  In examining this issue, I mean to show that Singapore’s Creativity Campaign, although perhaps of primarily economic motivation, nevertheless has tremendous evolutionary potential – both for the ongoing development of the modern day city-state, and for the global playing-field at large.

But before we proceed, a comprehensive account of Creativity is first in order.  The obvious popular conception of creativity as being the capacity to generate artistic works and innovative ideas is good and certainly accurate, but ultimately insufficient.  Creativity is in practice related to the action of creation, to the verb to create, and etymologically tied to the word creature, and subsequently of course connects to notions of God the Creator.  Creativity is deeply concerned with genesis of force and substance, with synthesis of constituent parts, and with organization of systems in new ways.  In treating this issue, Immanuel Kant drew a strict distinction between Types of Ideas.  Analytical Ideas were those which contained their own subject matter and as such were closed systems.  Synthetic ideas, by contrast, were ideas that pointed to something outside themselves, that were thus greater than the sum of their parts.  And it is of course with this notion of synthesis that Kant treats the issues of artistic genius and Aesthetics – describing creativity as a mysterious synthetic ordering of form into an aesthetic whole[1].

As it turns out, modern biological research sheds new light on the degree of Kant’s accuracy in the synthetic/analytic distinction.  It would seem that the human brain divides its functions in just this way across the right and left hemispheres respectively.  The left brain works by imposing conceptual frameworks, viewing the world by categories, and is generally described as being linear, analytic, temporal, and the primary hemisphere for the processing and production of language.  The right brain hemisphere, by contrast seems to work by association, through the synthesis, genesis, innovative leaps, and is generally described as being holistic, non-linear, a-temporal, and spatially oriented.  This distinction has been summed up rather nicely by Jerre Levy, who explains “The left brain hemisphere analyzes over time, whereas the right hemisphere synthesizes over space[2].”  Understood as such, the left-brain lends itself toward social institution and systematic functions, whereas the right-brain tends to transcend institutional constructs and make associative synthesis across categorical systems.  For this reason it is often concluded that creativity is primarily the domain of the right brain.   Creative process, thought often ordered through left-brain categories, first takes place as a right-brain activity.  As such, the activation of right brain processes has been called rather accurately the cultivation of creative consciousness.

If we take the definitions above as sufficient for our present purposes, it should be immediately clear that Institutionalized creativity is impossible.  Certainly, art academies may teach specific techniques for a certain craft – be it painting, writing, dance, or the like – but in such cases it still remains within the province of the individual artist to actually produce a creative work of merit.  Likewise, recent decades have seen several reputable creativity gurus[3] offer to their followers methods for increased creative capacity: meditations, exercises, techniques for switching brain-hemispheres and experiencing “creative consciousness”, inspirational words, etc… , but in all these cases it still remains for the individual to make use of these tools in developing their own synthetic process.  No one has managed to program a computer to think creatively, and the same holds true for human beings.  Acquisition and practice of creative consciousness remains a thoroughly individual affair, and as such it resists the nullifying and deterministic attempts at institutionalization.  A government might as well try to institutionalize Zen meditation in hopes of producing mass enlightenment.

However:  the institutionalized promotion of creativity is very possible, and in fact it is happening in Singapore right now.  The Singapore Ministry of Information Communication and the Arts (MITA) explicitly states as its mission, “A Creative and Connected Singapore[4]” – and in capital letters, no less!  Though it may be impossible to force a population to develop creative capacities, a more realistic project might be to suggest, coax, invite, and reward those who would undergo such a development of their own accord.  The ministry has encapsulated this coaxing process in the rhetoric of its web pages, which explicitly and repetitively states the glories of developed creativity.  The outcome of the campaign is at least on one level completely transparent:   “the Creative Cluster can benefit Singapore … [by] Augmenting the creative capacity of our people.”  This particular benefit is listed alongside a series of bullet-point promotional claims, including the creation of new jobs, the “differentiating products and services across all economic sectors,” and the enhancement of Singapore’s “creative buzz” and “international profile.”  It is not a stretch of the imagination to see that the development of a Creative Cluster, as well as the acquisition of creative abilities for the individual Singaporean, have become a kind of commodity – a product to be desired.  What is particularly amazing about this promotion is that the commodity in question cannot actually be consumed – quite the opposite really – for in consuming “the generation of creative capacities” the consumer is inevitably transformed into a producer of creative activities, creative consciousness, as well as economically lucrative creative ideas and creative artistic works.  This promotion of creative development would then seem to be an institutional instigation of a massive social transformation, or if you will, a collective evolution.  At the very least, this would seem to be the result in theory.

