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thesis entitled

A Theory of Creative Human Relations
Implications for Educational Administration

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presented by

Edwin Reynolds Bailey

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

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ABSTRACT

A THEORY OF CREATIVE HUMAN RELATIONS:
IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

by Edwin Reynolds Bailey

This study is an attempt to identify the conditions within

which it becomes possible for human beings to creatively relate

with their fellow human beings. The implications of this concep-

tual framework for educational administrators are also reviewed.

A rationale is provided at the outset of the study for the

process of theory construction which is used. Based upon this

rationale the study may be classified as social philosophical in

nature.
The logic of the conceptual framework which the thesis
constructs is based primarily upon analytical and deductive

reasoning. Man as a creative entity is analyzed within four

Edwin Reynolds Bailey
conditions which determine his capacity to create. The first of

these conditions is the Biological Condition which determines man's

potential to become both more creative and more human. The second

condition is identified as the Socio-Cultural which determines and

shapes man's entry into the world of social relationships. The

third condition is labeled as the Psycho-Physical Condition and is

identified as the individuating condition in the growth of an indi-

vidual toward self-expression. The final condition established is

the Mental Condition in which man's intellectual powers enable him

to move consciously toward his desired life's goals. Each of these

conditions is recognized to be a necessary but not a sufficient

condition for man's creative exPression. These conditions of man

as creator are identified and analyzed with regard for their signi-

ficance to the relationships between men.

The creation of relationships between men is also analyzed

per se. The processes involved in these creative endeavors by men

are analyzed in terms of their particularity. The difference be-

tween a "human" and an "inhuman" relationship is identified. The
relationship between man's capacity to create and his ability to
relate to his fellow man in a "human" relation is similarly analyzed.

Based upon these analyses certain tentative conclusions are estab-

lished. These conclusions are as follows:

Man creates processes, termed process-products, which are

the means to his progress toward becoming human.

To become human, man must be communicative, creative, loving,

and free, in his relations with his fellow man.

A creative human relation is one in which articulate, loving,

-i -——I—'—" '———

Edwin Reynolds Bailey

human beings are co-creating a positive relationship with their

fellow human beings by their own free choice.

The implications of these tentative conclusions for the

administrator of the educational enterprise are discussed. The

following questions are asked as the basis for the investigation

of these implications:

1. How can man learn to communicate with his fellow man;

or conversely, how can modern man overcome the problem of limited

communication?

2. How can modern man, in an increasingly impersonal and

complex, technological age, acquire a true sense of creativeness?

How can man attain that sense of direction and meaning

3.
in life which preserves both individual integrity and the human

society?
These questions are discussed in terms of the responsi-

bilities of the administrator to himself and to the educational

enterprise. The significance of these responsibilities are

elaborated upon within the framework of the theory established by

the study. The most basic principle identified for the educational

administrator within the context of this study's theory is the

continued creation of "human" means to fulfill his responsibilities

to the educational enterprise of his society.

A THEORY OF CREATIVE HUMAN RELATIONS:

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

By

Edwin Reynolds Bailey

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
College of Education

1961

 

 

Copyright by

EDWIN REYNOLDS BAILEY

1962

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special acknowledgements are due the members of the author's
doctoral committee for their special contributions to this study:
to the chairman, Dr. Floyd Parker, for his understanding, encourage-
ment, and assistance; to Dr. Ernest Melby for his inspirational and
seminal ideas; to Dr. Wilbur Brookover for his perceptive analysis
of certain problems and his fruitful suggestions for their solution;
to Dr. Thomas Green for his stimulation and challenge. The measure
of success enjoyed by this author in this study must be shared with
each of these individuals for the significant roles they played in
its formulation.

Recognition of the highest order is due the author's loving
wife, June, for her sustaining faith and patient understanding.
Without her faith, patience, and understanding this study would not
have been written. With her virutes its meaning attains a new
reality and significance which might otherwise be unknown.

This thesis is dedicated to June.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACMOWIIEDGEMEN TS O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter
I. THE PURPOSES AND NATURE OF THE STUDY.

A. The Purposes of the Study . . . .
B. The Nature of the Study . . . . .
II. THE CONDITIONS OF MAN AS CREATOR. . .
A. Th; Biological Condition. . . . .
B. The Socio-Cultural Condition. . .
C. The Psycho-Physical Condition . .
D. The Mental Condition. . . . . . .
III. MAN AS CREATOR OF HUMAN RELATIONS . .
A. The Creation of Means . . . . . .
B. To Become Human . . . . . . . . .

C. Through Creating Human Relations.

IV. IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

A. Within the Conditions of Our Times.

B. For the Administrator . . . . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY O O O 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

iv

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CHAPTER I
THE PURPOSE AND NATURE OF THE STUDY

Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine

By which alone the mortal heart is led

Unto the thinking of the thought divine.
George Santayana, "0 World"

A. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

There is a growing sense of urgency in the world today. It
is not the urgency compelled by the spectre of atomic warfare even
though this does compound the problem; nor is it the urgency of re-
solving the tensions of ideological differences. It is, rather,
the urgency of vast numbers of human beings, all over the face of
the earth, seeking to achieve the dignity of being human.

This urgency is being expressed in a multitude of ways--
many of them futile and senseless to our western civilization. We
find it difficult to comprehend the dynamics of these expressions of
spontaneous social evolution. We fail to sense the urgency of the
desire and the need of these human beings to equate themselves with
their more fortunate brethren elsewhere on the earth. We fail to
recognize the totally unique character of our times and constantly
return to history's pages for answers which cannot appear. Ours
are new conditions; we live in a world breached from its own his-
tory; we must build in the living present the pathways to the

future without the comfort of the oft-trodden routes of the past.
1

In short, we must know ourselves and our world in the very process
of its becoming, rather than as it was, or as we blindly hope that
it is. Man has never been confronted with so profound a responsi-
bility nor ever been so illy prepared to cope with a task. The
challenge surrounds us, it is present in all ways, always. It
awaits our acceptance and purposive action.

The purpose of this thesis is to accept this challenge.
We prepose to look at the creative capacities of man and determine
their significance for the relationships between men. From the
application of man's creativeness to the relationships between men
we shall indicate what implications exist for the administration of
education. While the avowed theme of this study is the ability of
human beings to create, the underlying theme is to depict the dig-
nity of human worth. What it means to be "human" is of the utmost
importance to the fullest expression of man's ability to create.
The ultimate purpose of this study, then, is not merely a concep-
tualization of human creativity, but rather it penetrates deeper to
the essence of life itself by endeavoring to reveal the beauty and
dignity of being human. The impact of our conclusions on the edu-
Fcational process and the reciprocal influence of education upon the
progress of man are derivative concerns which also fall within the
domain of this study. The limelight will focus upon the creative
powers of man--the stage will be the world of men--the play will be
about the beauty of life.

We must hasten, however, to delimit the magnitude of such
exalted purposes lest we are committed to a task without termination.

There are specific aims which exist within the broader context of our

purposes which can be spelled out. These aims comprise the skele-
tal framework around which we will construct the body of our study.
The first of these aims is that of describing_the conditions which
determine man's creative capacities. What are the biological
characteristics which man possesses which enable him to surpass all
other members of the animal kingdom in creativeness? In what ways
have the social and cultural forces controlled or shaped man as a
creative being? How do the experiences of man enter into the kind
and quality of his creativity? What is the relation of man's mind
to his creative powers? These are the types of questions we must
answer in our description of the conditions of man as creator.

The second aim of this study is that of identifying the
specific nature of man. What are his biological birthrights? How
is man similar to the animal kingdom? How does man contrast with
other forms of animal life? What does it mean to be "human," or
”inhuman?" What conditions enhance man's humanness? It can be seen
by the types of questions to which we address our efforts that the
distinction between man in his "human" sense is implicitly differ-
ent from man in his "biological" sense, however much the latter is
a necessary condition of the former. The drawing out of this dis-
tinction is imperative to the ultimate deve10pment of the major
theme of this study, namely the creation of the relationships
between "human" beings.

Still another aim of this study is that of relating the
ability of humans to create the relationships which exist between
human beings. To what extent is creativity applicable to the human

community? What are the conditions necessary for the extension of

creativity to human relations? What product ensues from creative
human relations? From these questions it is evident that value
judgments are inextricably interwoven into any answers which might
be given to these questions. It is our intent to remain as removed
from value implication as is possible but at the same time we are
fully conscious of the omnipresence of the Judgmental elements and
the necessity of facing them squarely when they arise.

The final aim of this study is value laden and must be con-
sidered for all the richness of its value content. This is the aim
of drawing the implications of our conceptual framework of creative
human relations for educational administration. Certain conclusions
may undoubtedly be self-evident and need only minor elaboration in
their application to public school administration. Contrasted to
this, there will be other conclusions which are far less tenable
and will require greater specificity of illustration to bring them
to the threshold of meaningful application to educational adminis-
tration. In either case there are values implicit in the conclu-
sions and in their application to education in America today. It
is not sufficient to assume that these values exist sui generis in
our present system of American education. They must be reviewed,
re-evaluated, and re-established with new significance, if they are
worthy of the effort, at all.

The remaining three chapters encompass these aims. Chapter
II deals with the creative aspects. Chapter III covers the identis
fication of the specific nature of man and the relationships which
exist between human beings. The final chapter is devoted to a dis-

cussion of the implications of our theory for the administrator of

the educational enterprise.

The remaining section of this chapter is devoted to the

establishment of a theoretical framework for this study. Within

this framework the overall purposes and the specific aims subsumed

under them can take shape with the requisite clarity and precision.

B. THE NATURE OF THE STUDY

The title of this thesis indicates that it is theoretical

in nature therefore connoting a research endeavor distinctly differ-

ent from those which are based upon statistical correlations or
experimentally obtained data. Yet to state that such a study as
this is theoretical is to say nothing if the term theory is itself

left undefined and subject to the guess of the reader. "Theory"
means different things to different people. At times theory has

been considered to be the final explanation; at other times it has
been viewed as the antithesis of fact; today it is looked upon more

as a provisional framework for the scientific or analytic procedures

designed to improve predictability. Jahoda, Selltiz, Deutsch, and

Cook1 describe theory in precisely this fashion:

One other characteristic of theories in modern science
This is their provisional character. In

should be noted:
earlier times, a theory was considered a final explanation.

Today, a theory is always held with some tentativeness, no
matter how great the accumulation of findings consistent
with it. It is considered as the most probable or most
efficient way of accounting for those findings in the light

of present knowledge, but it is always open to revision.
It is not a static or final formulation.

Theory has played an integral part in the functional growth

;H. Jahoda, et. al., Research Methods in Social Relations
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1959). p. Hal.

Similarly, theory is seminal in the modern day develop-

of science.
It has always been the foundation

ment of the behavioral sciences.

for man's explanation of the unknown. Whether it has gone by the

name "myth”, "superstition", "guess", or "a fact", theory has
existed in the minds of men. Sometimes it has been a kind of simple
guesswork while at other times it has been an elaborate symbolic
The important point is that theory

structure of great complexity.
The

is a significant characteristic of man's intellectual progress.

significance of theory in man's attempts to discover new facts about

his world is aptly stated by Hall and Lindsey :

There is no such thing as "no theory"; consequently,
the moment we attempt to forget about theory "for the pres-
ent" we are really using implicit, personally determined,
and perhaps inconsistent assumptions concerning behavior
and these unidentified assumptions will determine what will
be studied and how. The observation of any concrete empir-

ical event is carried out under the dictates of some
"theory"--that is, certain things are attended to and certain
things are overlooked--and one of the purposes of theorizing
is to make explicit the rules determining this abstraction
process. The possibility of improving under the assumptions
that are controlling research is eliminated the moment one

gives up the attempt to define the theoretical base from

which he Operates.

Theory, then, does exist centrally within current research.

Whether theory performs the act of summarizing and synthesizing
that data which has been collected or acts as a guiding framework
for the procedures to be used in the collection of new data, it is

nevertheless vital to the advancement of the frontiers of knowledge.
These views are described by Cartwright and Zander3 who assert that

ZCalvin S. Hall and Gardner Lindsey, Theories of Personality
PP. 1 -17.

(New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 19#7).

3Dorwin Cartwright and Alvin Zander, Group gynamics, Research
and Theory (White Plains, New York: Row, Peterson and Company, 19535,
p. 9e

 

"some investigators believe that such methodological problems as
those of developing measuring instruments and of demonstrating
their reliability should come before much theorizing." They also
indicate that a second commonly held belief is that theory should
exert a "more guiding influence" in the design of research. As
they further indicate, "one cannot select devices for recording
and measurement before knowing what it is that should be studied."

It is our opinion that the latter view is more apprOpriate
to the types of research needed today. This seems particularly
necessary in the behavioral sciences where the extensive atomistic
studies which have been conducted for some time have failed to pro-
vide the broader clues to understanding behavior which man so fer-
vently seeks. In this study our concern is with the second of
Cartwright and Zander's two beliefs on theory's purpose, namely the
description of what it is that should be studied. It is our belief
that creativity is a much used but little understood term. Similar-
ly, there is much discussion today of the values of "human relations"
but relatively little insight into the meaning of the term "human".
Everyone is usually born with some "relations", (at least a mother)
but not everyone experiences or comprehends "human relations". To
be sure they are quite different. A third concern of ours in what
ought to be studied is the application of man's creative abilities
to his relationships with other men. Finally we are concerned with
the implications of what we say about these matters for that parti-
cular human endeavor called educational administration.

But we continue to use a term which is vague and ambivalent;

what is theory and what is its function within this study? 'We have

already established that our theory must exert a "more guiding
influence” in the design of research. The immediate problem, per-
haps, deals more with the meaning of the term "research". Signi-
ficantly the term "research" has come to signify both means and
ends. We state that we research a particular subject at the same
time that we refer to the results of that study as research.
According to Webster's New Werld Dictionary, research is defined as
"careful, systematic, patient study and investigation in some field
of knowledge, undertaken to establish facts or principles." In
this instance the term has the connotation of "means". If we ac-
cept this definition as valid then we can see the relationship of
theory to research as being that of a "more guiding influence."
Research could indeed be done without an explicitly stated theory
but the fact is that a theory is implicit in the very act of re-
search itself. What remains is to define what theoretical orienta-
tion underlies any given piece of research.

It is evident from the above definition of the term
"research" that no specifically designated method need apply to the
term "research". The experimental method may be used; statistical
method is another acceptable procedure; the comparative method is
yet another method which may be adopted; and the method of analysis
is still one more way by which "careful, systematic, patient study
and investigation of some field of knowledge" can be "undertaken to
establish facts or principles." In this study, the final method,
that of analysis, is the formal method by which our theory is
developed.

The task before us, then, is to construct a theory which

may serve as a guiding influence in establishing research problems
pursuant to the content of this theory. We are not proposing to
do the research at this time; we are merely proposing to define
what our conception of a theory is, to construct that theory, and
to suggest what it means to us for a very practical and empirical
function in our society. This is the sum total of our intentions.
The remainder of this section will be utilized in the establishment
of our meaning of the term "theory" as the specific object of our
analytic endeavors through the remainder of this study.

If this study were to be classified it would very likely
fall under the nom-de-plume of social philosOphy. If this is appro-
priate then our case with regard to theory construction is more
closely allied to the concept of theory in the social sciences than
in the physical sciences. Since the physical sciences haVe been in
existence longer qua sciences, and since they have dealt primarily
with phenomena which could be repeated with sufficient exactness to
bear out predictions with a certain precision, it has been possible
for the physical sciences to move toward increased standardization
of the logico-mathematical formulae desired as a theoretical founda-
tion for research. In the "social" or "behavioral sciences" the
very complexity of human culture has precluded such refined efforts
to crystallize theory construction into such symbolic forms. Social
researchers have practiced these sorties into the land of scientific
theory building but as yet with a modicum of success. The vast num-
ber of variables, the imprecision of mensuration in the behavieral
sciences, the constantly changing actions and thoughts of men has

limited such types of theory building to either far-reaching and

 

10

vague generalities or to minuscule formulations of limited appli-

cability. The problem of the differences between the "natural

sciences" and the "social sciences" is viewed as a problem of the

respective disciplines by Crick“:

The obvious sharp difference between the precision of
both the methods and the laws of the natural and the social
sciences only deepens the question, What is it that the ads
vocates of a science of politics mean by "scientific"? To
ask this question now, after considering the diverse views
of Feigl, Wiener and Cohen, is to raise at least the suspi-
cion that the whole concern with methodology is a falsely
posed question. For a general method of research can hardy
ly be at stake. There is no contradiction involved in
saying that all disciplines have, in some sense, a common
method; but that equally they all have their own peculiar
methods arising out of the peculiar nature of their subject

matter.

Crick's description of the methodological inclinations of

the numerous disciplines coincides with Road's5 belief:

We cannot eliminate ourselves from our observations, and
even a scientific method depends on consciousness, which is
an unstable element develoPed by man in the course of his
physical evolution. . . . Language itself and the symbolic
signs by means of which any logical analysis must proceed,
are instruments developed by this organ for the control of
man's environment; instruments conditioned by his environ-
ment, and still in a state of evolution. Sign systems are
incomplete because our consciousness is incomplete; and the
means by which man is continually extending the area of his
consciousness, and concurrently his various means of commune

ication, are not scientific but artistic.

Hall and Lindsey6 support this notion when they maintain that "there

is no formula for fruitful theory construction any more than there

is a formula for making enduring literary contributions." It is

—*

#Bernard Crick, The American Science of Politics (Berkeley,
Calif.: University of California Press, 1959), p. 218.

§Herbert Read, The Forms of Things Unknown (New York:
Horizon Press, 1960), pp. 22-23-

éfiall and Lindsey, e . cit., p. 11.

