What inspires greater creativity, freedom or constraint?

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@Der_Trihs

Both. A lack of constraints means that a person is less likely to be creative because they don’t need to be. Too much constraint mean that the person involved won’t be creative because they have nothing to be creative with, and no cushion for taking risks with. Someone who is merely poor is likely to find clever ways of using every bit of space they have and of using what resources they have in nonstandard ways; someone who is outright destitute and on the street doesn’t have any property to “cleverly use”; and someone who is rich won’t bother to use their home and property with the same cleverness and efficiency that a poor person would.

I also think that “constraints” in this context are relative to what is being attempted. Someone with huge resources still has constraints to impel him to be creative when he’s working on an equally huge project.

Lord help me, but I agree.

I know that people who have very large budgets tend toward taking the proven, if expensive approach- failure aversion is their main driver. People with smaller budgets will often take a cheaper, but riskier or unproven approach in hopes of staying within budget. I see this in IT all the time.

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@the_diego

Go to the patent office and see in what period there were more new inventions.

Such a measurement would be valuable, but would need to be corrected for so many variables…

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@chrisk

I would say that it’s a continuum instead of a dichotomy. Unlimited freedom probably doesn’t inspire much creativity. Absolute constraint would, by definition allow no room for creative expression.

It’s a question of where the sweet spot is.

Indeed, I characterized it as a spectrum in a later comment, saying that creativity would at least be possible in absolute freedom and impossible in absolute constraint. I’m thinking that as we move away from the extremes, though, the greatness of the creative work would rise more steeply on the constrained side than on the free side. For me, the sweet spot is slightly skewing to constraint.

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@CJJ

I’m reminded of a sonnet by William Wordsworth on the topic, one I had to memorize in high school:

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room
And hermits are contented with their cells
And students with their pensive citadels.
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at this loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness fells
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells.
In truth the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is, and hence for me,
In sundry moods ’twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground,
Pleased if some souls–for such there needs must be–
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

I knew that memory work would pay off some day

Thank you for this!

[Rachellelogram]

It depends on the person and the time in their life. World-class creativity is borne through either raw genius (in which case, freedom would be better) or hardship (in which case, constraint is best). Essentially, you’re asking us to consider whether creativity borne of raw genius is better or worse than creativity borne of hardship. That’s completely down to the individual, though. There is no best answer.

A work of art (or song or movie, whatever) is not independent of the artist, they are intertwined. But let’s say two people somehow independently completed the same exact work of art. One approached it from a standpoint of raw genius/freedom while the other approached it through hardship/constraint. I would have far more respect for the second artist, because genius is something you’re born with–like skin color or IQ. I personally value genius less than effort.

Commercial success can be–and often is–created by marketing. But throwing a lot of money at a creator who is more motivated by hardship doesn’t guarantee a good result. This explains (IMHO) why so many rock bands who “make it” start to decline before long. The reason they got famous in the first place was because they HAD to prove themselves. They had to sacrifice a LOT (a “real” job, thousands of hours of time, personal relationships) to be in a successful band. Once they make it, they can relax a bit. Is it surprising that their music begins to suffer as a result? Very few bands get “better” over time, because commercial success in the music industry doesn’t mesh well with the sacrifice and hardship undertaken to get there. True musical geniuses will continue to create great stuff even after they get famous coughMike Pattoncough, but they are the exceptions.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

Creativeness is most easily recognised in the arts but we see it everyday and don’t realize we are looking at it. Over the past 40 years I have worked with a shop full of techs and mechanics. At any given time one or two in the group will almost always stand out as taking creative approaches to solving problems. Wether it be making a special tool or in their appraoch to various problems. When my son was small he saw me attempting to build a small rodent trap. Before I knew it he had taken the project over and this was the first time I had really seen him become totaly fixated on something. To my amazement he solved all the problems and we created a successful rodent trap. Ibeliecretive peple will always be creative
in onemor other.

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@HoneyBadgerDC

Creativeness is most easily recognised in the arts but we see it everyday and don’t realize we are looking at it.

I agree. Creativity isn’t strictly limited to the arts, but that’s the most common usage of the term. It’s kind of like the term “skill positions” in football, which implies that somehow being a lineman requires no skill, which is most emphatically not the case.

I’m not at all “creative” in the artistic sense, but I am pretty creative in the way I solve other problems.

[Blakeyrat]

I think Star Wars was a great movie because Lucas was subject to tons of constraints from Fox as to budget, release date, etc. When the constraints were released from Lucas, he went on to make (let’s be frank) crappy movies.

There are a lot of cases of indie filmmakers making a great, creative film when they have a budget of $15,000 and a crew of 3 college buddies-- then when they get millions in studio backing, their output is mediocre at best. Look at Richard Kelly and Southland Tales for the perfect example. Or M. Night Shyamalan’s entire career.

Then again, Hell’s Angels was a great movie because Howard Hughes was able to use his fortune to take as much time as he needed to film and edit his precise vision before releasing.

So I think the answer is: it is highly dependent on the artist in question.