            The motivations for the production of an induced evolution are certainly not difficult to postulate, and in fact the Creativity Campaign is itself fairly transparent about the national benefits that would result from a large influx of creative energies into the social body

“For over four decades, Singapore has prospered through an investment-led economic strategy focused on traditional manufacturing and services industries. As we transit into an innovation-fuelled economy, the driving force in the next phase of our development will be the imaginative and creative capacity of our people. The new architects of the global economic landscape are those who apply their imagination, creativity and knowledge to generate new ideas and create new value. Multi-dimensional creativity - artistic creativity, business entrepreneurship and technological innovation - will be the new currency of success.”

The promotion is in fact so transparent that one would have a difficult time calling it “manipulative” or even “controlling” – if Singaporeans can collectively become more creative, the nation and the people will benefit.  In this sense, the call to creativity might very well be one of the most reasonable requests any government has ever made of its people. 

The immediate questions that arise over such an endeavor are twofold.  In the first place, we might ask if such a transformation is at all realistic, given the current systems of power, authority, and information regulation in contemporary Singapore.  And, if we do deem such a transformation realistic, we must then question the degree to which the government is prepared to manage the implications of a societal mutation on this scale.  In fact these two issues may not be so very separate, as it is more than likely that the realistic implications of a more creative Singapore contain, in no uncertain terms, a restructuring of traditional power and information systems.

The consequence of introducing creativity in particular into a functional system is that, by its very nature, it will inevitably try to alter the system.  I make this claim in regard to the phenomena of Human Creativity is particular, based on, if nothing else, the dependence of such activity on the instigation of right brain function, which by virtue of its own inhering structure is anti-systemic.  The right brain operates by lifting out of categorical cognitive structures and making spatial associations across conditioned and imprinted boundaries  In short, creativity is possible only by the periodic shedding of systemic structures, and as such no body, individual or societal, will be able to effectively utilize creative activity without the temporary relegation of all systems to a secondary function.  This finds expression in the fact that creative types have historically been both socially revered and privileged to certain excesses in behavior – mad genius, to put it crudely, has always been viewed as more of a benevolent mystery than an outright sickness[5].  Of, course, unmitigated right brain activity (i.e. lacking complementary left brain processes) would eventually lead to total chaos – but this need not be a necessary, or even likely, consequence of mass creative development, so long as the systemic functions undergo relegation rather than a complete nullification[6].  Even so, the consistent relegation of personal and social systems in the name of creative consciousness would inevitably have a destabilizing effect on the social fabric, as, I believe, the now primary right-brain would inevitably begin making attempts to revise inefficient or undesirable systems on a regular basis.  Hence, the “more creative Singapore” would invariably, and quickly, become a more created Singapore.

If the above assumption is correct – if the development of creativity on a massive scale is likely to result in unpredictable systemic revision – we may then conclude that this particular attempt at induced evolution has all the volatile quality of a genetic mutation.  And of course, genetic mutation is the one of the primary factors that drives the Darwinian[7] Evolutionary Theory – but I shall return to this particular subject shortly.

Assuming that the Singaporean Government has not undertaken the Creativity Campaign for the express purposes of producing chaotic mutations, it would be worthwhile to now explore the kind of reasoning that might in fact drive this particular project.

From the outwardly transparent rhetoric already citied, it would seem that the call for increased Singaporean creativity is a mobilization of sorts – specifically, a concentrated mobilization of national energies.  It is likewise no stretch of the imagination to posit the purpose of this mobilization: the international economic scene is rapidly changing, and Singapore now stands to lose its privileged position on the top of the mountain of newly developed economies.  With the recent and unprecedented economic booms of China and India, it has become clear that the international economic environment has changed, and thus, Singapore, like any healthy organism, must adapt in order to overcome these changes.  Historically, such mobilizations of social energies dealt almost exclusively with the gathering of military power – the mustering of force to do away with competitors has been the standard competitive operation of the human species.  Singapore, however, has from the beginning survived and flourished through the mobilization of human capital in a decidedly non-military sphere.  In the initial years of “development” following independence, the energies mobilized were primarily in the realm of human functionalism, which I will discuss shortly.  These previous attempts were aimed at building a highly organized and highly productive social body through an oscillating system of discipline and reward – and indeed it is from these efforts that the 20^th century popular image of Singapore as pristine and controlled were no doubt generated.  The government’s strategies during these years were obviously effective – a walk through City-Center alone will evidence this – but recent years have repeatedly demonstrated that these original nation building policies are insufficient to carry Singapore into the 21^st century as an economic world leader.  The emigration crisis alone, in tandem with the cry for “foreign talent,” tells the tale of a social body grown sick and weak under the weight of its own repressive measures of self control.