Vfi—‘wI

11

apparent from these comments that there is little agreement (among
those who consider it permissible to refer to themselves as scien-

tists) on the exact meaning of the terms "scientific method" or

7 expresses it, "I think it is not

"theory" or "fact". Or as Crick

amiss to stress an apperception of chaos more than of simplicity

lurking behind the subject of 'logic and scientific method'.”

There are undoubtedly a variety of factors contributing to

this "chaos" to which Crick has referred. One factor is the rela-

tive newness of science itself, that is, when viewed on the long

continuum of man's intellectual growth. Another factor is the

disparity between the process of conceptualization and the actual

practice of that which is being theorized about. The symbols tend

to be viewed as ends rather than means. This process is partially

responsible for another difficulty, namely that of language. The

lack of logical consistency in language usage among the various
disciplines creates barriers between the disciplines and the schools

of theory.‘ It is in this area that much needs to be done and can be

done to bring about the kind of synthesizing referred to by Cross 3

We need empiricists who are committed with strong resolve
to penetrate the full immediacy of human experience; sys-
tematizers who strive to perfect the elegance and precision
of each new expression; integrators who have the breadth of
vision to create ingenious connections between systems
which seem to stand strangely apart in realms that are not
now intelligibly related. Most of all, we need relatively
unspecialized pioneers with the kind of flexible disposi-
tion that will enable them to range with advantage from
any one aspect of the world of scientific endeavor to any

other. Their function would be to examine with acute

7Crick, o . cit., p. 217.

8Llewellyn Gross, "An Epistemological View of Sociological
Theory,” American Journal of Sociology, 65:4#l-##8, March, 1960.

12

concern the neglected hiatuses between the specialities
and, when possible, to join the fixed boundaries that iso-

late sciences and scientists from one another.

While Cross is directing his comments toward sociologists

it remains perhaps to the social philosopher to best perform this

type of task. For it is the philosOpher who permits himself total

access to all the disciplines by his commitment to think through

the relationships of facts to values. Jahoda, Selltiz, Deutsch,

and Cook9 lend credence to this belief when they state that among

the purposes of theory are "to summarise existing knowledge, to
provide an explanation for observed events and relationships, and

to predict the occurrence of as yet unobserved events and relation-

ships on the basis of the explanatory principles embodied in the

theory." Some, or all, of these purposes may be within the inten-

tion of the theorist as he constructs his theoretical construct.
In this study our purposes will be those of summarizing existing

knowledge and providing explanations for observed events and rela-
tionships. Since we have classified the study as social philoso-
phic in nature, we shall be dealing constantly, with both facts and

The facts will be those of others, the values will be our

values.
own. Such a personal involvement might seem non-scientific and non-
theoretical. It may well be non-scientific but it cannot be con-

strued to be non-theoretical for it is in the nature of theory

building to be intensely personal as Rioch 0 contends:

In other words, a theory is intensely personal, being
a personal performance resulting from repeated experiences

9Jahoda, et. al., 0 . cit., p. #81.
loDavid Rioch, et. al., Current Trends in Psychglo ical
Theory (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 19517, p. 1&2.

13

in participant observation, and at the same time it is in-
tensely interpersonal, being determined by the relations
of the original observer with his colleagues and by the
interpersonal transactions of the group as a whole.

It is upon this purely individualized nature of theory con-
struction that we, at last, move to the brief delineation of the
elements of theory and subsequently to its definition.

There appear to be four elements basic to the establishment
of a logical and coherent description of a particular phenomenon.
These are the four pillars upon which theory must be grounded, they

.30:

l. A theory is made up of a system describing some
phenomenon.

2. This descriptive system is derived from its sub-systems.

3. The sub-systems consist of prOpositions assumed to be

true.

#. These sub-systems are logically inter-related within

the total descriptive system.
From these elements may be established the following defi-

nition of theory:

A theory is a descriptive system derived from logically

inter-related sub-systems assumed to be true.

By the substitution of terms and phrases we can visualize

the develOpment of our study within this definition. We are going

to describe in a systematic form a conceptual framework called
"creative human relations", which can be derived from the logical
association between man's ability to create and the ability of

human beings to relate to one another in particular ways, based on

certain conditions of human life we believe to be true.

 

lh

We do not pretend that this study is a scientific one,
whatever that implies. This study is, rather, a personal endeavor
to make sense by means of the logical analysis of certain relational
events observable in the normative function of modern American

society. It is toward this end that we dedicate our efforts.

CHAPTER II
THE CONDITIONS OF MAN AS CREATOR

Simply the self-interest of mankind calls for a more
general effort to foster the invention of life. And that
effort can be guided intelligently only by insight into
the nature of the creative process.

Brewster Ghiselin, The Creative Process

Our purpose in this chapter is to establish and discuss the
basic conditions which determine man's capacity to create. Our con-
clusions on the conditions of man's creativity inexorably lead us
to the final construction of our theory on creative human relations.
It remains to the next chapter to complete the union between man's
creative powers and the establishment of human relations. Our
present concern must focus on the conditions of man as creator.

Our consideration of the conditions within which man's crea-
tive capacities are established and developed is from a four point
perspective: (1) The Biological Condition; (2) The Socio-Cultural
Condition; (3) The Psycho-Physical Condition; and (4) The Mental
Condition. These are arbitrary classifications into which we have
divided the infinite number of total conditions which bear upon man
as creator. Each of these four conditions is a necessary condition
but not a sufficient condition for man's development as a creative
being. Each condition is of such breadth that it may effectively
stimulate and inhibit the creative tendencies of individual men at

any given time. Our focus is, however, upon man, rather than

15

16

individual men; yet there is implicit in our discussion, the conno-
tation that all men are, in all their ways, like man. In general,
the Biological and Socio-Cultural Conditions tend to establish a
basis for similarities among men, while the Psycho-Physical and
Mental Conditions tend to identify the differences between men.

All four conditions are inter-related and vital to the continued

existence and progress of man as creator.
A. THE BIOLOGICAL CONDITION

No matter how one may wish to avoid the fact, it is ever
true that man's creativeness is to a great extent governed by his
biological nature. Man is conceived and his life processes com-
mence. Man is born and confronts the world with his biological
inheritance. The changes man subsequently brings about in his
environment always remain dependent upon the biological origin of
his capacity to create. Sinnott1 goes so far as to suggest that it
is life itself which is "anticonservative, original, creative."2

Certainly the fundamental import of man's biological condition

 

1Edmund Sinnott, "The Creativeness of Life," Creativity and
Its' Cultivation, ed. Harold H. Anderson (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1959). Chapter 2,p. l3.

2Brill would agree with Sinnott but presses the point fur-
ther by suggesting that all biological variations and human inven-
tions are "chance occurrences". John.Brill, The Chance Character
of Human Existence (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), p. 12.

Schrghinger's view is diametrically opposite. He contends
that "just as the political and social development and the sequence
of historical events in general are not thrust upon us by the spin-
ning of the Fates, but largely depend on our own doing, so our bio-
logical future, being nothing else but history on a large scale,
must not be taken to be an unalterable destiny that is decided in
advance by any law of Nature." Erwin Schrbdinger, Mind and
Matter (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1956), p.33.

l7

commands our detailed consideration if we are to better understand
the other conditions of man as creator.

The event of a human life is that of a total experience be-
ginning at the moment of conception and continuing until the cessa-
tion of life. This total experience may be comprised of an infinite
number of experiences which are, as Dewey} says, "the result of
interaction between a live creature and some aspect of the world
in which he lives. . . . The process continues until a mutual
adaptation of the self and the object emerges and that particular
experience comes to a close."

Within the framework of Dewey's conception man's life exper-
ience is firmly rooted in his biological nature. Without eyes no
man can see, without the internal ear no man can hear, without a
brain no man can think. Thus the totality of man's interaction
with his world is conditioned by the completeness of his biological
inheritance.

Few scientists today doubt the truth of the Darwinian con-
cept of biological evolution. Some deny the implications of the
dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest basis upon which he founded his
theory, but there are few who disavow the idea that man arrived at
his present stage of biological development through a long series of
gradual physiological changes. Even religionists who formerly denied
the feasibility of such a theory because it was in conflict with a

literal translation of The Bible now concur that evolution is one

way of interpreting the Biblical story of man's creation. The

3John Dewey, et. al., AjModern Book of Esthetics, ed. Kelvin
Rader (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1952), pp. 72-73.

18

essential fact upon which agreement can usually be obtained is that
however he arrived at his present level of development, man is a
superior being when compared with other living creatures.

Man's superiority is manifested in various ways including
certain biological characteristics. Paradoxically one of the ways
in which man's superiority is evidenced is due to the lack of cer-
tain traits in man which are possessed by animals. Among these are
inherited patterns of behavior. Man is born with few reflexes, the
most important being contraction of the pupil of the eye in strong
light, salivation when he is hungry and food is present, muscular
contraction with a pain stimulus, and the effect of his nervous sys-
tem on breathing, digestion, excretion, and heartbeat. The lack of
extensively inherited behavior patterns plus the lack of specific
biological compensations for environmental conditions (i.e. pro-
tective coloring, hairy covering for the body, fins and gills for
the water, etc.) are believed responsible for man's creative adap-
tation and wide distribution over the earth's surface. One of the
consequences of these biological conditions was that man became more
flexible and adaptable to a wider variety of environmental condi-
tions.

There is, however, a positive side of the ledger when we
compare the biological nature of man with all other members of the

animal kingdom. Being less well endowed in certain ways, man was

k

“Schneider supports this view when she says that "for all
his powers, then, man is of all animals in certain ways the least
at home with the external world when he first enters it. Yet he
is so constituted that he must come to know it best." Elisabeth
Schneider, Aesthetic Motive (New York: The MacMillan Company,
1939) g p. 19e

19

compelled to rely on other characteristics in order to compensate
for these deficiencies. Of special significance in this biological
compensation was the fact that man's offspring were helpless for so
long a period after birth. Without the inherited behavior patterns
man found it increasingly necessary to find the means to insure the
continued training and development of each succeeding generation.
Thus man began to utilise in ever-greater measure those gradually

evolving characteristics which could serve as compensatory attri-

5

butes. Biesans and Biesanz describe these physiological advan-

tages of man:

He has a prehensile hand, with a thumb that he can
oppose to each of his four long fingers. Thus he can grasp
and manipulate and create with his hands. His hands are
freed for doing work by his upright_posture. He can stand
on his two long legs because his curved spine and his arched
foot cushion the shock of walking and prevent injury to his
brain. His binocular vision can be focused for different
distances. The higher primates, man's distant cousins,
share these three attributes with him to some degree, but
these traits alone are not sufficient to enable the great
apes and monkeys to build culture.

What really sets man apart from the rest of the animal
kingdom is his highly complex nervous system, including a
large brain, and his vocal apparatus. Man's brain case is
about three times as large as the gorilla's and is especial-
1y well-developed in the frontal area. This large brain is
also very complex; there are perhaps 10 billion nerve end-
ings embedded in the cerebral cortex.

 

Man's vocal apparatus enables him to speak articulately.
Compared to the primates, his jaws are smaller and less
protruding, and he has no obstructions (such as the simian
plate) to interfere with the free movement of his tongue.
His face is comparatively vertical, and his canine teeth
are approximately the same size as his other teeth. This
apparatus would, of course, be of no value to him if he did
not have a highly developed speech area in his brain, which
really makes it possible for him to symbolize and communi-
cate, to learn, think, remember, and foresee. Thus he can

5John Biesans and Mavis Biesanz, Modern Society (Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959), p. 31.

20
create culture, acquire it from his fellows, and transmit
it to others.
Scientists and philosophers have suggested at various times

that certain of these characteristic advantages of man are more im-
portant than others. The power of speech is considered by some to
be of the greatest importance.6 Others depict man's development as
a consequence of his freedom from subjection to behavior predeter-

mined by instinct.7

But most widely proclaimed as the biological
advantage which elevates him above all other members of the animal
kingdom, is man's brain. Scientists have been studying the brain
of man with some degree of validity for only a short time. Such
possibilities as brain size, relative and absolute sizes of associa-
tion areas, the richness of fiber connections, the architectural
intricacy, and activity level, have been studied with only tenta-
tive conclusions yet reached. Current and future research will,
perhaps, someday provide the data which clarifies the precise phy-

siological function of the human brain in the processes of reasoning

and imaginative thinking. With specific regard to man's ability to

 

6Chase places speech first in importance when he states that
"scientists are pretty well agreed today that what chiefly distin-
guishes humans from all other living creatures is the power to talk,
to communicate in words, to use the words to form abstract ideas,
and so to think." Stuart Chase, Roads to Aggeement (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1951), p. 196.

7Stratton's beliefs support this view: "Man is in no such
subjection to his biological inheritance as are the animals. He
has it in him to turn upon his inherited impulses, his 'drives',
and to put them in the place he chooses for them. Animals, in con-
trast, show no such power over their inherited impulses. They
accept them and obey them as best they can." George Malcolm
Stratton, Han: Creator or Destroys; (London: George Allen and Unwin,
Ltd., 1952), p. 20.

21

imagine, Gerard8 summarises the problem in this way:

As the set of facts are brought together new understanding
will arise. Possibly from this direction we shall get a
clue as to the finer differential between brains: What
gives one man a vivid imagination but a poor memory, anoth-
er an encyclopedic memory but dull imagination? And when
that answer is at hand science will indeed have established
the biological basis of imagination.

Yet despite our present limitations we are aware that man's
brain enables him to perform certain mental processes which are
essential to his creative expression. Arendt9 suggests that it is
the ability to remember that leads to the reification of his thoughts
in tangible form. Without such ability man could, of course, never
act in a constructive and directed manner, for his life could be
only a series of spontaneous, unrelated acts.

This capacity to remember Opens up to him vast possibili-
ties for the mastery of detailed and differentiated learning sets
which are basic to the development of complex intellectual pro-
cesses. Harlowlo elaborates upon this capacity:

In deference to man we would suggest that the ability

of the human animal to form and utilise multiple perceptual
learning sets probably differentiates him from other animals
to as great a degree as does the ability to utilize spoken
language. . . . Man is defined as the speaking animal, but
of equal importance is the fact that he is also the only
animal capable of forming the detailed and differentiated

perceptual learning sets that underlie a vast range of
intellectural processes, including those of mastering or

 

Ralph Gerard, The Creative Process, ed. Brewster Ghiselin
(New York: The New American Library, 1952), pp. 241-249.

9Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1958). p. 95.

10Harry Harlow, et. al., Current Trends in Psychological
Theory, ed. Wayne Dennis (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1951), p. 82.

22

being mastered by the printed page.11

The value of language formation in the development of human
culture is well known, thus Harlow's words have special importance
as we conclude our discussion of the biological conditions of man
as creator and prepare to look at the significance of the condi-

tions of man's social and cultural environment.

Recapitulation

We have discussed how man's biological inheritance has on-
abled man to creatively adapt to, and alter, his environment.
This,man is able to do more effectively and extensively than

other members of the animal kingdom because he is capable of

 

creating enduring patterns of behavior which are, in turn, subject
to his creative capacity to revise or amend. It is within this
conceptual view of man's power to create that we are able to
visualize the tremendous potential of the human society. It is true
that other members of the animal kingdom do live in societies and do

possess intelligence but not to the degree of that possessed by man.

 

11Gibson's thinking is closely aligned to Harlow's: "When

an individual can identify the property among otherwise different
objects and specify it with a verbal response, he is well on his way
towards conceptual thinking. He becomes capable not only of finer
differential reactions, but also of new integrating reactions; he
can perceive the similarities as well as the differences among
things. From the perceiving of similarities a new kind of naming
emerges which enables him to react to classes of objects and events,
that is to form categorical concepts. The new kind of reaction is
better called a symbol than a name. In the logician's terminology,
the reaction has connotation as well as denotation. The capacity
to have symbolic reactions and the experiences that go with them is
probably what makes the repertory of human acts so elaborate and
the range of human experience so far reaching." James J. Gibson,
et. al., Current Trends in Psychological Theggy (Pittsburgh, Pa.:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1951), p. 108.

23

The difference in degree is so great as to be referred to by many
as a difference not of degree at all but of kind. We are of the
belief that the difference is one of degree on a biological con-
tinuum but of such degggg that it is appropriate for all intents
and purposes to discuss the difference as being a difference in
kind. That the results produced by the superiority of man on the
continuum of biological evolution are so far-reaching as to be of
a different order altogether is scarcely debatable. The biological
nature of man which makes his social inheritance possible, with all
that it encompasses, is the unique and distinct advantage which man
has over any other living creature.

Man's superiority as a biological entity is best expressed
in his ability to accumulate knowledge, to transmit it from genera-
tion to generation, and subsequently for each generation to depart
from its past. We observe no such powers anywhere else in the
animal kingdom. Thus man's biological inheritance is the spring-
board which projects him into a social and cultural environment of
his own creation. It is this constantly evolving social environ-
ment with its enduring patterns of behavior which provides man an

inheritance distinctly unique to man alone--the enduring culture.

Conclusion
The Biolgical Condition is the pre-condition of man'Lpro-

ggess to new and higher levels of creative expression.

B. THE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONDITION

If the Biological Condition of man as creator is the pre-

condition of man's progress toward new and higher levels of creative

2#

expression then surely the Socio-Cultural Condition must be con-
sidered the "expediting" condition. For it is from the society,
with its enduring cultural forms, that man gains access to the
means by which he may create his own particular additions to the
society. Unless the society elects to grant access to these means
man is not able to develop beyond the infantile level of expression.
In brief the Socio-Cultural Condition is the condition under which
man expedites the transmission of his cultural means to each suc-
ceeding generation. It is this condition which makes man most man.

