Creative Economy and Culture

And there was creativity!

The book Creative economy and culture is a work of theological grandeur. John Hartley, Wen Wen, and Henry Siling Li have written nothing short of the long-awaited bible of creativity. Like religious zealots explaining the universe through god and its miracles, so do these apostles explain the world through creativity and its earthly incarnation: the creative economy. This theology does indeed cover, as the authors put it, everyone, everything, everywhere. If “creationism” had not been in use for a somewhat different purpose, I would argue it perfectly sums up the contents of this book.

The authors’ message is as simple as it is grand: we now live in the creative era; preceded only by the “information era” (late nineteenth to late twentieth century), the “industrial era” (sixteenth to nineteenth century), the “agricultural era” (from 10,000 to 5000 BC), and the “hunter-gatherer” era (from about 70,000 year ago) (p. 6). The confidence and simplicity of their classification is inversely proportional to the evidence provided: it is nothing more than an assertion that goes unsubstantiated. While later on, they connect this classification to, respectively, the eras of Internet, broadcast, print, writing/maths, and speech/stone (p. 21), also here, there is surprisingly little evidence or even analysis to back up the foundations of their very own “cultural science” (more about that below).

Notwithstanding their weak empirical basis and analytical engagement, the authors are quick to dismiss any opposition, particularly by those who dare expressing any critique of the creative industries, thereby making the concept “unloved” (p. 6). Those who disagree with the grand sweeping statements of the authors – much like infidels to religious fundamentalists – are simply lost, not privy to the secrets of creativity, or simply stuck in old silos of academia. Such disbelievers need mere converting to the true faith – preferably through lengthy, sketchy, and self-contradictory proselytising – before they will see the omnipresent and omnipotent force that reigns the world today: creativity!

Key concepts are obfuscated in order to remain useful throughout the authors’ argument. At one point, they clarify that “the creative economy, properly – i.e. ambitiously – conceptualised and enabled will allow such [creative] talents to flower and prosper” (p. 8). This is no claim in an academic debate; it is mere preaching. The proper definition of the creative economy is an ambitious definition? Ambitious relative to what? How does this “proper” conceptualisation relate to other definitions and conceptualisations? On what basis do the authors justify their simplistic and unsubstantiated normative argument?

Mind you, I do not object to making or advancing normative arguments. The Economist, a weekly newspaper, gets that right. They start with reliable facts and thorough analysis, and make it explicit where they advance their normative conclusions. This book – which, like any academic book, should be stronger on analysis than a mere journalistic weekly – does the opposite. It polemically states an argument, weekly discredits (imagined) opponents, and fails to provide necessary empirical data to substantiate their claims.

Rhetorically, the book builds on a common logical fallacy: the straw man. Rather than engaging with the critical considerations regarding the rise and growth of the creative industries, the authors simply posit that writing on this topic is “risky” because there is ample criticism. Yet, without engaging with any of the (rather different) critics of the cultural/creative industries/economy, they simply imply that because they dismiss (as opposed to rigorously criticise) these different voices, they themselves ought to be right.

Without really addressing what their (imaginary) opponents are about, the authors do propose their very own brand of inquiry: cultural science,

They justify this approach by arguing that “since embarking on this adventure, those of us pursuing a cultural science approach have become more firmly convinced that this is worth pursuing by finding that – under various banners – plenty of others are pursuing it too” (p. 62) – no comment here.This approach, they claim, in combination with the “creative economy” as a central concept, is both needed and helpful to transgress the silos in which academics are caught: “Part of the problem about the study of the creative industries in the university setting, therefore, is that the ‘creative’ aspect belongs to one scholarly tradition while the ‘industries’ part belongs to another” (p. 7):

No undergraduate student would get away with such an unsubstantiated and sweeping statement. And neither should the authors of this book. It may be true that there are ideological concentrations in certain disciplines or fields. But as a vital building block of their argument and justification for their newly founded “cultural science”, such an argument needs what this book lacks on the whole: conceptual precision and empirical evidence. This issue manifests clearly in – among many others – the section where “maker spaces” are heralded as yet another incarnation of Chris Anderson’s flawed “Long Tail” theory, without real evidence to that end (p. 116).The book claims to be about the creative economy and culture, but does not engage much with what culture means exactly. I would not regurgitate Raymond Williams’ (1976) three key uses of the term, or Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s (1952) list of 164 uses of the term. However, no matter the definition used, it is a term that cannot be taken for granted in any context.

In sum, it is hard to discern what this book wants to be. It cannot be a textbook, because it is neither comprehensive in its coverage of the field, nor fair to its different theoretical and normative approaches. (Remember the straw man that serves to justify the authors’ approach.) It cannot be a research monograph either, because it lacks a methodologically sound and empirically rich engagement with the subject matter. And for this piece to be a theoretical contribution to the literature, it would need an actual theory, rather than frequent (albeit fleeting) references to Hartley’s own “cultural science”, which is neither properly explained, nor properly argued for.

More than a work of serious academic inquiry, this book reads like a blend of post-truth reasoning and religious fundamentalism. In this sense, the apostles of creativity operate on a logic akin to that of prosperity churches: make sacrifices now (by embracing the Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that rages through societies, demolishing regulation and social protection in its wake), to ensure future gains. Trust the gospel preacher against empirical evidence: The winner does not take it all; she merely paves the way for the congregation to follow: “Someone can be an unemployed single mother living off benefits one day, an J.K. Rowling the next” (p. 106).