When
we survey our lives today, it is fairly easy to identify areas of
great achievement and creativity. Technology and many of the arts
are replete with it. Businesses and local government come up with new
ideas constantly. The primary area where creativity seems to be void
is on the macro political/economic level. Here we find inhibition,
conformity, and defensiveness.
I
would love to hear a major national politician say “Now I’m going
to brainstorm the issue of economic disparity and throw ideas out
right and left. I know my opposition will delight in pulling one of
these ideas out and swear that I advocate it. Let them go at it to
their hearts content. I trust the American people (my boss, after
all) to know the spirit in which I brainstorm and my purpose in doing
it. I am going to loosen things up a bit and get some new ideas
flowing. I wish to shower the place with ideas so that more
knowledgeable persons than I can separate the wheat from the chaff.
I want to change the image of a politician from one of a calculating
and repressed automaton to one of a free spirit, positively
generating fresh ideas and perspectives. For starters, I will wear a
dress shirt and tie—but a monkey suite I will never wear.”
I
think something this earth-shattering is what we need. Presently
when venting is done it is always on occasions where the gloves
(rather than blinders) come off and personal hatred and tired old
animosities are substituted for creative thinking and new
perspectives. Sometimes I really think the edifices of Washington
serve to inhibit ideation and laid back discussions and
relationships. We will never move on with insightful clarity while
people cravenly walk on eggs or rant entirely predictable cant that
hollowly echoes down marble corridors vapid and empty of fecund
thought.
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