From birth until death every member of a human group is sub-
jected to the pressure of that group to adopt certain patterns of
behavior which tend to preserve the structure of the group. This
is one of the major reasons why every society maintains certain
institutions-~they stabilize the culture of that society. It is,
perhaps, a social process which could be compared to the biological
function of preservation of species. Among these formal and preser-
vative behavior patterns are language usage, familial organization,
economic endeavor, regulatory and punitive behavior, and education
of the young. These institutionalized behavior patterns permeate
all facets of every society's culture and become the social milieu
into which man is born. It is to this social milieu that man as
creator owes a great debt. And it is this same milieu against
which man as creator often vigorously rebels. One of the paradoxes
of man as creator is evident in this reliance on culture combined
with his disapproval and contention with the culture.

This paradox of reliance-disapproval becomes less confusing

if we accept the notion that the human society is founded upon man's

25

biological capacity to create. With this concept in mind we are no
longer amazed that the paradox of reliance-disapproval is constantly
in effect, for man by nature of his physiology is predisposed to be
inventive, original, and creative. Thus any culture possesses a
kind of stability within a state of constant change. Certain of the
institutionalised patterns of behavior tend to preserve the hier-
archy at values which characterize any culture. At the same time
the changing composition of the society tends to induce specific or
broad changes into all facets of the culture thereby creating cer-
tain conflicts which in turn bring about change.

The magnitude of the changes which occur depends greatly
upon the external world conditions with which the society as a
whole must contend. Periods of war stimulate the search for tech-
nolOgical advances which may lead to victory. Economic depression
tends to precipitate abortive political changes designed to facili-
tate economic recovery. The introduction of certain scientific
discoveries, such as the telescope, tends to pave the way for other
related discoveries and technological advances. Changes tend to
take place in response to social needs and in relationship to the
level of cultural develOpment of any society. Inventions, scien-
tific discoveries, schools of artistic expression, and social
dynamics are not mere accidents but rather the related effects of
causal events in man's history.

But however much a society may "force" the patterns of
man's creative expression it also provides him the means with which
he may articulate his creative urge. We know that all human socie-

ties utilise language as a means for preserving, transmitting, and

26

elaborating their cultural forms. Without the power to speak and a
language which possesses a more or less conventional relevance to
life's problems man's "intellectual powers might not," as Chase12
maintains, "much exceed those of a smart chimpanzee." Only from
his society‘s culture is man able to acquire a language with all
its immense benefits to his potential growth--as a creative being.
For it is language which provides man access to the technological
inheritance of his culture.

Culture also frees man to pursue his special interests by
providing him with automatic behavior patterns for his daily exis-
tence. If it were necessary to have to "think through" how to
dress, or tie our shoes, or walk, there would be little time re-
maining to concentrate on the more far-ranging problems man seeks
to resolve. Man would, indeed, be scarcely more than a "thinking"
simpleton if this were the case, so involved would he be in the
constant effort to learn anew each simple task of daily existence.
It is to man's credit and advantage that he is able to perform
mechanically a vast number of functional tasks without continuous
relearning once each skill is acquired. Freed from the mechanics
of everyday affairs man is able to ponder far more challenging
issues with their latent powers to alter the course of human affairs.
Han becomes more creative because his socio-cultural conditions per-
mit him the freedom to follow his desired pursuits.

We must be conscious of the fact, however, that what society

grants man in this instance is only one kind of freedom. This is a

 

12Stuart Chase, Roads to Aggeement (New York: Harper and
Brose’ 1951), pe 197s

27

"freedom from" the necessity of constantly learning anew those
tasks which can become mechanical skills and recede below the con-
scious level of man's mind. But ”freedom from" does not insure a
"freedom for", which is another kind of freedom. This second free-
dom is that which enables man to develop special interests and to
pursue these interests as a matter of choice. Both kinds of free-
dom are important to man's progress as a creative being. Without
"freedom from" biological restrictions man does not have time to
create. Without "freedom for" development of his particular
selected pursuits man's creative expression is thwarted. But taking
the first quite for granted man‘s conflict with his society centers
around the latter kind of freedom.

The "freedom for" which society determines to a high degree
for man may stem from several bases. Limitations may exist due to
economic demands placed upon the members of a society. Man has lit-
tle time or energy for creative thought when his survival demands a
constant output of energy for this end. Or conversely his energy
level may be so low that he becomes unable to waste energy on any-
thing other than self—preservation. Such a state of affairs in any
society is not conducive to "freedom for" the selection and develOp-
ment of interests which are not related in some way to the preser-
vation of life itself.

There are also political restrictions which a society may
impress upon its members. This is the regulation of "freedom for"
about which we hear so much today. With two major alignments of the
World's population struggling for political supremacy this deter-

minant is having an impact beyond the boundaries of the two camps.

28

At stake in this colossal struggle is the autonomy of the indivi-
dual as compared with that of the state. Again we see the peren-
nial conflict between man and his society. Yet we also visualise
in our present struggle the devastating potential of great masses
of the world's population subjected to the arbitrary decisions of
a few. A society based on such a value system appears inimical to
the fullest development of man's creative potential. And converse-
ly such a society is seemingly self-destructive if it would contain
man's "freedom for" his creative self-expression.

The preceding examples of societal control of man's'Treedom
for" are only two of many which could be cited. Religion or moral-
ity are restrictive factors; the level of technology is another
determinant; the processes of education must be recognised as impor-
tant; in fact the prevailing value systems of any society influence,
in one way or another, man's "freedom for" creative action. We must
clarify one point before we proceed to other elements of the Socio-
Cultural Condition of man as creator. The influence of society
upon man as creator is never a one-way process. It is, rather, a
matter of continuous interaction between a society and its members.

While we admit to the power of cultural influence we con-
tend that the culture need not destroy man's capacity to be both
subjugated to it and free from it as attested by Riesman13:

The character of the autonomous individual is derived
from, hence in part determined by, the prevailing modes of
conformity in the society in which he lives. Autonomy is
never an "all or nothing" affair; it does not come about

suddenly, but sometimes imperceptibly, and always as the
result of a continual struggle with the forces of the

 

(laDavid'Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven, Conn.: Yale

University Press, 1953), p. 300.

29

culture which oppose it. I like to interpret the concep-
tion that "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains,"
to mean that man is born a slave--a slave to his biological
and cultural inheritance~-but that he can become, through
experience and experiment, increasingly free. No one en~
tirely lacks the capacity for autonomy and freedom, though
people often willfully reject them. But even in those inn
stances in which the struggle for freedom is abandoned, the
rationalisations for denying freedom seem to testify to the
pull of freedomp-else why do the world's deniers of freedom
argue so much and, in purely logical terms, so well? Men
desire freedom through understanding and control of their
ceaselessly changing and problematic inner and outer
environment.

Society, with its enduring cultural forms, does possess a
power to pattern its individual members but similarly its members
are in the reciprocal position of being able to act upon the socie-
ty and eventually alter the cultural patterns. Lintonlu contends
that:

In spite of the thorough enculturation of the individual, he
still retains the capacity to think and to devise new forms
of behavior in response to situations for which the patterns
of his culture are inadequate. Enculturation merely limits
the conceptual tools with which he can operate and the direc-
tions in which he will think. The individual is the irreduci-
ble variable in every social and cultural situation. He is
the yeast in the cultural brew, and every new element of
culture can be traced back ultimately to some individual's
mind.

The society not only determines the amount of freedom avail-
able to its members it has a powerful effect upon their emotions and
perceptions. The way man "feels" about his experiences and the
forms of expression he uses to demonstrate his emotions and percep-
tions reveal the impact of his culture upon him. The temperament

of man in Western civilization has its origin in the Greek tradi-

tion. The urge of the individual to express himself--to view

luRalph Linton, The Tree of Culture (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf Co., 1955). p. #0.

30

himself as a unique beingl5--is characteristic of the Greek influ-

ence. In contrast we have the Oriental concept of man uniting in

oneness with all men as the basic tradition. The differences be-
tween these views is reflected in the art and technology of the
societies falling within these cultural traditions. Indeed the

traditions permeate all facets of life within the cultures and

shape the lives of their members.

While the culture gives to man those tools which enable him
to perceive and react to his culture in a particular way, man is

not necessarily limited to these tools, because he is able to crea-

tively alter his environment by adding to it. As yet we know com-

paratively little about the total relationship between man and his
culture. Many attempts have been made by the disciplines of psy-
chology, sociology, and social psychology to discover certain types
of relationships, but most of these studies have been limited in
scope and applicability to a more comprehensive framework for under-

standing man's creative expression. We agree with Lasswelllé who

feels that:

It would be a rewarding and gigantic task to appraise our
entire civilization from this point of view. What are the
facilitators of which innovations? What are the inhibitors
of which? We need to examine every cluster of value-
institution practices with these questions in mind. Beliefs,

15This is a problem which, in itself, deserves special con-
sideration. When we speak of the "uniqueness" of the individual are
we referring to his differences from other men? Or are we intending
by his ”uniqueness" a special set of properties which only that one
individual could ever possess? These are questions which we are not
prepared to discuss at this time but are of sufficient import to
merit discussion at some time within the framework of man's creative
capacities.

16Harold D. Lasswell, "The Social Setting of Creativity,”
Creativit and its Cultivation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959),

Chapter 13, p. 210.

31

faiths and loyalties are relevant; so, too, are the opera-
tional arrangements of every organized body (and of every

unorganized, though patterned, activity). Every structure
contains specialized situations, and these situations con-
tain roles, some of whose consequences put them among the

facilitators or the inhibitors of recognition.l7

Until a sufficient body of integrative evidence is accumu-
lated however, we must tentatively rely on the available evidence.
Among the more significant studies is that of Anderson18 whose data

on integrative and dominative behavior support the following

hypotheses:

l. integrative behavior in one child induced integrative
in the companion.

2. domination incited domination.

3. integration and domination were psychologically
different.

Northway and Books19 found that children who are better

accepted socially tend to be the more creative students. They
clarify the results of their experimental works as follows:

If results from such a situation are accepted as indicating
creativity, it will be found that they fit well into the
theoretical thinking on which sociometry is based, namely
that creativity arises out of social integration, not as a
compensation for it. The individual who has social bonds
is not fettered by them, but rather supported. In his

 

l7$uch an effort was attempted by Nash in his study on Amer-
ican composers. Nash found that the contemporary composers he
studied were dissatisfied with their social role, that they resented
the necessity of toadying to managers, conductors, instrumentalists,
and others in order to achieve performance of their musical works.
His descriptive materials on the role situation of the composer, and
especially on his adjustment to this situation by role versatility,
are of considerable value for they offer proof of the effective
social conditioning of the creative artist. Dennison J. Nash,
"The Socialization of an Artist: The American Composer," Social
Forces, 35:307-313, August, 1957.

18Harold H. Anderson (ed.), Creativity_and its Cultivation
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), p. 132.

19Mary L. Nerthway and Margaret McCallum Rooks, "Creativity
and Sociometric Status in Children," Sociometry, 18:#50-#57, 1956.

32
dependency he achieves the freedom to he himself and to
create in his own unique way.20
'We have previously indicated that the social milieu impresses
upon man certain responsibilities and expectations which may influ-
ence his creative expression. The very act of creative expression
may, of itself, tend to produce certain anticipations or reactions
by the society. One reaction may be a tendency to alienate crea-
tive man. This is described by Bronowskial who contends that:
We expect artists as well as scientists to be forward-
looking, to fly in the face of what is established, and to
create not what is acceptable but what will become accepted.
One result of this prizing of originality is that the art-
ist new shares the unpopularity of the scientist: the

large public dislikes and fears the way that both of them
look at the world.

Despite this unpopularity among the masses, the artist, and others
whose creativity tends to alienate them from their social environ-
ment, continue the search for the deeper meaning of their times.

Perhaps it is the constant threat to the security of the known and

 

2°Zeleny reports several studies which substantiate the idea
that more creativity-productivity is released in groups organized
upon the basis of "mutuality" than in groups organized upon a non-
mutuality basis or by chance. He refers to the wealth of philoso-

phical writings which also support this idea:
"A central theme seems to be that the self and society
deve10p best when human beings live in a state of reciprocity . . .
To repeat and expand the hypothesis a bit (without departing from
what is found in it) we may say it recognizes:
1. The importance of the individual and his self-
expression.
2. Respect for the dignity of each individual by every
other individual or love.
3. The united of all individuals in some kind of a

‘oneness'.”
Leslie D. Zeleny, "Validity of a Sociometric Hypothesis-~The

Function of Creativity in Interpersonal and Group Relations," Socio-
metry, 18:439-4h9, 1956.

21J. Bronowski, "The Creative Process," Scientific American,
199:3:60, September, 1958.

mwfl...._;__—_.-'——_ ." _- L..__.__._..____.._

33

the accepted which makes the creative individual potentially dis-
ruptive to the normal course of events. Similarly it may be the
paradoxical nature of man to seek the security of conformism while
simultaneously desiring freedom. Indeed, it may well be that the
culture which best "frees" man "securely" is that culture which is
most capable of permanent tenure among the cultures of man.
Rogerszz concludes that the conditions which a society may
provide which will foster creativity are ”psychological safety" and
"psychological freedom". To provide psychological safety the socie-
ty must: (1) accept the individual as of unconditional worth; (2)
provide a climate in which external evaluation is absent; and (3)
understand the individual empathically. Rogers' psych010gical free-
dom closely resembles the "freedom for" which we described earlier.
Whether any society would be completely amenable to, or could ever
fulfill the trying demands of providing security and freedom simul-
taneously is subject only to speculation. Yet this is the goal which
man as creator endeavors to reach. The fact that a certain amount
of security and freedom are simultaneously provided by every society
is, perhaps, the spur which goads man on toward his desired ideal.
Han creates and by so doing adds both to his culture and
the complexity of his own struggle. It is within this broad para-
dox that we are able to identify the three paradoxes of culture

which Herskowitz‘a3 has developed:

 

22Carl Rogers, ”Toward a Theory of Creativity," Creativity
and Its Cultivation, ed. Harold H. Anderson (New York: Harper and

Brothers, 1959). Chapter 6,p. 78.

23Don Hartindale, American Social Structure (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1960), p. 86.

3#

1. Culture is universal in man's experience, yet each

local or regional manifestation of it is unique.

2. Culture is stable, yet culture is also dynamic and
manifest continuous and constant changes.
3. Culture fills and largely determines the course of

our lives, yet rarely intrudes into conscious thought.
Recapitulation

The Socio-Cultural Condition enters into man's life as a
result of man's biological capacity to establish enduring patterns
of behavior which can be transmitted to, and altered by, each suc-
ceeding generation. Man, the social animal, is highly structured
by the Socio-Cultural Condition into which he is born. The neces-
sity for man to undergo a long period of integration into his
society makes the establishment of cultural means to facilitate
this integration imperative. Language, attitudes, roles, and skills
are but a few of the requisite learnings for man if he is to become
a functional member of his society. Indeed, it appears that with-
out these forms of knowledge man qua man can not function at all in
his social environment.

The Socio-Cultural Condition of man as creator is not, how-
ever, a one-way street. As man acquires the requisite learnings of
his culture he becomes increasingly capable of exerting an influ-
ence on his society. His mere presence is an influencing factor
but with his power to create man seeks to alter his Socio-Cultural
Condition. This creative effort by man is met with some resistance
in all societies to a greater or lesser degree. This situation
appears to create the paradox of man reliant upon his society yet

turning upon his society. It is this paradox which makes culture

relatively stable while it is at the same time changing. Thus the

35

Socio—Cultural Condition of man as creator is both a facilitating

and controlling condition of man's creative expression.

Conclusion
The Socio-Cultural Condition provides the means by which
man is able to create more effectively and also establishes the

limits of his creative expression.
C. THE PSYCHO-PHISICAL CONDITION

The discussion of the Biological and the Socio-Cultural
Conditions has been centered around the development of mankind in
general. It is now appropriate that we study the conditions of man-
kind more closely so that we might identify those forces which tend
to make men different from one another. It is important that we
recognize and accept the contributions of man's biological and
social origins but we must not forget that the progress of man qua
man has been the cumulative effect of the acts by individual men.
Our intention in the remaining two sections is to ferret out the con-
ditions which tend to create the far-ranging diversities among men.

The term Psycho-Physical as it is used in this section re-
fers to the emotional, temperamental, motivational (Psycho-) and
physiological (-Physical) characteristics of the personality. We
do not use the term "personality" because (1) it is ambiguous in
its conventional usage; and (2) it is too encompassing in its
general meaning by personality theorists. With regard to the lat-
ter reason we wish to point out that our concern with the Psycho-
Physical Conditions of man as creator does not include the conscious

mental processes which are usually included in the term "personality".

36

Specifically our attention is concentrated on the condi-
tions of which the individual creator may be completely unaware.
The idea that an unconscious mind exists is not new; "even the
ancients recognized that mental processes can and do go on below
the level of our awareness" as Estabrooks and Gross24 have noted.
They emphasize the importance of this concept by insisting that
"the time is long since past in which man was content to gear his
explanations of the phenomena of life entirely to his feelings
about them and his experience of them, and even if the concept of
a dynamic unconscious mind is difficult to accept emotionally, it
provides the most intellectually satisfying approach we have yet
developed to an understanding of human behavior."

Accepting the belief in an unconscious mind or an "inner
nature" of man, what, then, are the indicators of its particular
concern for men in their creative endeavors? Barron25 lists
twelve hypotheses (based on the research conducted at the Institute
of Personality Assessment and Research) which suggest possible ans-
were to our question:

1. Creative people are more observant, and value
accurate observation, truth-telling to themselves, more.

2. They often tell or express only part-truths, but
vividly, but the part they express is the generally unrecog-
nized--they point to the usually unobserved.

3. They see things as others do, but also as others
do not.

 

#George H. Estabrooks and Nancy Cross, The Future of the
Human Mind (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1961), p. 26.

25Frank Barron, "The Needs for Order and Disorder as
Motives in Creative Activity," The Second Conference on the Identi-
fication of Creative Scientific Talent (Salt Lake City, Utah:

University of Utah Press, 1957). Pp. 119-128.