 With the international environment demanding adaptation, and a strict regime of governmental control already pushing the limits on human productivity, a new strategy for the mobilization of social energies is required.  The rather ingenious solution, it would seem, is to attempt to go directly to the socio-biological source and mobilize the generative capacities of the population directly.

This should immediately call to mind Marxist notions of modes of production -  though in fact the Singaporean situation is now exponentially more complicated than the class exploitation originally criticized under the Marxist system.  In the classical analysis of capitalist economy, labor power is controlled and exploited almost exclusively on the physical level.  Early industrial capitalism valued human capital as a source of physical energy and mechanical operation.  As Marx demonstrates, creativity was, under this early system, completely repressed in the worker, who was intended to keep to his simplified social function of mechanical labor.  In fact, this alienation of man from his own creative powers was one of the greatest outrages that Marx was able to attribute to the early capitalist system.

The present trend, however, seems to be just the opposite – creativity is now being encouraged by the state for the purpose of developing a more dynamic and able social body.  Local repression and traditional exploitation are done away with in the hopes of engendering an international elite -- the purpose of this newly empowered and generative body is specifically economic competition in the new global playing field of multi-national capitalism.  In the new global context, the value of a nation’s human capital potentially expands far beyond crude abilities to perform mechanical and bureaucratic functions – i.e. the mere running of the social machinery.   The Repressed energies of the worker now have much more optimal potentialities.  Instead, as each individual has thus-far unmeasured potentiality for creative genesis, the proper use of human capital in a multi-national capitalist economy is to uncap the repressive measures and channel the resulting upsurge of libidinal, intellectual, and creative energies into the Evolutionary progress of the nation itself.  From the classical perspective, “class struggle” as Marx understood it is now being supplanted by the meta-struggle of competing international economies, and the subsequent new need for highly developed social bodies with dynamic constituents.  As such, the Singaporean Government is now becoming less concerned with controlling its people, and more concerned with enabling them to develop their nation-enhancing strengths.  Hence, coinciding promotional campaigns for “a kinder, gentler Singapore” and “a more creative Singapore” respectively.  Like an individual being heretofore  preoccupied with self-discipline, Singapore is perhaps now realizing that the cells of the body don’t need to be controlled to fulfill their natural function – and in fact good health, relaxation, and prosperity for all will be the treatments which take the total organism the furthest.

However, in discussing the mobilization of Singapore’s generative capacities, it must not escape our attention the specific use of the term “creativity,” as opposed to “productivity” or “achievement” or “efficiency” or the like.  All of these latter terms do connote a generative capacity, a sense of growth and development – in short, a highly functional result.  We should then distinguish here between an understanding of creativity as being fundamentally synthetic and open-ended, and the opposing concept of the mathematical function, which is inherently analytic and self-contained.  Now, a highly functional society, one that is economically productive, achievement-oriented, and efficient, is certainly one which has made good use of its own generative resources.  This is not, however, the rhetorical slant of the new Creativity Campaign.  Far from it - in fact, a campaign for Singaporean functionalism would be old news!  Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore has an international reputation as a socially-engineered Disciplinarian Utopia.  Insofar as the city-state could be systematized into a perfectly controlled structure of interactive functions, surely this has been the story of the modern nation’s childhood.  In short, Singapore has almost certainly reached the upper limits of its own functionalism – the population has grown increasingly less sympathetic to governmental control, and furthermore Singapore’s international situation it is not, and will never be, a closed system of mathematical functioning.  Rather Singapore is wide open and quite plugged in to an interactive and only occasionally functional international environment[8].  In this sense, chaos and change simply cannot be locked out of the system.  The Lion City has no choice but to adapt and evolve along with the rest of the planet, and for such a systematized country, this above all calls for the adaptation and evolution of systems – and a departure from the strict functionalism of yore.

Now if all this is true, the government promotion for increased creativity begins to look a bit like an intentional and induced mutation after all.  If pure functionalism has lost its economic advantage, and creative expansion stands to generate enormous national benefits – then perhaps the risk structural revision is worth taking.  Perhaps, in fact, a certain degree of creative restructuring is exactly what Singapore needs to regain its international edge.  And perhaps the present-day governing body of Singapore, on the front-lines of an indeterminate and evolving planet, has consciously or unconsciously decided to take the plunge.