37

#. They are thus independent in their cognition, and
also value clearer cognition, to that they will suffer
great personal pains to testify correctly.

5. They are motivated both to this value and this
talent (independent, sharp observation) for self-preserva-
tive reasons (the ego-instincts at work),

6. They are born with greater brain-capacity--more
ability to hold a lot of ideas in their head at once, and
to compare more ideas with one another, hence to make a
richer synthesis.

7. In addition to unusual endowment in terms of the
ego-instincts, they have much sexual drive as well (both
pregenital and genital) because they are by constitution
more vigorous organisms and more sensitive (nervous).

8. Their universe is thus naturally more complex, and
in addition they usually have more complex lives, leading
them to prefer much tension in the interest of the pleasure
they obtain upon its discharge.

9. Hence, they also have more apprehensions of uncon-
scious motives, fantasy life, etc. They note or observe
their impulses more, and allow them eXpression in the
interest of truth.

10. Creative people have exceptionally strong egos.
The self is strongest when it can go far back regressively
(to let primitive fantasies, tabooed impulses into con-
sciousness and behavior) and yet return to a high degree of
rationality. The creative person is both more primitive and
more cultured, more destructive and more constructive,
crazier and saner, than the average person.

11. when the distinction between subject (self and ob-
ject is most secure, the distinction can with most security
be allowed to disappear for a time (as in mysticism and in
love). This is based on true sympathy with the not-self,
or with the opposite of those things which comprise defen-
sive self-definition. The strong ego realizes that it can
afford to allow regression, because it is secure in the
knowledge that it can correct itself.

12. The objective freedom of the organism is at a maxi-
mum when this capacity exists, and creative potential is
directly a function of objective freedom.

From this list we can visualize the significance of such
qualities as courage, inner-directedness, autonomy, and integrity

for the more creative person as he flies in the face of the

38

established and the traditional. If the individual seeks to ex-
press his creative urges he must be capable of resisting the ostra-
cism and alienation of a reticent, or even hostile, society. The
strength of his abiding convictions is the reservoir of unconscious
motivation which preserves his ego and supplies the courage and
integrity to struggle against seemingly overwhelming odds. Nor is
the struggle merely that of the creator versus society; it is at
times the creator against himself. Frommz6 stresses this point:
I refer to the willingness to be born every day. . . .
Every act of birth requires the courage to let go of some-
thing . . . to let go eventually of all certainties, and to
rely upon the thing: one's own powers to be aware and to
respond; that is, one's own creativity. To be creative
means to consider the whole process of life as a process of
birth, and not to take any stage of life as a final stage.
The "willingness to be born every day" which Fromm proposes
is a part of the total process of self-discipline--of the effort to
bring to fruition the fullest realization of the desired "self".
This is a positive process, an affirmation of man's loftiest goal
in life--"self-actualization" as it is called by Hall and Lindsey.27
in reference to C. G. Jung's development of the concept:
Towards what end are man and mankind striving? The
ultimate goal is summed up by the term self-actualization.
Self-actualization means the fullest, most complete dif-
ferentiation and harmonious blending of all aspects of
man's total personality.

This view is in apposition,however, to the belief of most

people who tend to look upon creative personalities as "different”,

 

26Erich Fromm, "The Creative Attitude," Creativity and its

Cultivation, ed. Harold Anderson (New York: Harper and Brothers,
1959), Chapter #, p. 53.

27Calvin Hall and Gardner Lindzey, Theories of Personality
(New York: Wiley Co., 1957), p. 96.

39

"odd", or "neurotic". Such a view is strongly opposed by Maya8

who believes to the contrary that any "penetrating explanation of
the creative process must take it as the expression of the normal
man in the act of actualizing himself not as the product of sick-

ness but as the representation of the highest degree of emotional
health."29

Our thinking is in accord with Fromm, Hall and Lindzey,

and May. The creative expressions of men must be viewed as posi-

tive forces in the creative efforts of men to surpass their cultural

inheritance. But differences do exist between men in their

28

Rollo May, "The Nature of Creativity," Creativitygand its
Cultivation, ed. Harold H. Anderson (New York: Harper and Brothers,

1959), Chapter 5, p. 58.

29This belief is supported with equal fervor by Kubie:
"Earlier studies of creativity had in common a recognition of that
fact that, although conscious processes played an important role in
the final shaping of the form of the creative product, the roots of
creativity lie in deeper and more obscure processes which work with
a speed far greater than can be achieved by that fragment of our
psychological processes of which we are conscious. In early days
the importance of the unconscious in the derivation and shaping of
the neurotic process was still a fresh and astonishing discovery.
Therefore it was natural to assume that it must also be the source
of the creative drive and of the great creative inspiration in human
lifee

It is out of this natural but fallacious deduction that many
erroneous cliches have been drawn: such as the notion that a man

produces only from his unconscious, that to be creative a man must
be sick, and that consequently the artist, scientist, or writer had

better guard and protect his neurosis from the therapeutic inter-
vention of the psychiatrist.

The further fact that many creative people, whether in the
arts or in science, or in other fields of life, have in truth been
psychologically ill, has led to the easy but fallacious assumption
that the coincidence of creativity and neurosis implied a direct
necessary and causal relationship between them."

Lawrence S. Kubie, Neurotic Distortion of the Creative
Process (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1953):
pp. 57-k8.

#0

physiological abilities to express their inner selves. Gotshalk30

describes the peculiarity of the artist which distinguishes him

from other men:

The artist is not distinguished either by the quality
or the amount of his feeling, but by the intensity and

comprehensiveness of his unifying perception. Genius,
considered in itself, is but superior perceptive power,
coming from exaggerated excitability and elasticity in the
nervous centres. More precisely, the peculiarity of the
artist has an extraordinarily keen interest in, and power
to assimilate phases of, the perceptual world--sounds,
colors, lines, motions, the perceptible oddities of
people--together with the capacity to create diverse per-
ceptual systems which extend his original interest and
power and satisfy in a superior way the deeply innate

craving for novel and internally complete intrinsic per-
ceptions.

Gotshalk intended to refer solely to the relation between

the perceptual superiority of the artist and his ability to assimi-

late his perceptions into creative expression. By extension, how-

ever, we are able to visualize this relationship existing in all

men to a greater or lesser degree. The artist is recognized to be

exemplary of perceptual superiority, usually by demonstration in

one area of creative expression. This superiority does not rule

out the presence of this quality in all men. For most men the seem-

ing dullness of their perceptual powers is due less to their ab-

sence than to their lack of development. This lack of development

may be the result of deep-seated emotional scars which serve as

barriers to the development of the special traits. It is easy

enough to state categorically that everything is due to the pres-
sures exerted by society but this does not explain away the fact

that some men create despite these prohibitive forces. Why some

30D.‘W. Gotshalk, Apt and the Social Order (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, l9h7), pp. 54-55.

41

men possess these persisting well-springs of creation and others do

not is still unknown to man.31

The process of creating may serve other functions for the
creator than expression, but these functions are secondary and de-

pend upon the primary function of expression. It is creativity as

the expression of its creator which introduces the results of crea-

tion into the world of men. A thought unexpressed may exist in the

unconscious of its potential creator, but it does not enter into

the process phase until its creator expresses it, albeit only to

himself. The signification of creativity, then, is made possible

by and through the process of creating. The relationship betweeen
the individual's creative urge and its embodiment into stable form
is made clear by Gilbert and Kuhn's32 explanation of R. G.

Collingwood's beliefs on the matter:

The "expression" then, is not of any personal urge in
the artist, but of what the artist has had the gift to be-
come aware of and the sensitiveness to be burdened by in
the world of which he forms a part. He is the one who is
able to utter what everybody senses, or feels but cannot
find the words for. His "virtue" or "excellence" lies in
incorruptibility of imagination. . . . Art's "truth" is the
faithful transcription of the sense of surrounding events
and transactions, and the compacting and welding of these

transient essences into individual and relatively stable
images.

Thus part of the total act of creation which each individual

31

Theories have been introduced by various authors to shed
light on this problem. Hall and Lindzey describe several of these
theories. Foremost, in our opinion, are Freud's concept of the
sex drive; Jung's collective unconscious; and Lewin's field theory.

Hail and Lindzey, op. cit.: Freud: p. 78: Jung: p. 79; Lewis: p.
20 .

BaKatharine E. Gilbert, and Helmut Kuhn, A History of

Esthetics (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1953),
P. 5550

 

1.2

performs has its origin in the totality of interaction, conscious
and unconscious, between the individual and his environment. To the
extent that each person has psychic and physical access to this
interactive process is each man's experiential horizon expanded.
To the extent that each individual is capable of translating his
emotional and perceptual experiences into being does he fulfill

the unconscious urge to express himself in creative form. To carry
out this urge each man must proceed sequentially through a series
of develOpmental stages which culminate in the tangible realization
which we call the product of creation. Taylor's}3 four stages in
the dynamics of the creative process indicate the progression

which takes place:

The first is the preparatogy, or as I prefer to call it,
the exposure stage. During this initial period the indivi-
dual collects raw material from the world about. How much
material is collected and what is done with it will deter-
mine the quality and quantity of creative output.

The second phase is frequently termed the incubation
stage.

 

The dynamic interactions of the milling parts or per-
ceptions in the experience field of the potentially crea-
tive are largely an unconscious and uncomfortable phase.

It is possible now for the mentally undigested parts to
begin fitting together into new relations. The organiza-
tions are essentially new, and in general a certain period
of time is necessary before parts become meaningfully united.
The larger the number of free parts, the more significant
may be the creative achievement. Where much prior stereo-

typing occurs, obviously, little or no incubation is
possible.

Incubation is followed by the illumination phase, some-
times referred to as the moment of insight, the "aha!" or
"Eureka" experience. It is largely an involuntary act.

Balrving A. Taylor, et. al., Creativity, ed. Paul Smith
(New York: Hastings House, 1959), pp. 62~66.

#3
The experience of insight occurs when the incubated parts
form into a recognizable and meaningful experience.
The final state, known as elaboration, although I pre-
fer to call it the execution phase, involves the difficult
communicative task of transforming implicit experiences into
objective symbolic form. A great deal of changing usually
precedes the actual execution. The final phase of the
creative process, therefore, involves additional skills in
translating subjective notions into objective form.34
The first three stages described by Taylor correspond
indirectly to the psycho-physical conditions which we have been
analyzing.‘ The fourth stage might also be included except for the
fact that it involves conscious effort which falls outside the pale
of this section. At any rate it is clearly evident that the Psycho-
Physical Condition promotes the individualization of man and is
35

present in all men's lives whether visible or covert. Rogers

summarizes the crucial fact of the Psycho-Physical Condition when

he refers to the "I" of creation:

 

3fiTumin's steps in the creative process resemble Taylor's
but involve also the social interaction processes:

"1. There is first the perception of the field, what the
individual knows or thinks he knows about the situation. Actually,
it relates to how he defines the matter. He will act on his defi-
nition. And so we had better be concerned with his definition,
his orientation, what he thinks is in store for him, the goals he

Beebe .
2. There is his attitude, his readiness to act, his pre-

dispositions to respond.
3. There is the kind of action he takes in fulfillment of

his perception and his attitudes.
#. There are the consequences upon him of the experience

of acting in this fashion.
5. There are the consequences upon others with whom he is

in relation.
6. Finally, there is any product which results: a paint-

ing, a poem, a tool, a stage setting, a solution to a mathematical

problem, a re-formulation of a social relationship."
Melvin M. Tumin, et. al., Aesthetic Form and Education,

ed. Michael Andrews (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,
1958) 9 Po 30e
35Rogers, 0 . cit., p. 77.

44

. In almost all the products of creation we note a selec-

tivity, or emphasis, and evidence of discipline, an attempt

to bring out the essence. . . . We may say that this is the

influence of the specific person, of the "I". Reality

exists in a multiplicity of confusing facts, but "I" brings

a structure to my relationship to reality; I have "my" way

of perceiving reality, and it is this (unconsciously?) dis-

ciplined personal selectivity or abstraction which gives to

creative products their esthetic quality.
Recapitulation

The PsychoéPhysical Condition is a synthesis of the Biologi-

cal Condition and the Socio-Cultural Condition and has its impact
upon the unconscious mind of the individual. Its relevance to man
as creator is evident in the emotions, temperament, motivations,
and physiological structure of the individual which influence and
color his creative inclinations. The Psycho-Physical Condition is
greatly responsible for the diversity of man. While the Psycho-
Physical Conditions colors man's urge to create it may also dis-
color or inhibit his creative tendencies by the barriers it places
against certain forms of behavior. The Psycho-Physical Condition

expands as man's interaction with his world increases. It is the

"I" of man as creator.

Conclusion

The Psycho-Physical Condition is a product of man's Biologiy

cal and Socio-Cultural interaction with his world and shapes the

pgrticularity of his creative expression.

D. THE MENTAL CONDITION

‘We have emphasized the biological superiority of man's

brain over those of the other members of the animal kingdom. Yet

‘95

we also discovered that without the proper exercise and development
of this superior brain man can make practically no mental progress.
And we similarly found out that men differed greatly in their crea-
tive expressions even when apparently "exposed" to exercise and
development afforded them by society. This we concluded is a re-
sult of the great diversity among all men in the nature of their
psychic structure. The unconscious elements in the personalities
of men are strong influences in their physical behavior and mental
processes. We must not lose sight of the fact, however, that even
though the conscious mind is a relatively small part of the total
mind it is a most important part. It is the conscious mind which
enables men to weigh the values of an event and establish a course
of direction for their lives. It is the conscious mind which en-
ables man to acquire sets of facts or related data which he may
utilize to acquire more facts. A child in the early years of
school learns basic mathematical and language skills for precisely
this reason. It is the conscious mind which enables man to wonder
more effectively. And this same conscious mind provides man with
an awareness of commitments beyond the immediate functions of his
daily life--commitments which can alter the entire meaning of his
life. These are the powers of the conscious mind. These are the
matters which concern us in our analysis of the Mental Condition

of man as creator.

The significance of the biological origins of mental

36Much of our discussion on the mental conditions of homo
sapiens as nature's most creative species appears to treat "mind”
as a separate entity from man as a physical entity. This is an
accident of our language rather than a product of our intentions.

We firmly believe in the Gestalt concept of the whole man in a total
environment. When we refer to the "mind" of man as creator, we are

always using the term within the Gestalt view of man.

45

processes cannot be ignored. Sinnotts7 relates creativeness to the
"richness and variety of mental life" but also emphasizes that "its
basis is in the genetic constitution of the individual, but its
changes are not dependent on genetic change. Rather are they the
result of the enormously varied responses of a given genetic con-
stitution to environmental differences . . ."

Also important in the function of the mental processes are
38

such factors as brain size, activity level and drugs. Gerard
discusses these factors:

What is the neural basis for the striking quantitative
differences between man and man in intelligence or in the
several abilities which constitute intelligence or its com-
ponent, imagination? Surely brain size as such is not the
answer, as many studies have demonstrated. Perhaps abso-
lute or relative size of the association areas would show
better correlation with intelligence; or perhaps the rich-
ness of fiber connections and the architectural intricacy
. . . . And the factor of activity level is almost surely
involved; not only the size and number of nerve cells but
their rates of beat, maintained potentials, irritabilities,
their functional vigor. This, in turn, depends on their
composition (make what you will of the fact that the brains
of women contain a higher percentage of lipins--fats--than
those of men) and on their metabolism; and this, on the
blood supply and the amount of oxygen and sugar it brings,
on the salt and acid and other components of the tissue
fluids, on particular stimulants or depressants, as the
thyroid hormone or anesthetic drugs, and the like. The in-
fluence of caffeine, alcohol, strychnine, cocaine, morphine,
hashish, absinthe, and mescaline on brain metabolism and
activity are being steadily worked out; their dramatic ef-
fects on the mind, especially on hallucinations and imag-
inings,e are commonly enough known and are also being
further studied (Kluever). As the sets of facts are brought
together new understanding will arise. Possibly from this
direction we shall get a clue as to the finer differential

between brains. . . .

37Sinn0tt, 0 e cite, Pe 19e

BBGerard, o . cit., pp. 2h6-249.

4?

Sinnott has supplied us with the biological basis for man's
creative mental processes. Gerard has suggested other determinant

elements which may excite or depress mentality. Let us turn to

39

Eccles for a synthesis of our view on the antecedent conditions

which shape man's ability to reason and imagine:

The way to the imagination, the highest level of mental
experience, lies through the lower levels of sensory experi-
ence, imagery, hallucination and memory, and that is the
path we shall traverse. All that we shall learn must it-
self, of course, be the product of perceiving, reasoning
and imagining by our brains.

Actually a long period of education is required before
the brain events produced by the sensory organs can be in-
terpreted as belonging to an external world and so be
useful in sensing this world.

The repeated use of the term ”imagination" by these authors
necessitates our identification of the types of mental processes
which are generally attributed to man. Schneideruo identifies

two more or less distinguishable ways in which we bring to
conscious use that which had been unconscious. One is pri-
marily logical and analytic; the other is not. It is this
other non-logical way that we call imaginative. We seem to
have the power of subjecting this material to our attention,
and yet at the same time of allowing it to remain free of
the mind's rational control.

The value of logical reasoning must be recognized for its
important contribution to man's capacity to stockpile knowledge and
to order this knowledge into differentiated sets, as Harlow41 indi-
cated. With this mental capacity of connotation-denotation man is

able to learn more meaningfully than would otherwise be possible.

In short, man's power of logical reason makes him the superb

 

39John C. Eccles, "The Physiology of Imagination,"
Scientific American, 199:5:155-lh6, September, 1938.

“OSchneider, o . cit., p. 58. hlfiarlow, loc. cit.

#8

rational being which he is. Without this power his ability to
imagine, to originate new ideas, to establish new concepts, to
create new processes would not progress far. It is his rational-
ity which anchors man to reality while preparing him for that bold

stroke of imaginative inspiration. The significance of this

relationship for creativity is described by Northrop.)+2

Here, I think, we have the essence of creativity in
Western scientific knowledge. It centers in the relation
between pure fact and our concepts by postulation. This
relation is not that of logical necessity. It is rather
that of an imaginative leap to a speculatively conceived
hypothesis. . . .

While fully—accepting the basic necessity of logical rea-
soning for the acquisition of advanced mental processes our interest
is more closely aligned in this section with those mental processes
which are more immediately associated with man as a creative being
than with rational man. It is Northrop's imaginative leap that

intrigues us. What is this process called imagination? Porter-

fieldl+3

defines it as follows:

Imagination is the ability to perceive configurations or
wholes of reality in space and time, to observe the rela-
tions within each configuration as changing with the total
situation, to be able to experience insight into and to be
able to anticipate, reconstruct the process by which the
changes take place, to segregate out components of the
evolving Gestalt as new wholes, and to re-integrate these
new wholes in a more inclusive, ever-growing configuration
of entities, processes, and relations.

The definition which Porterfield has given us has striking

 

#ZF. S. C. Northrop, "Philosophy's Statement of the Problem

of Creativity," The Nature of Creative Thinking (A Monograph,
Sponsored by Industrial Research Institute, Inc., 1952), p. 20.

l+3Austin L. Porterfield, Creative Factors in Scientific
Research (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 19Kl):
p022.

 

“9

similarity to the list Lowenfeld‘“+ provides of the character
traits of the creative artist:

1. Sensitivity to problems

2. Fluency of ideas

3 e Fleibility

h. Originality

5. Redefinition and the Ability to Rearrange

6. Analysis or the Ability to Abstract

7. Synthesis and Closure

8. Coherence of Organization.

We can see from these authors' comments that imagination
is inextricably related to the mental process of logical analysis
yet it is more than this. Imagination is the capacity to make a
courageous leap to a tentative conclusion. It is the ability to
find a new unity in the variety of nature. It is the power to
conceive new relationships between what appear to be totally unre-
lated objects, persons, or events. Imagination is the connecting
link between man's realized past and his anticipated future.
Imagination is the spark which ignites the fire of man‘s creative
potential.

Our discussion of the importance of imagination as the
crucial mental process for man as creator would fall short of its
mark if we did not suggest that imagination is not a mental pro-
cess accessible only to the greatest artists or geniuses of history.
Imagination is practiced by every normal person to a greater or
lesser degree. Children are notorious for their imaginations,

probably because they have not yet been conditioned to say "no,

this can't be, it is simply too absurd." Indeed, many very

 

u.

Viktor Lowenfeld, "Current Research on Creativity,”
National Education Association Journal, 47:558-5GO, November, 1958.

50

intelligent people are not particularly creative as the research

45 indicates. The important matter is, how-

of Getzels and Jackson
ever, that there are levels of creativity. Our brief description
of Taylor's46 five levels of creative expression serve to illu-

strate the point. Taylor's first level is termed expressive

creativity in which spontaneity and freedom are the important

 

characteristics. The spontaneous drawings of children are examples
of expressive creativity. A second is that of productive creativ-
$41. On this level some mastery of technique is involved. An
apprentice craftsman might illustrate this level. The third level
proposed by Taylor is inventive creativity which is typified by the
display of some ingenuity with materials, techniques, and methods.
New uses of tools exemplify inventive creativity. A fourth level
can be termed innovative creativity. When the basic assumptions of
a field are sufficiently understood so that improvement through
modification is possible, innovative creativity is involved. The
skilled artisans of a particular "school" of art serve to illu-
strate this level. Taylor's fifth, and highest, level of creativ-
ity is called emergentive creativity. The emergence of an entirely
new principle or assumption around which new schools flourish is
characteristic of this level. Einstein, Freud, and Picasso per-
sonify the creators on this level of creativity.

Granting the validity of Taylor's arbitrarily established

 

#SJ. w. Getzels and P. W. Jackson, "The Highly Intelligent
and the Highly Creative Adolescent: A Summary of Some Research
Findings," The Third Conference on the Identification of Creative
Scientific Talent (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press,
195959 PP. I:6“??-

kéT‘ylor. 0 e cite, Ppe 52-82e

51

levels of creativity we wish to add one level beyond his highest
level. Our sixth level is the "creativity of human relations".47
It is on this level that man's fullest powers of creation are
called into play. It is this level of creative endeavor which is
most challenging to man. The level of creative human relations is
most demanding of man's mental processes because it involves a
plasticity inherent in the relationships between human beings. 0n
the level of creative human relations it becomes constantly neces-
sary for man to create new means because the relational conditions
are never static but rather flexible and dynamic. Change is the
only constant on the level of creative human relations. For it is
on this plane that the Mental Condition exerts its greatest impact;
and in so doing it creates a new set of conditions which necessi-
tate, in their turn, more rigorous creations by man. Thus the
Mental Condition is the culmination of all the conditions of crea-

tive man and in its function it brings about its own extension

within the life of man as creator.

Recapitulation
The Mental Condition is the final synthesis into conscious
awareness of the Biological, Socio-Cultural, and Psycho-Physical

Conditions. There are two types of mental processes which man

 

#7Anderson also recognizes the significance of this level of
creativity: "There is another kind of creativity, which we may call
psychological or social invention, whose product is not an object
as such. This creativity not with objects but with persons;
creativity in human relations.

Harmony is achieved through the discovery of common pur-
poses with others and with the invention of means for attaining
them. This is the meaning of socially integrative behavior."

Harold Anderson (ed.), Creativity and its Cultivation (New
York: Harper and Brothers, 19517, p. 119.

52

appears to utilize to bring experiences in ideational form to con-
scious awareness. One is logical reasoning which proceeds in an
orderly manner as man gains access to certain knowledge. This men-
tal process is vital to man's capacity to acquire language and the
other tools with which he may then proceed to higher levels of
logical analysis.

The second type of mental process we refer to as imagina-
tion. This mental process is disordered and unpredictable.
Imagination enables man to leap a time span (that required to gain
new sets of facts and order them into a coherent pattern) and sud-
denly grasp a new concept or relationship. Both types of mental
processes are important although imagination seems to be most vital

to man as creator.

Conclusion
The Mental Condition is that which assigns meaning to all
the conditions of man as creator by means of its own creative

function.

Summary

Man's power to create is a product of his Biological, Socio-
Cultural, Psycho-Physical, and Mental Conditions. These are the
conditions which grant to man the gift of creation as it is known
to no other living creature or thing on this earth. All of these
conditions are necessary and interrelated. None are sufficient or
isolated. Together they comprise more than the conditions of man

as creator; indeed, they form the condition of human life itself.

53

a
The words of Arendt 8 serve as a summary of this chapter and a
prelude to our next chapter which focuses upon man as the creator

of his own humanity:

The human condition comprehends more than the conditions
under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned
beings because everything they come in contact with turns
immediately into a condition of their existence. . . . In
addition to the conditions under which life is given to man
on earth, and partly out of them, men constantly create
their own, self-made conditions, which, their human origin
and their variability notwithstanding, possess the same con-
ditioning power as natural things. . . . Whatever enters the
human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human
effort becomes part of the human condition.

 

48Arendt, o . cit., p. 9-

HAN AS CREATOR OF HUMAN RELATIONS

Only man can be an enemy for man; only he can rob him of
the meaning of his acts and his life because it also be-
longs only to him to confirm it in its existence, to
recognize it in actual fact as a freedom . . . my freedom,
in order to fulfill itself, requires that it emerge into
an cpen future; it is other men who cpen the future to me,
it is they who, setting up the world of tomorrow, define
my future; but if, instead of allowing me to participate
in this constructive movement, they oblige me to consume
my transcendence in vain, if they keep so below the level
which they have conquered and on the basis of which new
conquests will be achieved, then they are cutting me off
from the future, they are changing me into a thing. Life
is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing
itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is
only not dying, and human existence is indistinguishable
from an absurd vegetation . . .

Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

INTRODUCTION

Man's creative power enables him to produce that higher

level of his own being which we call humanity. This power to

create himself in a new image is the wondrous gift nature has

bestowed upon man. Yet this gift is not unencumbered for it con-

fers upon man a grave and abiding responsibility. For as man is

capable of elevating himself to the superior form of being called

human, so is he also capable of becoming far less than human. Our

concern in this chapter is with the way man faces the mature res-

ponsibility for the exercise of his gift of self-creation.

Our approach to this problem is triangular. In Section

A, "The Creation of Means", we describe the processes man has

54

55

created as the formal means by which he becomes capable of the
upward progression toward his humanity. The second section, "To
Become Human", deals with the end results of the processes. And
in the final section, "Through Creative Human Relations", we
describe both means and ends in terms of the medium which embodies

them in human form.

A. THE CREATION OF MEANS

There is evident in much of man's growth and development a
tendency toward orderly progression from the simple to the complex.
This is particularly evident in the case of normal physical matura—
tion. The power of locomotion, eye-hand coordination, and speech
are examples of maturational patterns which proceed from the simple
to the complex. The development of mental skills correlates to
this same pattern to a certain extent.

we alluded to this logical progression when we described
Taylor's five levels of creativity and added a sixth of our own.

We also noted that as man's mental powers are developed this pro-
gression from the simple to the complex is not inviolable. The
most striking example of this is man's intuitive powers which en-
able him to leap across the abyss of the unknown and arrive at
solutions with suddenness where a patterned progression of logical
analysis might take infinitely longer. The human imagination
ignores progression.

We must be cautious, however, not to misunderstand this
power to imagine and use it as an excuse to overthrow order. Even

the most creative men known to human history were disciplined in

56

logic. The tribute which must be paid to them is that they were
not slaves to order but used logical progression as the means for
acquiring skills which enabled them to leap across the abyss of
the unknown.

We must also recognize that the upward progression of such
creative individuals is a relatively persistent one if we define
creativity as the means by which the unigpe experiences of man
are unifed in expressive form. For within the framework of such
a definition of creativity we can visualize the ever-expanding,
outward extension of creativity itself. From the simplest adaptive
behavior found in the newborn infant, to the most complex expres-
sion of man's creativity, there is present in the growth of man a
procedural development from one stage of growth to the next.

Where certain skills are needed to move from one stage of growth to
the next, progression cannot take place until the skills have been
acquired. This is attested to by the arrested development of many
adults in one sphere or another of human endeavor.

The outward extension of humanising skills in the individual

depends greatly upon the transmission of these skills to the indivi-
dual by the society and culture which nourishes him to some mea-
sure of self-reliance. If the individual is incapable of acquiring
these skills we conclude that his growth is internally arrested.
If the culture of his society does not possess, or will not trans-
mit, these skills then the cause of arrestment is outside the indi-
vidual, or external. Combinations of internal and external factors
are also possible and similarly can have confining effect upon

growth. It is also equally possible for an individual to elect to

57

return to certain kinds of behavior which he has surpassed. It be-
comes evident that there are almost an infinite number of factors
which bear upon man's acquisition of learnable behavior. It be-
comes all the more amazing, when viewed in this light, that man
continues to grow and to refine his growth. This is, indeed, the
highest testimony to man's creative capacities.

It is this urge to create which makes its appearance in man
with increasing power as man gains access to the tools by which he
is figuratively able to lift himself up by his bootstraps. As man
acquires the communication skills of his language and the capacity
of ordered thought he is able to create new means to project him-
self to still higher planes of awareness. Processes, in effect,
are products as man continues to talk to himself and others, in his
continual struggle to grasp that which is beyond his immediate reach.
In his effort to find meaning in life he creates the processes which
aid him in his eternal and restless search.

In one sense we could say that all processes which are
created by man serve him in his life's seeking. But this is far
too simple a suggestion for surely the invention of suicide can not
be conceived as a process contributing to man's search for the mean-
ing of life. It is a process contributing to death's meaning,
perhaps, but for life's meaning it hardly seems possible. There
are other processes which must be ruled out as well, for they add
nothing to the potential which man realizes he possesses. The pro-
cesses of fulfilling one's biological necessities perform no other
function than to maintain life for man. And regardless of the

absolute necessity of such processes they are devoid of significance

58

for man in his commitment to seek life's ultimate purpose.

What, then, are the processes man does create as basic
.meams for the further creation of more complex processes to aid
him in his search? Certainly many of the enduring patterns of
culture exemplify the means man has created which render him capa-
ble of a more penetrating inquiry into life‘s meaning. Such be-
havieral products as language, patterns of education, religion,
mythology, superstitions, technology, philosophy, love, and art
expression are examples of processes which represent means in man's
effort to transcend his biological exigencies and find the raison
d'atre of his being. These processes enable man to formulate more
complex and higher level processes which are more refined and re-
warding to him in his life's seeking. Without this sequential
creation of more refined and more meaningful processes man could
not proceed far along the journey he has established for himself.

One fact must be emphasized as we study these processes and
that is, they originate with man. Despite their changing character,
their temporality, and their evolving purposes, these processes are
the products of man's creative efforts. As such we must recognize
that these special products of human creation are simultaneously
means and ends. They are, to be precise, process-products.

The profundity of this fact does not strike us with any
force until we realize the potential which process-products pos-
sess for man. One fact stands above all others: man is the only
living organism which possesses the power to create process-
products, so far as we know. And it is with process-products that

man establishes his superiority. By means of these distinctly

59

human creations man becomes the time-binding class of life as
Korzybski refers to his. Montagu1 describes Korzybski's classifica-
tion system and his explanation of time-binding:

Korzybski distinguished between the classes of life in
the following manner: Since plants captured one kind of
energy, converted it into another, and stored it up, he de-
fined the plant class of life as the chemistry-binding class
of life. Since animals were characterized by the freedom
and faculty to move about in space, he defined animals as
the space-binding class of life. He continues:

"And now what shall we say of human beings? What is to be
our definition of Man? Like the animals, human beings do
indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above
that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which
is entirely peculiar to them--I mean the capacity to sum-
marize, digest, and appropriate the labors and experiences
of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past
labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital
for the developments in the present; I mean the capacity to
employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated
achievements of the all-precious lives of the past genera-
tions spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean
the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the
ever-increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capa-
city in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the
by-gcne ages and the trustee of posterity. And because
humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which
the past lives in the present and the present for the future,
I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics
and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE."

It is evident from Korzybski's comments that he is fully
aware that man's capacity to create enduringgpatterns of behavior
is the singular power which projected man beyond any other form of
life. One caution must be noted, however, and that is Kcrzybski
defines "HUMANITI" to be the "TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE". Man, he
is careful to distinguish is capable of space-binding but he uses
the term "humanity" when he speaks of the time-binding class of

life. This differentiation is a noteworthy one and merits our

 

lAshley Montagu, Education and Human Relations (New York:
Groves Press, 1958), pp. 102-103.

60

special consideration. Indeed it is this distinction to which we

now turn in our discussion "To Become Human".

Hecapitulation

Man possesses the capacity to create processes which he
utilizes as the means for higher levels of creation. As man pro-
gresses from more simple to more complex means he is creating
processes which are therefore products. We refer to these unique
creations of man as his process-products. It is man's capacity to
create process-products which subsequently enable him to attain
constantly higher levels of understanding himself and his life's
meaning. Process-products distinguish man from all other living
creatures. They contribute to the develoPment of his humanity by

the creation of enduring patterns of behavior.

Conclusion
Man creates_processe§j termed_processgproducts, which are

the means to his progress toward becomingfhuman.
B. TO BECOME HUMAN

The creation by man of processes to be used as the means
of his progress toward becoming human was our conclusion in the
preceding section. But such a conclusion conjures up for us a host
of problems which demand clarification. Do we mean by "human" the
presence of a certain state of affairs? Is being human the same as
acting human? What relationship exists between man's capacity to
create process-products and his capacity to become human? Other

questions arise which are puzzling but let us first consider the

61

origin of our title phrase ”To Become Human". With this explica-
tion we may be in a better position to eliminate some of our
present confusion.

In our description of the Biological Condition of man as
creator we emphasized that man's biological superiority enabled
him to creatively adapt to, and alter, his environment. We indie
cated that even though other members of the animal kingdom did, in
fact, live in societies, the difference between these societies
and that of man was characterized by man's creation of enduring
patterns of behavior which we called his culture. The development
of man's culture is, according to Lintonz, the outcome of three
revolutionary technological advances by man:

If one observes the development of culture as a whole,
three really revolutionary technological advances can be
recognized. First, the epoch-making potentialities opened
up with the first human departure from the animal condition,
the use of tools and the domestication of fire. Second,
the domestication of plants and animals followed in various
places in both the Old and New World by exceedingly rapid
cultural advances leading eventually to the development of
the city, one of the most revolutionary social inventions
in the whole of human history. Third, what may be termed
the domestication of power based upon the ability of man to
produce power at will and, with few exceptions, wherever he
needed it, as distinct from the earlier use of the wild
power of wind or water at the points where it was available.
Intimately linked with this has been the invention of the
scientific method, which promises increasing control of many
other aspects of nature. We are now in the early phases of
this third period and are only beginning to explore the po-
tentialities which it offers for developments in our culture
outside technology, particularly in the social, political,
and economic fields.

Technology, in the sense that Linton uses it, must be

identified as a process-product in the sense in which we have

 

2Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf. CQe, 1955), Pa «'80

62

previously utilized this term. As a process, technology has pron

vided man's environment with many artifacts of his own creation.
Among these products are those which have revolutionized man's
way of life and thought; Euclidean geometry, the telescope, New-

tonian physics and the theory of relativity serve as specific

examples. As a product technology has also been an end in itself
at various stages of human history. Phlcgiston, phrenology, blood-
letting, and the Ptolemaic system of astronomy are illustrations
of technology in product form which have since been replaced by

more "scientific" product forms in technology. And the marvels of

our age may well be to the future what the invention of the first

crude implements in the dawning of man represent to our current

stage of progress; for in the words of Whitehead, "Heaven knows

what seeming nonsense may not tomorrow be demonstrated truth."