Of course, the apparent benefits of mass creativity, as promoted by the government, don’t take the coloring of a social and structural transformation at all.  As far as the official promotion goes, the causes and consequences for the campaign lie purely in the economic sphere.  Turning again to the overtly transparent rhetoric of the MITA website, we can identify two readily stated tactical goals for the Creativity Campaign:  1)  The effort to make Singapore a Global City for the Arts.  2) The effort to increase the creative activity and creative output of Singaporean individuals in general.

In the case of the first goal, we can see clear benefits in terms of an expansion of arts industry and the subsequent economic growth that comes from the tapping of a fresh resource.  Furthermore the image of Singapore as a global center of culture, rather than an exclusive center of business, will in theory begin to attract the attention of individuals worldwide who are not necessarily of, or related to, the business class.  As such there can be expected the further economic benefits of increased foreign investment for the increasingly visible Singapore, as well as a steady swelling of the tourist industry.  And of course this new global capital of the arts is a more public-relations savvy image than the previous disciplinarian utopia that “tortured” and caned Michael Faye[9] in 1994.  The final benefit of this new asset is a bit different from those just enumerated, as it lies outside the realm of immediate gain in economy and public relations.  That is, simply, that as Singapore climbs toward the status of artistic and cultural empire, it will naturally engender a population of highly cultured Singaporeans.  Of course this recalls our above postulation about the creation of an elite social body, and has potential economic consequences as well, insofar as these increasingly cultured cadres of Singaporeans will in all likelihood be more intelligent and creative as the result of their enriched environs.

This brings us directly to the second goal of the campaign, which is increased creativity and innovation in Singaporeans in general, regardless of arts industry.  The potential applications of creativity of course go well beyond the arts – creative thinking is a vital tool in business, science, technology – in fact in any field which requires the regular use and generation of ideas.  Thus, creative Singaporeans will have advantages in almost any field which requires active communication and thought.  Furthermore, we may also identify national benefits over and above the generation of a super-powered working class.  Individuals who have developed their creative capacities will have increased problem-solving skills to apply to all areas of life – from personal promotion and family security to individual fulfillment and resourcefulness in the face of crisis.  In sum, a creative population is ostensibly self-sufficient, brilliant, and generative of enormous economic growth.

I return again to the two questions we must ask about such a program – that is, first its feasibility, and second, granted its feasibility, the consequential implications of such a transformation on the larger scale.  Because we are dealing here in theory and not science, the first question can only be put to the test of time.  I will only say, regarding this issue of feasibility, that biologically at least, I can see no reason why the vast majority of the population should not be able to develop their creative capacities by cultivating right-brain activity.  As to whether the vast majority would ever seek to do such a thing, and what might be the result if a critical mass of human beings, as such, made the conscious shift from linear to creative consciousness – I can only speculate.

            But in regards to the implications of any general increase in creative consciousness on the larger social fabric, I believe we can speak quite meaningfully, and in fact I have already attempted to do so here.  To reiterate, I believe such a shift will be accompanied by a proportional and complementary shift in societal structures, as right brain activity by its nature tends to put systemic thinking in a relegated, secondary position.  Thus, social conditioning, normative values, moral absolutes and the like – in fact any cognitive process which is housed in the categorical framework of left-brain language processing – will be open to creative re-evaluation on a regular basis.  In this sense, it might be said that an increase in right-brain activity would have a de-conditioning effect.  Insofar as the specific structure of any social conditioning would primarily be made in terms of delegating proper categories and limiting specific  behavior, we may say that social conditioning is contingent on imprinting and regulating left-brain activity[10].  In fact, the simplest way to condition right-brain activity is simply to repress it, as we have seen was the norm under the classical Marxist perspective.  As such, a more creative Singapore would also necessarily be a less conditioned Singapore, as the increase in creative consciousness would not only generate new paradigms, but also enable individuals to initiate their own personal paradigm shifts.

            Because there is no way of predicting what kinds of new paradigms would be generated in the wake of a massive creative awakening, I have tried to compare the induction of creative evolution to the model of genetic mutation.  Introducing increased creativity into the social sphere will inevitably lead to new social combinations and new social structures.  What’s more, in this case we are looking not at a single mutation, which might be considered commonplace, but rather a whole string of mutations, as the generation of new ideas begets the accelerated generation of new ideas.  The proper metaphor for such a societal shift is not the random and usually innocuous mutations that occur in every new generation – but rather the sort of synergetic and total mutation that can only be considered an evolutionary leap[11].  In short, the degree to which creativity is enabled in a society is the degree to which that society may be expected to undergo a massive and ultimately indeterminate transformation.