Each of the technological advances described above were the
The full extent of man's capacity

38

product of man's creative mind.
to use his mental powers is emphasized by Stratton

Men are not mere receivers through their sense organs of
impressions from without, nor are they mere bundles of
nerves and muscles reacting reflexively to external stimu-
lation. Men, it is true, do receive certain stimulations
from without, and sensations of many kinds in us are the
result: they receive other stimulations, and reflex muscu-
lar acts of ours are the result. But this is not all. In
the full picture is the power of man to initiate trains of
events that are of a character quite different from our
rudimentary responses of senses and muscles and biological
drives . . . Man initiates changes in the realm of the
lifeless, of earth, air, and water. He brings his mind to

bear on his own society, and gives it new customs, insti-
tutions, and aims; and he extends the range of co-operation.

BGeorge M. Stratton, Man: Creator or Destro er (London:
George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1952 , pp. 2 ~27.

53

In all these enlargements of what has already existed,

men's minds played the leading part . . . The feet, hands,
voice and neural substance were indispensable, as were tools

and instruments and a multitude of physical aids; but all
The mind was their master and gave

these were subservient.
them its command.

Stratton's use of the term "mind" is comparable to our use

of the phrase Mental Condition. In either of the two terms mind

can be defined as a broad, intensional term which refers to the
ability of man to be consciously aware of certain conditions and

to be able to separate these conditions into classes which desig-

nate their similarities and differences. We have specifically used

the term "consciously" because our concern here is with human cul-
ture and the human "mind", in our opinion, requires conscious

awareness before effective transmission can take place between it

and the other "minds" comprising man's social environment. That

man may have preconscious, subconscious, or unconscious "minds" is

irrelevant for the matter at hand. What does matter is that human

beings possess readiness to receive and the power to transmit en-

during cultural forms. The human "mind" as we have referred to it

is that which makes these processes of reception and transmission

possible-~and perhaps necessary. Mind, then, as we use it is

associated with the conscious mental processes which result in the

formulation of relationships and classifications; for these formu-

lations are, we believe, the crux of the problem of creating and

transmitting culture. It is the creation and transmission of human

culture which conditions man's progression toward humanity.
Into such durable and complex cultural forms man is born,

not by choice, but, rather,by chance. Man does not select his

heredity, nor the environment of his birth, nor the character of

6h

his early training, nor the larger conditions of his time on earth.
This by no means, however, presumes the total subjugation of the
individual to all the chance factors of his life. While certain
aspects of his life are beyond man's poor power to add or detract,
the one fact yet remains that the supraordinate experiences of man-
kind are the results of creations by individual human beings. Thus
the single human being is both dispensable and indispensable to the
patterns of living which precede him, exist concurrently with him,
and follow him.“

It is the condition of mutual recognition which binds man
to man and ultimately society to society. For implicit in the
mutuality of man to man is the idea that each potential member must
first be accepted by the society and integrated into it if he is to
contribute to the progress and preservation of that society. This
acceptance and integration process is subject to the decision of
society rather than the individual.

Acceptance of the society's potential member is not

 

“This interdependency between individual men and the socie-
ties and cultures into which they are thrust without choice is
clearly established by MacIver and Page: "Individuals do not belong
to society as the cells 'belong' to the organism. The only centers
of activity, of feeling, of function, of purpose that we know are
individual selves. The only society we know is one in which these
selves are bound together1 through time and space, by the relations
of each to each which they themselves create or inherit. The °E£I
ggperience we know is the experience of individuals. It is only in
the light of their struggles, their interests, their aspirations,
their hopes and their fears, that we can assign any function and
any goal to society. And conversely, it is only because they are
a part of society that individuals are endowed with interests, with
aspirations, with goals. It is only in society that human nature
can thrive. The relationship between individual and society is not
one~sided: both are essential for the comprehension of either.“

R. M. MacIver and Charles Page, Society (New York: Reinhart
and Company, 19h9), p. #8.

55

compulsory under the cultural norms of every society, and the con-
trary may even be the case. There may, in fact, be processes of
selectivity established which precede the acceptance and integration
processes. The practice of infanticide by various societies is an
example of an institutionalised selection process. Indeed, birth
control may, in an extreme sense, be considered an example of pre-
selectivity. In addition to these procedures there have been
isolated instances in which children were born into a society but
were almost completely isolated for several years before they were
discovered and brought into the wider sphere of human contact. In
such instances the ability to use language was missing when the
children were discovered but after sustained contact with other
persons, speech became possible. Acceptance and integration are
necessary for the humanizing process.

V The relationship between the new-born babe and his parents
becomes one of mutuality when the parents elect to tend and love
the child. In the process of electing to care for the child, to
nurture it, to educate it, to love it, the parents have, with con-
scious or unconscious deliberation, created a process-product for
themselves. This product of their election is the process of res-
ponsibly creating a human being in their presence. By this token
the relationship becomes mutual for the child reciprocates by

responding to their creative endeavors.5 It is at this point that

 

5Montagu is especially emphatic in his description of this
reciprocation: ”The organism is born with certain basic needs
which must be satisfied if it is to survive. These needs are:
oxygen, food and liquids, bowel and bladder elimination, activity,
rest, sleep, avoidance of pain and danger. It has been discovered
that these basic needs must be satisfied in a dependency relation-
ship such that the organism becomes increasingly aware of the fact

66

human relations have their origin.

Having elected to receive this new individual, the society
is then compelled to direct the growth of this potentially produc-
tive member toward that level of fulfillment which the society deems
adequate. This process varies in length and formality from society
to society but basically it involves acquainting the new member with
his responsibilities and rights as a member of that society. These
responsibilities and rights are exPressed in the cultural network
which binds every human society together. To become familiar with
them the individual is eXposed to a long period of enculturation
which is sometimes referred to as the process of socialization.
Hall and Lindsey6 cite Murray's description of the socialization
process as it relates to the integration of the individual into the
life stream of his society:

Beginning in the nursery, the process of socialization

continues throughout life. Among other things, what must

be learned are: the power to inhibit, or to moderate, the
exPression of unacceptable needs: the ability to transfer

cathexic from a prohibited goal-object to an acceptable

substitute; the habitual and automatic use of a large num-
ber of approved action patterns (methods, manners, and

 

that it is receiving its satisfactions whenever it requires them in
a supportative manner; that it is being satisfied by persons who
want to satisfy it, and who are--to put it in the best way I know--
all for it; that it is being satisfied by persons on whom it can
rely in the increasing awareness that its expected satisfactions
will be met and not thwarted, that is to say, not frustrated.
This is what every baby, every child, every adolescent, and every
adult wants, and this is love. The synonyms are security, support,
co-operation, the confidence that other human beings will support
one actively and interestedly, the confidence that no one will ever
willingly commit the supreme of all treasons against one, that is,
to let one down when most needed."

Montagu, 0 e cite, P0 35s

6Calvin Hall and Gardner Lindsey, Theories of Personality
(New York: Wiley Co., 1957), p. 190.

67
emotional attitudes); and the ability to adapt to schedules
(to do things at the preper time, keep appointments, etc.).

The socialization process described by Murray contains many
of the elements to which we referred in our prior analysis of the
Socio-Cultural Condition of man as creator. Also implicit in Mur-
ray's description is the connotation of "freedom from", that is,
freedom from the necessity to continuously relearn "the habitual
and automatic use of a large number of approved action patterns."
But again we must ask if there is also implicit in the process of
enculturation a "freedom for" and, if so, freedom for "What"?

In the answer to the above question is the key to man‘s
humanity. For there is pervasive throughout this discussion the
implicit suggestion of the ultimate revelation of man. Man's bio-
logical inheritance gives him the capacity to learn and to create;
his society facilitates this ultimate revelation by giving him the
tools of culture; his unconscious mind acts as the reservoir of
his total life's exPeriences; and his conscious mind enables him
to reveal himself in his power to act and to speak. It is in act-
ing and speaking that men show who they are, according to Arendt7:

Men reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus
make their appearance in the human world, while their physi-
cal identities appear without any activity of their own in
the unique shape of the body and sound of the voice. This
disclosure of "who" in contradistinction to "what" somebody
is--his qualities, gifts, talents, and shortcomings, which

he may display or hide--is implicit in everything somebody
says and does. It can be hidden only in complete silence

and perfect passivity, but its disclosure can almost never

be achieved as a wilful purpose, as though one possessed and

could dispose of this "who" in the same manner he has and
can dispose of his qualities.

 

7Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: university of
Chicago Press, 1958), p. 179.

68

The process of man's disclosure of "who" he is has as its
antecedent process man's relationship with man. Again we return
to Arendta, for whom this relationship has as much reality as the
relationship between man and the objective physical world:

Action and speech go on between men, as they are di-
rected toward them, and they retain their agent-revealing
capacity even if their content is exclusively "objective,"
concerned with the matters of the world of things in which
men move, which physically lies between them and out of
which arise their specific, objective, worldly interests.
These interests constitute, in the word's' . most literal
significance, something which inter-est which lies between
people and therefore can relate and bind them together.
Most action and speech is concerned with this in-between,
which varies with each group of peeple, so that most words
and deeds are about some worldly objective reality in addi-
tion to being a disclosure of the acting and speaking agent.
Since this disclosure of the subject is an integral part of
all, even the most "objective" intercourse, the physical,
worldly in-between along with its interests is overlaid
and, as it were, overgrown with an altogether different in-
between which consists of deeds and words and owes its
origin exclusively to men's acting and speaking directly
to one another. This second, subjective in-between is not
tangible, since there are no tangible objects into which it
could solidify; the process of acting and speaking can
leave behind no such results and end products. But for all
its intangibility, this in-between is no less real than the
world of things we visibly have in common. We call this
reality the "web" of human relationships, indicating by
the metaphor its somewhat intangible quality.

We have arrived at last at the point of man's entry into the
human community. This man is able to do by means of his power of
self-revelation. This power of self-revelation is achieved through
the processes of action and speech. Man acquires these processes
in his relationship with man. Man's relationship with man has its
origin in the cultural patterns which society transmits to the mem-
bers it elects to accept into its membership. The processes of

transmission are made possible because man is endowed with a

 

8Ibid, pp. 182-183.

59

biological inheritance by means of which he is able to create. Thus
the antecedent conditions of man's entry into the human community as
a human being are the same conditions which establish man as creator.

The question which remains yet to be resolved is: What are
the processes man creates which enable him to reveal his humanity?
We have depicted the conditions of man's humanity as being identi-
cal with the conditions of man as creator. If we grant the Biologi-
cal Condition the distinction of being the pro-condition of man's
creative powers then we must turn to the remaining three conditions
of man as creator in order to find the specific answer to our
question.

The most basic of the conditions of man as creator is the
Socio-Cultural Condition. By basic we mean necessary to the pre-
sence of the remaining two conditions. We have already indicated
that unless man is accepted by, and integrated into, society there
is little likelihood of his development beyond the infantile level
of behavior. When man is at the threshold of his life it is socie-
ty which determines whether the door remains open, or is closed to
him forever. Figuratively we are simply stating that man's admis-
sion to society and, indeed, his very right to life itself is
adjudicated for him. Having made the decision to accept him into
its membership the society thereupon becomes responsible for his
training toward this end. The processes created for this purpose
vary greatly from society to society but in all cases they involve

9

a range of behavioral patterns which, as Biesanz and Biesanz con-

tend, serves man by (l) adapting him as a biological species to

9John Biesanz and Mavis Biesanz, Modern Societ (Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 19595, p. E7.

 

70

his environment; (2) provides him with ready-made adjustments to
his natural environment, his fellows, and his own biological and
psychological needs and drives; and (3) ensures the unity and sur-
vival of the social group.

Of special importance among these processes are those
related to man's associations with "his fellows". These associa-
tions are the crucial factors because man is completely reliant
upon his fellow man for so long a period after birth. Where other
members of the animal kingdom seem to possess inborn behavior pate
terns man must "learn" nearly all of his behavior patterns. The
essential point we wish to emphasize is the need for association
with his fellow man if man is to survive as man. Carrying our
point a step beyond this, we would contend that if man is to sur-
vive as a "human being" then he needs association with human beings.
Schutzlo identifies these needs as interpersonal needs and describes
them as follows:

The interpersonal need for inclusion is defined behav-
iorally as the need to establish and maintain a satisfactory
relation with people with respect to interaction and asso-
ciation.

On the level of feelings the need for inclusion is de-
fined as the need to establish and maintain a feeling of
mutual interest with other peeple. This feeling includes
(1) being able to take an interest in other peeple to a
satisfactory degree and (2) having other people interested
in the self to a satisfactory degree.

With regard to the self-concept, the need for inclusion
is the need to feel that the self is significant and worth
WhiICe

The interpersonal need for control is defined behav-
iorally as thd need to establish and maintain a satisfactory

 

loWilliam c. Schutz, r120: A Three Dimensional Theory of

InterEersonal Behavior (New York: Rinehart and Company, 19537.
pp. 1 ~20.

71

relation with people with respect to control and power.

With regard to feelings, the need for control is defined
as the need to establish and maintain a feeling of mutual
respect for the competence and responsibleness of others.
This feeling includes (1) being able to respect others to a
satisfactory degree and (2) having others respect the self
to a satisfactory degree.

The need for control, defined at the level of perceiving
the self, is the need to feel that one is a competent,
responsible person.

The interpersonal need for affection is defined behav-
iorally as the need to establish and maintain a satisfactory
relation with others with respect to love and affection.

 

At the feeling level the need for affection is defined
as the need to establish and maintain a feeling of mutual
affection with others. This feeling includes (1) being able
to love other peeple to a satisfactory degree and (2) having
others love the self to a satisfactory degree.

The need for affection, defined at the level of the self-
concept, is the need to feel that the self is lovable.

Schutz's description of the interpersonal needs of man are
adequate but lack a quality of direction. We agree that the indi-
vidual needs to be included, as a member of society; and that he
needs to establish a psychologically satisfactory relation with
people in terms of control over, or by, them: and finally that he
needs to establish a satisfactory relation of affection with others.
But what we do not know is, how does man become "human", rather
than just another living creature with needs which happen to fall
within the classification of satisfactory interpersonal relations?
Might we not ask whether these same three needs could also apply
to dogs or horses or apes or as far as we know to almost any crea-
ture in the animal kingdom?

We have seen numerous examples of animals moving together

in large numbers apparently "interacting". We have detected

 

 

72

leadership in these same clusters of animals which suggest the
presence of a control system. And surely we are equally aware of
the "affection" of a dog or a cat for its offspring which suggests
love's presence. On the extension of Schutz's theory we find that
interpersonal needs also apply to animals who appear to be acting
"human". But again we ask is "acting human" the same as "being
human" and we find that we must answer in the negative. For to
act human is only to appear human, as the actors on the stage ap-
pear to be the character they are dramatizing. Despite the seeming
reality of the "acting out" the characteristic of being human can
not adhere to any other creature than the one who can be human,
namely man.

Within this differentiation of terms, "being human" comes
to mean the pgwer of man to becogg_a certain kind of person which
we call human. This connotes, indeed it demands, the presence of
certain qualities in man which distinguish him from his biological
presence on earth, which is like that of all other living creatures.
Being human, then, is a state of becoming which man must demonstrate
if he is to continue to be human. Crick11 states our case with pre-
cision when he contends that "it is a proper usage of words when we.
say of a murderer, 'he is less than a man', or 'he is inhuman.‘

For there are some things within the physical capability of a man
that he cannot do and still be regarded as human."

The key to our problem of what is human is found in the

words of Crick, when he states that, "There are some things within

 

11Bernard Crick, The American Science of Politics (Berkeley,
Cal.: University of California Press, 1959). p. 221.

 

 

73

the physical capability of a man that he cannot do and still be
regarded as human." Murder is the example which Crick cites to
substantiate his point. We recognize, however, that there are, in
reality, many kinds of behavior which could be used to illustrate
the point. This hardly seems the most appropriate way to consider
a matter of this significance. For it is the positive aspect that
we must consider when we ask "What is human?"

To become human, in our thinking, demands that man acquire
certain qualities of being. One of these is being able to communi-
oate by means of language symbols. This is the power of speech.
The question might arise in this regard whether or not a parrot
might then be deserving of the title "human". The answer is, of
course, an unequivocal "no" for the simple reason that a parrot
does not actually possess the power of communication by means of
language symbols. A parrot knows no language symbols, it merely
has the power to produce sounds which resemble the sounds which
man creates to articulate his language symbols. The level of ver-
bal comprehension of the parrot is at such a low level that for all
intents and purposes it does not exist. This, plus the fact that
possession of one or a few characteristics of a complex class of
characteristics does not constitute the whole class, leads us to
believe that symbolic language is a distinctly human quality of
being.

A second quality of being which makes man human is that of
being able to create. We have discussed this trait at considerable
length and have identified the conditions which apply to man as

creator. It has also been noted that these same conditions are

 

74

those which make man most man. If we extend this capacity for
creation to all facets of man's life we must then accept its direct
relationship to man's humanity. Indeed we may even state that man's
capacity to create is the source of his humanity. We again suggest
that man's constant creation of ever more complex processes is the
very means by which he arrived at his present level of humanity.
Hopefully, man's creation of humanizing processes will ultimately
outstrip his equally potent ability to create products of destruc-
tion. The creative effort expended toward this end may be the
determinant which swings the balance in favor of man's complete
humanization. When this has occurred the chances of a total nu-
clear war, or any other yet unknown form of destruction, will di-
minish rapidly and perhaps disappear. This must be recognized as
an ideal but within the range of man's creative powers.12

The third quality of being which is required in order for
man to be human is that of being able to love. Perhaps no other

word in the English language has the power of suggestion that the

 

12The solution is in the common sharing of man's creative-

ness according to Read, who says, "the artist of today is isolated,
alienated from his fellow men and from nature. The effort he makes
is a conscious effort, an assertion of the self, often an angry
protest against his impotency. He has this great healing power in
his possession, but no one comes to him for help. He cannot act
alone, even for his own salvation. His true work is communal.
Other artists must be with him, working on the same project. In-
deed, all men must be with him, each an artist according to his
kind, all men artists participating in the work that has to be
done, all work being done as art." Herbert Read, "The Creative
Arts and Peace," Saturdangeview, December 2%, 1960, p. 11.

For Guggenheimer the issue is one in which man has the
power of choice: "A higher human stability may be on the way as
man is lifted out of his sense of temporality, impermanency, vul-
nerability, toward a conviction that the self is as enduring as
it longs to be." Richard Guggenheimer, Creative Vision (New
York: Harper & Bros., 1960). PP. 136-137.

 

 

75

word "love" possesses. Yet for all the confusion and ambiguity
which surrounds the term it also possesses a significance which we

must pursue.

13

For Montagu , to be human means "to be a lover of one's
fellow human beings." He defines love as follows:

Love is the deep involvement of the self in others, and
the conveying of that feeling of involvement to others. It
is the feeling of profound emotional interest in others, the
conveying of that feeling, the feeling you inspire in others
that they can depend upon you, that you will support them in
their needs, and that you will never let them down, but that
you will give them all the encouragements and stimulations
and supports that it is within your power to give.

Montagu's definition of love agrees with Fromm's14 defini-
tion of mature love which he describes as,
Union under the condition of preserving one's integrity,
one's individuality. Love is an active power in man; a
power which breaks through the walls which separate man
from his fellow men, which unites him with others; love
makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness,
yet it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity.
In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and
yet remain two.
Love, in the sense that it is used by both Montagu and
Fromm, represents the power to act in a particular manner. The
power of love is revealed when man acts in a positive way toward
his fellow man. By positive is meant that through his love he adds
to, rather than takes from, the quality of life. Man's humanity is
revealed when man shows who he is as a loving being. Thus by demon-

strating love in revealing who he is, man is teaching, by example,

what it means to be human.

 

13Ashley Montagu, Education and Human Relations (New York:
Groves Press, 1958), pp. 5h~55.

lhErich Fromm, The Art of Loving (New York: Harper & Bros.,
1956). De 6e

 

76

Our fourth, and final, quality of being is that of being
free. The quality of being free is the capstone of man's humanity.
But as we have mentioned more than once before the real signifi-
cance of man's freedom is that he has "freedom for" action of a
particular kind. It is man's freedom for communication, for crea-
tion, for love, for action which constitutes the basis for his
being human. For to be sure man cannot be forced to "act" human
and yet be classed as a human "being”. Under such coercion he is
merely "acting" rather than "being" human. The difference is such
that in the former he is not "human" at all while he is completely
so in the latter. Weil'sls definition of true liberty illustrates
our point well:

True liberty is not defined by a relationship between de-
sire and its satisfaction, but by a relationship between
thought and action; the absolutely free man would be he
whose every action proceeded from a preliminary judgment
concerning the end which he set himself and the sequence
of means suitable for attaining this end. It matters lit-
tle whether the actions in themselves are easy or painful,
or even whether they are crowned with success; pain and
failure can make a man unhappy, but cannot humiliate him
as long as it is he himself who disposes of his own capae
city for action.

It is not possible to conceive of a nobler destiny for
man than that which brings him directly to grips with naked
necessity, without his being able to expect anything except
through his own exertions, and such that his life is a con-
tinual creation of himself by himself. Man is a limited
being to whom it is not given to be, as in the case of the
God of the theologians, the direct author of his own exis-
tence; but he would possess the human equivalent of that
divine power if the material conditions that enable him to
exist were exclusively the work of his mind directing the
effort of his muscles. This would be true liberty.

Weil's description is of the ideal case, of perfect

15Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty (London: Houtledge
and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1958), pp;fiES-37.

‘77

liberty which, of course, does not exist, as she explicitly states.
And since man is a limited being he will continue to err in the use
of his freedom. His actions and his speech will not exemplify the
humanity of which he is capable for the very honest reason that
man's judgment can be faulty. The latitude provided man in his
"freedom for" action is of great magnitude and thus increases the
potential for error. It is this latitude with its subsequent po-
tential for giving rise to error which Arendt16 recognizes when
she states that:

The possible redemption from the predicament of irre-
versibility-~of being unable to undo what one has done
though one did not, and could not, have known what he was
doing--is the faculty of forgiving. . e

Without being forgiven, released from the consequences
of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were,
be confined to one single deed from which we could never
recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences
forever, not unlike the sorcerer's apprentice who lacked
the magic formula to break the spell. Without being bound
to the fulfilment of premises, we would never be able to
keep our identities, we would be condemned to wander help-
lessly and without direction in the darkness of each man's
lonely heart, caught in its contradictions and equivo-
calities--a darkness which only the light shed over the
public realm through the presence of others, who confirm
the identity between the one who promises and the one who
fulfils, can dispel. Both faculties, therefore, depend on
plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no one
can forgive himself and no one can feel bound by a promise
made only to himself; forgiving and promising enacted in
solitude or isolation remain without reality and can signi-
fy no more than a role played before one's self.

If we now pause to determine where we have arrived in our
thinking we see certain facts which stand out powerfully. If man
is to be human he must possess certain states of being. First is

that of being in communication with his mm man. Second is

 

leArQndt’ ’ e Cite, ppe 236-2370

78

being creative. Third is being loving of his fellow man. Fourth
is being free with his fellow man. Since man does not possess the
power of all-knowingness he therefore cannot predetermine the
effect of his action and speech. Lacking omniscience man does,

and will, commit errors. Since man is not able to undo what he has
done the only redemption from this irreversibility is his power to
forgive. Without his fellow man it is not possible for man either
to promise or to forgive. Without being bound to promise man is
without direction, owing allegiance to no quarters. Without being
forgiven man is bound forever to his errors, paralyzed by the writ
of an unyielding past, knowing no present or future. If man is

to discover the power of speech; if man is to acquire the power

of mature love; if man is to attain the powers of a creative being
free to act, he must be able to relate to his fellow man in such

a way that he may become human, which is all of these things. This
man is able to do only in creative human relations with his fellow

human beings.

Recapitulation

The capacity of man to become human is conditioned by
several factors. Most basic is his biological potential because
it enables man to create enduring patterns of behavior and to
transmit and alter these behavioral patterns. In order to acquire
these patterns of behavior man must be accepted by, and integrated
into, his society. Four patterns of behavior are necessary in
order for man to become human. The first is being able to communie
cate with his fellow man in such a way that his intentions are

comprehensible. The second is being able to create with

79

ever-increasing complexity. Third is being able to love his fellow
man in such a way that he retains his individuality while gaining

a new unity with his fellow man. Finally man must be free for
action, therefore making him responsible for his presence among
men. The process of becoming human is possible because man comes
to know his humanity only through creative human relations with

his fellow man.

Conclusion
To become human, man must be communicativeLcreativgl

lovinglpand free, in his relations with his fellow man.
C. THROUGH CREATIVE HUMAN RELATIONS

We have thus far discussed man's creation of processes by
which he is able to progress toward his humanity. We have also
discussed what processes man must acquire and demonstrate in order
to become human. We are now at the final step in the construction
of our "Theory of Creative Human Relations". Having discussed the
terms ”Theory", "Creative", and "Human", there remains only the
final term of our title phrase to be analyzed. What do we mean by
the term "Relations" as it is used within the context of the title
of this study? Let us now turn to this question and the applica-
tion of its answer to the framework of our theoretical formulation.

There appear to be two conventional uses of the term "rela-
tion", each with its specific meaning. One of these meanings is
that which is descriptive of a fact of nature. When used in this
way the term "relation" becomes a concept which does not admit of

degrees. It corresponds to an empirical fact of the world; it has

80

no moral implications. A person is, or is not, a member of such
relation. The biological fact of parenthood or brotherhood can be
denied but it cannot alter the fact of its natural occurrence. The
mother, father, brother, and sister of a person always remain in
this relation to that person, within this connotation of the word.
The conditions of this meaning of "relation" are ineluctability
and absence of choice in membership.

The presence of these conditions does not necessarily
signify the quality judgment which can be applied to a relation of
this type. There can be either a positive quality of relation
which adheres to the natural relation of mother-offspring, father-
'offspring, brother-brother, brother-sister, etc., depending on the
presence of other elements such as love, nurture, and respect.
Similarly there can be a negative quality to the relation when the
conditions inhibit or endanger the natural development of one mem-
ber of the relation.

We must also be conscious of the fact that this meaning of
relation can be applied, in effect, to relations between men which
derive from the conditions of this type of relation. Any relation
between two or more men, which is unchanging, and in which at least
one member of the relation does not have the power of choice of
membership, must be classified as this type of relation. The rela-
tion of master and slave can be cited as the classic illustration
of this type of relation within the meaning which we have just
defined. It becomes readily apparent that this connotation of the
term "relation" is not what we intend when we refer to our title

phrase "creative human relations".

81

A second connotation of the term "relation", and that
which i: intended, in our title phrase, is its ethical meaning.
When we speak of a "relation" in this sense we are referring to
a social relation which admits of degrees of membership. Used
in this way the term "relation" contains the meaning primarily of
a certain quality of relationship which does allow for a dynamism
in the relation. Basic to the dynamic character of this type of
relation is the power of choice of membership of all the members
of the relation. For only in their freedom to act as they choose
can the members of this type of relation maintain the self-
integrity which is vital to the quality of this connotation of
the term "relation". For it is through a growing awareness of
self in relation to other selves that man is able to visualize
the meaning of his presence among the plurality of men. But this
growing consciousness of self and other possesses meaning only if
man is free to become what he believes he may become.

If man aspires to humanity and seeks to transmit this
humanity to each succeeding generation he must do so within a
creative human relation with his fellow man. For man must be free
to create if he is to become as capable (or more so) as his pre-
decessors of transmitting and improving his humanity. Man must
likewise become human if he is to reveal the meaning of humanity
to his successors. And finally man must relate to his fellow man
in such a way that choice of membership is present both for himself
and his fellow man. However much this type of relation possesses
the potential for its own self-annihilation it is, none the less,

the necessary condition for man to become most human. Thus we see

82

that the only way in which man can acquire, transmit, and improve
his humanity is within the context of that relation which we define

as the creative human relation.

Conclusion
A creative human relation is one in which articulate,
lovin , human beings are co-creating a positive relationship with

their fellow human beings by their own free choice.

CHAPTER IV
IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"

INTRODUCTION

If the significance of our theory is to extend beyond that
small handful of professional educators whose thoughts and actions
have brought it to its present state of being, there must be ex-
tracted from it a life-form for the affairs of men. We agree with

Jenkinsl who maintains:

In the final analysis, all creativity has a pragmatic
basis: it is initiated and continued in order to improve
the quality of man's transactions with the environment, to
extend and refine his grasp of things, and to permit him to
come to grips with the world more effectively. . . .
Creation, whether artistic, theoretic, or technological,
should never be the making of objects that are their own
excuse for being. This concern with the intrinsic charac-
ter of what is being done and made creeps into all human
activity: even apart from the demands of circumstances,
man complicates everything he touches, from government to
the rules of whist, because complication makes things more
interesting. . . . Internal elaboration is, within limits,
both a necessity and an ornament of man's activities and
artifacts; it enhances their effectiveness as well as their
interestingness. But if creative activity dissipates too
much of its energy in this direction it evades its prime
responsibility, which, as a refined employment of eXperience,
is to serve as an instrument of life.

1Iredell Jenkins, Art and the Human Enterprise (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard university Press, 1953), pp. 115-117.

83

 

8‘!»

Much of the responsibility for evincing the practical impli-
cations of any theory rests with its author. If he wishes to
breathe life into his theory he must be willing to couch his theory
in the language of those to whom he addresses himself. This, then,
is the task before us. Our specific audience is the public school
administrator but we are sanguine enough to believe that our theory
has relevance in the affairs of all men who seek more from life
than the mere mechanics of existence. To the extent that our
theory's meaning reaches this wider audience will our pragmatic
intentions in its creation be achieved.

The implications for educational administration are treated
in two ways in this chapter. In the first part, "Within the Condi-
tions of Our Times" we delineate the problems currently prevalent
in our society which are related to the structure of our theory.

We conclude each of the problems which we define with a question
regarding its possible solution.

The second section, "For the Administrator", deals with
these questions within the scope of educational administration.

We do not endeavor to answer each of our own questions definitive-
ly but rather to suggest answers inherent within our theory which
the administrator might consider. We recognize the fact that
others may read into our theory solutions, or possible means to
solutions, which we do not suggest. This is both fitting and pro-
per for it implies that our theory has served in some measure as

the means to the ends for which it was created.

85
A. WITHIN THE CONDITIONS OF OUR TIMES

Much has been written and said about the complexity of the
age in which we live. The onrush of science to new discoveries,
the increase of automation, the extension of leisure time for the
masses, the ever-tightening web of human interaction throughout
the world, the intermingling and conflicting ideologies in exis-
tence, the speed and confusion of modern living, the diversities
in human welfare--the list is endless. But what does it all mean?
Where is it leading us? Where are our values? What have we to
cling to for the security which has been wrenched from our grasp?
What becomes important now that our struggles are less with the
objective than with the invisible? Read2 poses similar questions:

But what are the values of a technological civilization?
What wisdom has it to offer us? It has a philos0phy which
is called scientific to correspond with a social organiza-
tion that is functional, but does this philosOphy answer
those questions that have puzzled humanity throughout the
ages, and that still puzzle any thoughtful man or woman to-
day-~the questions asked by the earliest Greek philosophers,
by Pythagoras and Heraclitus, Zeno and Parmenides, Thales
and Empedocles: the only questions worthy of the strife of
thought: Why does anything exist? Why does not nothing
exist? What elements in existence justify the absurdity of
continuing to live? To which I have added this final ques-
tion: Is it possible that life acquires meaning only to the

extent that man is creative?

Read's suggested answer that it is to the extent that man is
creative is, of course, in keeping with the fundamental structure of
our theory, in which we prepose that as man creates the processes
which pave the way to higher levels of purposive endeavor, he comes
to discover life's meaning in the essence of creation itself.

ZHerbert Read, The Forms of Thing§_annown (New York:

Horizon Press, 1960), pp. 31-32.
3Arendt refers to it as the faculty of beginning something

86

Indeed, it is to the extent that man is capable of creating ways

to communicate with his fellow man and ways to demonstrate his
mature love for his fellow man that he becomes able to realize the
meaning and purpose of being that higher form of man we call "human".
Through his co-creation of a "human" relation with his fellow man

it becomes possible for man to realize his own unique potential
while sharing a bond of unity in the plurality of man.

Yet there exists today an alienation of man from man and
nation from nation. While this might be understandable for the
non-creative individual it seems a perplexing state of affairs for
that creative individual who is giving to his fellow man the fruit
of his creation. Why is this so? Why do those creators, such as
artists and scientists, reap a harvest of unpOpularity, which today
seems their lot?

There are many possible answers to our questions, some of
which are implicit in the structure of our theory. Bronowski# indi-
cated that artist and scientist share a kind of unpopularity because
"the large public dislikes and fears the way that both of them look
at the world." Rogers5 suggested that the society needs to provide

a climate which fosters creativity. It seems feasible to conclude

 

new when she states that "the life span of man running toward death
would inevitably carry everything human to ruin and destruction if
it were not for the faculty of interrupting it and beginning some-
thing new, a faculty which is inherent in action like an ever-
present reminder that men, though they must die, are not born in
order to die but in order to begin." Hannah Arendt, The Human
Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 2 .

4Jacob Bronowski, "The Creative Process," Saturday Review,
199:3:60, September, 1953.

SCarl‘ Rogers, et. al., "Toward a Theory of Creativity,"

Creativit and its Cultivation, ed. Harold H. Anderson (New York:
Harper & Bros., 1959;, Chapter 6, p. 79.

37

from this that our society does not now provide this climate and
that artists and scientists are creating despite the limiting forces
of the society. This being so, then these creators are "different"
from the masses who are succumbing to the enervating and debili-
tating forces of modern society. And since the large public is

less familiar and secure with changes induced by creation it views
the creative individual as a threat to their security. It is this
search for security which drives man blindly to conformity with its
illusion of togetherness. But the illusion cannot make real that
which can not be. It is in Fromm's6 definition of mature love that
we are able to visualize, "union under the condition of preserving
one's integrity, one's individuality." As Fromm indicates, "love is
an active power in man: a power which breaks through the walls
which separate men from his fellow men, which unites him with others;
love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet
it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity. In love the
paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two."

If this retreat from individualism, this escape from free-
dom, this seeking of security in the womb of conformity exists today,
how did it come to be, we must ask. Part of our answer is derivable
from the assumption that man in our modern industrial society is
becoming more and more removed from the conditions which lead him
to his humanity. It is becoming increasingly difficult for man
to communicate with his fellow man, especially the artist and the

scientist. The reason for this is both simple and complex. It

 

6Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (New York: Harper & Bros.,
1956). PO 9.

88

is simple in that it is easily discernible that the artist and
scientist of today are speaking a language which is peculiar to
their own specialties. It is complex in that the range of these
new languages is becoming ever greater with the result being less
and less commonality of understanding among the disciplines which
create them. This produces, therefore, less communication between
the creators themselves. In the case of the average man, the man
lost in the teeming masses, there is virtually no communication

at all between himself and the creative member of the highly
specialized area of human endeavor, be it art, music, nuclear
physics, or whatever. In short the total body of human knowledge
has increased with such fantastic proportions that it is becoming
absolutely impossible for any one individual to be totally conver-
sant with all, or even more than a few, of the specialized creators
of our modern world of technology.