            Does the Singaporean Government, then, with this economically driven Creativity Campaign, have any idea what it might be getting itself into?  If the motivations for the campaign are purely economic, the answer may be no.  The prospect of a more creative population may initially appear so lucrative that the possible consequences of increased creative consciousness are deferred to a later date, if not outright ignored.  The products of artistry have always been a valuable commodity - But here and now we see a realization that creativity itself, as the generator of these products, is among the most valuable commodities of all.  Thus a program for the generation of creativity becomes an attempt to generate generativity itself.  If such a thing is actually possible, the profit increase for the generating locus would be potentially exponential.  This may be reason enough to proceed.

            On the other hand, a government with a worldwide reputation for expert social organization and discipline is not likely one to completely ignore potential destabilizing effects in the social fabric.  The degree to which a mass increase in creativity would actually destabilize would be initially unpredictable and as such, the prudent choice would be to proceed with some degree of caution.  The assumption underlying the Creativity Campaign may be that an exponential increase of production would ultimately be controllable.  That is, that this new genesis of energy would flow freely through designated channels, as in agricultural systems of irrigation, rather than simply overflow into a societal chaos of new ideas and new forms.  At all costs, the increase of energy and types of energy would have to be properly managed, as with the gradual opening of a floodgate.  To return to the evolutionary metaphor, the mutational growth would first be induced, and then, soon after, the new growth would be contained and properly integrated

            Whether or not the Singaporean Government actually possesses such refined control over the floodgates of social energies is once again a matter of speculation.  I maintain only that a true increase in a population’s creativity would necessarily engender a mutation effect, and being true to the nature of mutation, this effect would be ultimately unpredictable.  Thus, the more a ruling body genuinely allows for the expansion of creativity in its polity, the more that body must surrender itself to creative modification.  If the actual goal of achieved creativity increase is only moderate – i.e. an attempted balancing effect for a general lack of creative energies – then that ruling body might not need to submit itself to much modification at all.  But Insofar as Singapore hopes to obtain substantial and genuine increase in creative ability, it is inevitably opening the doors to admit potential change.

            And of course, even if it is the case that the Government is hoping to induce a proliferation of new systems and social structures – that is, opening Singapore up to revision in the name of progress – it is quite likely that under no circumstances will it ever be openly admitted, or demonstrated, that any aspect of the system has fallen out of control.  Rather, by maintaining the illusion of control during a period of massive change, the Government may secure for itself the happy position of appearing have its cake, and eat it too.  The general population of Singapore, more than likely, will be too busy enjoying their newfound creativity to notice.

            In any case I hope I have indicated that the shift taking place in Singapore has been, among other things, the shift from strict disciplinarian control toward a more open-minded and dialectic approach toward utopian engineering.  Of course, there will be no influx of foreign talent if such individuals cannot be promised the liberties and respect granted to them by their home countries.  And more importantly, the Government simply cannot ask the native Singaporean population to become more creative without being willing to value the resulting generation of creative ideas.  Creative consciousness is not exclusively about artistic genius and savvy business innovations – it is also about new ways of living, new perspectives on authority, new attitudes towards the nation and the law.  As such, the promotional posters reading “together a new Singapore” cannot help but belie the true exigency of the situation – that is, the ruling body and citizens of Singapore will either evolve together, or Singapore cease to evolve at all.  The need for creativity is genuine, its benefits numerous and real – but because it is creativity that is required, there can be no substitute for the real thing.

I would hope that a government which has accomplished so much in such a short period of time is sufficiently informed about the implications of creative expansion, as evidenced both by the biology of creativity and the peculiar meaning of the word “creativity” itself.  The degree to which Singapore might actually become more creative is really now in the hands of the Singaporean citizens – in their interpretation of the campaign, their responses to it, their acceptance or rejection of its tenants.  That such an infamously controlling ruling body would open such a can of worms is in my opinion a fairly exciting event.  But really it can be viewed from any number of perspectives, in terms of national loyalty, ant-authoritarian resistance, outright cynicism, naïve faith.  I think, however, that given the specific nature of this issue -- the most productive interpretation would be to treat this proclamation for the development of creativity creatively.   That is, to take it as an invitation to grow in new directions, to appropriate knowledge in new ways, to seek out new ideas, and perhaps even to relate to the governing body with new eyes.  Creativity is, of all things especially, exactly what one makes of it.

Back to the Tower!!