Coupled with this mounting stockpile of human knowledge,
with its expanding symbolic forms of communication, is a decrease
in the contributions of modern philosoPhy to the problems arising
from this situation. Piatt7 refers to the particular problem of
philosOphy's role with regard to these problems:

The biggest problem confronting men today is the utter in-
determinateness of their situation, the fact that they are
so burdened, so fed up with futile thinking, that they are
no longer able even to locate or define their problems.
Pushed around like "things," they react like "things."
Exploited, they exploit. And, taught that philosophy is no

longer regarded by professional philosophers as in any way
a way of life but rather as a way of thought, a reapectable

 

7Piatt, "Import of the Word 'Transaction'," ETC.: A Review
of General Semantics, 12:#:300-308, Summer, 1955.

89

way of retiring from life and putting inhibitions to pres-
tigeful purpose, increasingly technical, increasingly ab-
stract, increasingly couched in an esoteric language that
manages to escape confusion--if at all--only by losing its
audience along the way, men feel that life has become too
damned complicated and incomprehensible.

The question, then, which confronts the educational ad-

ministrator of today is this:
How can man learn to communicate with his fellow man, or

conversely, how can modern man overcome the ppoblem of limited

communication?

A second possible factor in man's retreat from the integrity
of self to the false security of conformity resides in the nature of
our economy today. With the beginning of modern industrialism man
began to lose those elements of workmanship which enabled him to
feel a sense of creative achievement. Man today is "giving" less
of himself as he becomes a less significant contributor to the final
and product with which he associated. The complexity and advanced
technology of today has decreased man's capacity to give, in such
a way that he no longer feels responsible for the end product.
Arendt8 credits Aristotle with saying that "the benefactor always
loves those he has helped more than he is loved by them. He then
goes on to explain that this is only natural, since the benefactor
has done a work, an ergon while the recipient has only endured his
beneficence." The meaning of Aristotle's words hold even greater
power for us today in the midst of the depersonalization process

induced by industrialization and enormously increased by

 

8Arendt, op. cit., p. 196.

 

90

automation. Where the earlier craftsman could sense achievement
and even esthetic beauty in the finished product of his craft there
can be no such feeling for today's laborer on the assembly line.
The task he labors at in the endless chain of production deprives
him of his "gift" to the world.

The modern laborer is becoming increasingly swept up in the
tide of consumption, whether in his daily labors or in his daily
leisure. This concern with consumption in the total biological
life cycle takes man away from the real sources of life's meaning
and tends to produce a society bereft of creators. The standards
of life become toil without self-contribution and consumption with-
out self—satisfaction. If we add to this emptiness of existence
a resentment growing from the inability to articulate their frus-
trations at not being able to give, at not being able to find satis-
faction in consumption, at not being able to create the means to
escape their endless treadmill, we find ample reason for modern
man's dilemma. Small wonder that be both envies and disdains the
gift-giving powers of creative men. Not knowing the way to his own
creative self-realization man struggles to preserve his ego by
deprecating this creative ability in those who somehow manage to
achieve it.

Another question which the educational administrator must
face squarely is:

How can modern man,_in an increasingly impersonal, and

complex, technological age,gacquire a true sense of creativeness?

Yet another problem confronts man within the conditions of

91

our times which causes him to run from himself. This problem is
the failure of modern man to know himself. Certainly this failure
to know himself is not unique to modern man for men through all the
ages have been grappling with the question of their own being. Why
then is the issue more pressing for man today than in any previous
time in his history?

There can be little doubt that with the advance of the fron-
tiers of technology man has had to face the rising crescendo of
chaos and uncertainty in the world. The words of John Donne telling
us that, "no man is an island" have more meaning today than ever
before. The pace of life's tempo brought about by the automobile
and the airplane and the stimulation of international contacts
through improved forms of communication have in effect, eliminated
the physical isolation of all men in the world. The growing inter-
dependency of men due to the complex and diffuse economy brought
on by modern technology has similarly stricken the concept of self-
sustaining independence from the books. Man, today, must rely on
his fellow man for his very existence.

We have previously described man's movement toward conform-
ity as a false solution in the search for self. The effect of this
absorption of self in the anonymity of the crowd is described by
Guggenheimergx

In our day to day existence we get whirled away from

the innermost life of ourselves as we take on the feeling
of the group patterns to which we belong. In many respects
we properly consider our self similar to multitudes of

other selves performing roles in life not very different
from our own. But in the humility of assigning ourselves

9Richard Guggenheimer, Creative Vision (New York: Harper
& Bros., 1960), Po l#0e

92

a modest place in the crowd, we often compromise the purity
of our selfhood. That is, we permit ourselves to take on
the coloration of our surroundings and surrender some of
the uniqueness which makes any self truly worthwhile. We
get immersed in social routine and fall into the habit of
evaluating ourselves in a manner and at the level of the
majority of others. There is a regrettable compulsion to-
ward mediocrity exerted on individuals by themselves-in-
accumulation.

The problem of finding meaning and direction in life which
can restore the integrity of the self for modern man has other
dimensions than those related to technology. There is no other
period in human history which can be compared with the current age
regarding global turmoil. We must come to know the relationship of
this problem to modern technology for it is indeed the advanced
levels of transportation and communication which force this tur-
moil upon us. What happens in the Congo is as much a concern of
ours as what happens in our own community. For we have arrived at
the point in history where we must think in terms of the world
community of man, rather than the national or local community of
only a small portion of the world's pepulation.

In view of the reality of today's one world, at least in
the physical sense, we must recognize that local mores and customs
are no longer the prevailing long-range ideological bases for human
behavior. Today it is the conflicting global ideologies which com-
mand the attention of uncommitted men all over the world. Nor are
Americans exempt from this same search for a way out of this dilem-

ma as attested to by Murphy'slo description of the major issues of

our times:

 

1°Gardner Murphy, Human Potentialities (New York: Basic
Books, 1958), p. 6.

93

It is a period of seething new nationalism over half the
earth's surface; almost universal problems of poverty and
disease: the inevitable new awareness of the have-nots that
their lives are barren, as they cast a hungry look at those
whose lives are lived in gentler circumstances. We face
the struggle for power between economic and ethnic groups
within and among nations, and with this a rapid realignment
of forces; great instability in each momentary power aggre-
gation; and through it all the continuous search for ways in
which the mass, though always relatively slow and handi-
capped, can in some sense regulate or control the elite
leadership which would so like to claim power over human
destiny. All of these problems have their solemn messages
and they must be heard for decades, yes if not for
centuries. e e 0

Despite all this, we have a kind of strength to which we
have given little heed: the fact that human nature is chang-
ing at an extraordinary pace; that a new kind of humanity is
coming into existence, rooted in current historical trends,
especially trends arising from science and the urge toward
discovery. Discovery of our own identity, belief in our-
selves and in the use of the intellectual weapons of a demo-
cratic society--a science-minded and technology-minded
society--can strengthen those moral, intellectual, and social
devices without which, in such a world as this, there is no
strength at all.

There are two elements suggested in Murphy's delineation of
today's global issues which man must endeavor to resolve. There is
the fact of a human society, a conceptual entity which we may re-
gard as the totality of man on this earth. Realistically we are
cognizant that the total society of man has many subgroups of men
which are variously called East and West, nations, colonies, states,
cities, neighborhoods, families, etc., each of which plays its part
in the dynamics of the total society. We are not proposing that
these subgroups be ignored but rather that they be considered with-
in the total context which is the society of man.

The second element in Murphy's description is, perhaps,

the one most overlooked in a world now numbering billions of people.

This element is man himself; man as an individual: man as the

9#

eminent being above all else of eminence in this world. We must
consider man in the full glory of himself. We must face the
challenge of man's eminence as nature's supreme creation.

Thus we have arrived at our final question:

How can man attain that sense of direction and meaning_§5

life which pgeserves both individual integrity and the human

society?

Recapitulation

The conditions of our times have alienated modern man from
himself by impairing his power to communicate with his fellow men;
by depriving him of the sense of creative contribution: and by
confusing him with a plethora of ideologies without providing him
with the necessary means to make adequate decisions as an individual.
Three questions arise from these debilitating conditions which the
educational administrator must endeavor to answer within the frame-
work of the educational enterprise that he leads, they are:

1. How can man learn to communicate with his fellow man;
or conversely; how can modern man overcome the problem of limited
communication?

2. How can modern man, in an increasingly impersonal,
and complex, technological age, acquire a true sense of creative-
ness?

3. How can man attain that sense of direction and meaning
in life which preserves both individual integrity and the human

society?

95

Conclusion

The problems of communication, creation, direction and
meaning in life, are problems all men must endeavor to resolve for
themselve§1_but the means for their resolution must originate in
the formal structure of the educational enterprise as a result of
the stimulating_and creative leadership of the educational

administrator.
B. FOR THE ADMINISTRATOR

Our primary objective for this final section of our study
is the suggestion of means which educational administrators might
utilize in their efforts to answer the questions which our theory
has posed for them. There are no panaceas for the problems we
have raised. The dynamic nature of man precludes the possibility
of simple-minded solutions. Similarly we must accept the fact that
yesterday's solution cannot be applied to our current problems, nor
that tomorrow we may rest secure on today's satisfactions. If
there is a constant in all of the questions we have posed it is
that of change. All elements of every life situation are variable
and diverse, and challenge the full powers of all leaders in the
educational process. This is the challenge which must be con-

fronted and conquered if humanity is to survive.

Question 1: How can man learn to communicate with his fellow map,
or conversely, how can modern man overcome the problem of limited

communication?

The problem of communication would seem, at first glance,

96

to be merely the task of acquiring a language and then utilizing
the language with one's fellow man. So naive an explanation, how-
ever, does not take into account the origin or function of language.
In fact, such a proposal fails to include the factors of individual
differences in physiological and psychological make-up, or the
problems of learning, or the processes of symbol formation, or any
of the myriad factors which relate to the acquisition of knowledge
by man. Our concern at the moment is not with an extensive des-
cription of the processes of acquiring language but rather with the
problems of its usage.

We have suggested previously that man's capacity for symbol
formation is the basis of his capacity to create enduring patterns
of behavior. Cassirerll describes this time-binding capacity of
man:

Man has, as it were, discovered a new method of adapting
himself to his environment. Between the receptor system
and the effector system, which are to be found in all ani-
mal species, we find in man a third link which we may des-
cribe as the symbolic system. This new acquisition trans-
forms the whole of human life. As compared with the other
animals man lives not merely in a broader reality: he lives,
so to speak in a new dimension of reality . . . Reason is a
very inadequate term with which to comprehend the forms of
man's cultural life in all their richness and variety. But
all these forms are symbolic forms. Hence, instead of dee
fining man as an animal rationale, we should define him as
an animal symbolicum. By so doing we can designate his

specific difference, and we can understand the new way open
to man--the way to civilization.

 

 

The way to civilization is cpen to man because he has the
ability to construct symbolic forms which comprise linguistic sys-

‘ tems. By means of these linguistic systems man is able to transmit

llErnst Cassirer, An Ess on Man (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1944), pp. 2E:2%.

9?

knowledge from one generation to another. Education as a formal
institution of society is devised to insure the transmission of
knowledge in an acceptable manner for the society. Durkheimlz
provides the following definition:

Education is the influence exercised by adult generations

on those that are not yet ready for social life. Its ob-

ject is to arouse and to develOp in the child a certain

number of physical, intellectual and moral states which are

demanded of him by both the political society as a whole

and the special milieu for which he is specifically

destined.

Although Durkheim does not refer to language as the means

by which the ends of education are attained there are certain im-
plications for language in his definition. One implication centers
around "the influence exercised by adult generations on those that
are not yet ready for social life." Is the process of transmitting
knowledge insured by the use of language? The answer is, of course,
yes, or no, depending upon what is meant by the term language. If
language is construed to be only a formal, structured pattern of
symbolization the answer must be no. For much is communicated
between men beyond the pale of formal language-~a fact too frequent-
ly ignored by educators, to their discredit. If language is recog-
nized as man's total means of communication--including gestures,
bodily movements, sounds, silence, etc.,--then the answer to our
question is yes. For influence can indeed be exercised between men
without the use of formal language. The individual today who cannot

read, or write, the language of his society may still exert enormous

influence over his family or community. Conversely the individual

 

laihile Durkheim, Education and Sociology (Glencoe, Illinois:
The Free Press, 1955). Po 71-

98

who has a powerful grasp of language symbols may not be able to
influence others to any extent. The point of our discussion is

perhaps by now quite obvious, namely that communication is made
infinitely more possible by formal language (in its limited conno-

tation) but formal language is neither a necessary nor sufficient

condition for cummunication between men.

The point we have just made must be recognized by educa-
tional administrators if they are to facilitate in any measure the

responsibilities assigned to the educational institutions which

they direct. Miel 3 indicates two considerations of this problem
with regard to social change:

The difficulty of helping knowledge to play its full
role in hastening social change points to the fact that

much more social invention is needed in the field of com-
munication.

We have the mechanical means to facilitate

the spread of knowledge as a part of the process of bring-
ing social change under greater social control.

The other
problem is to learn more of the art of communication among
persons in actual contact with one another.

With regard to mechanical means great strides have been made
in education in recent years. Radio, television, telephone, films,

recording machines, phonographs, and teaching machines have been

introduced with the primary purpose of improving the teaching pro-
COBBe

Properly used some of these mechanical devices have broadened

educational horizons and speeded up the process of learning. They
have, to be sure, increased the capacity for communication within
formal education. When we view the increasing rate of production

of human knowledge we can see the value of these devices from the
perspective of keeping pace with this mounting stockpile of data.

13Alice Miel, The Changing Curriculum (New York: Appletone
Century-Crofts, 1946), p. 109.

99

But there are also problems associated with these teaching

devices which merit the sober reflection and research of today's

educational leaders. The words of Brunerlu

give cause for this
reflection and analysis of the problem:

Films, audio-visual aids, and other such devices may
have the short-run effect of catching attention.

In the
long run, they may produce a passive person waiting for
some sort of curtain to go up to arouse him.
know.

We do not
Perhaps anything that holds the child's attention
is justified on the ground that eventually the child will

develop a taste for more self-controlled attention-~a
point on which there is no evidence.

The issue is parti-
cularly relevant in an entertainment-oriented, mass-
communication culture where passivity and "spectatorship"
are dangers.

Perhaps it is in the technique of arousing
attention in school that first steps can be taken to es-

tablish that active autonomy of attention that is the anti-
thesis of the spectator's passivity.

Miel's suggested use of mechanical devices to stimulate and

"facilitate the spread of knowledge as a part of the process of
bringing social change under greater social control" certainly war-
rants and has received the consideration of educational leaders.
Yet the administrator must be sensitive to the problems inherent
in the use of these types of educational aids as Bruner cautions.
For there is inherent in any means of communication the impact of
the means itself, as well as that knowledge which is transmitted.

It is this variable which is omitted in much of the analysis of

the communication process. And it can be reasoned that if mechan-

ical devices for communicating knowledge possess a change inducing
quality then human beings possess this quality to an infinitely

greater degree.

The capacity of human beings to induce change in other

Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 72.

100

human beings, without conscious intent or awareness,

is implied
in Miel's second problem concerning communication among persons.

On this function of the communication process the educational

administrator must be particularly knowledgeable.

This knowledge
stems from two sources:

(1) the administrator's knowledge of

language structure and usage: and (2) his knowledge of human rela-
tions e

These forms of knowledge may be generally classed as
scientific

and humanistic.
Panofsky15

indicates the difference in the approaches

of
each:

The scientist, with natural phenomena, can at once proceed
to analyze them. The humanist, dealing as he does with
human actions and creations, has to engage in a mental
process of a synthetic and subjective character:

he has
mentally to re-enact the actions and to re-create the
creations.

It is in fact by this process that the real
objects of the humanities come into being.

One of the major obstacles to human communication exists

in the nature of language itself. At times vague and ambiguous,

language possesses the potential for misinterpretation by indivi-

duals or groups with varying backgrounds, experiences, and levels
of language skills. This condition does not include one more ele-

ment which tends to increase even more the potential for communi-

cations break-down.

This is the element of human intent. For the

moment, however, let us by-pass the element of intent and focus
upon the function of language itself. Chaselé lists the following

important semantic principles which must be recognized as relevant

15

Erwin Panofsky, "On Intentions," Problems in Aesthetics,
ed. Morris Wietz (New York: Machillan Co., 1959). pp. 288-295.

Stuart Chase, Roads to A cement (New York: Harper &
Broaeq 1951), Pp. 207-20 0

101

to most cases of human communication:

1. Every event and every object is a process; beware
of absolutes.

2. Things with the same name seldom have precisely the
same characteristics: Adam, is not Adam. Beware of treating
them as such.

3. Events are always changing. In passing judgment
allow for the change.

#. Events usually have many sides, not just two sides.
Beware of two-valued judgments.

5. Try to get all the main characteristics in before
coming to a conclusion.

6. A fact is not an inference; an inference is not a
value judgment. Keep them separate.

7. At some level, agreement is always possible. Keep
looking for it.

8. A person with a mature mind . . . is adjusted to
uncertainty, not to fixed verities. Like a good driver at
the wheel of his car, he is safe to the extent that he is
ready for anything.
If we heed Chase's advice we recognize the need for a
thorough knowledge of language origin, structure, and function by
the educational administrator. This knowledge is not identical
with knowing all languages nor all symbolic functions but rather
it is equivalent to knowing the means of recognizing linguistic
obstacles as they occur plus knowing the means which ultimately
lead to their elimination. With these means well in hand the
administrator becomes more capable of articulating his own thoughts
and comprehending the difficulties others may have in their attempts
to communicate. If this problem of semantics is effectively treated
by the administrator it may have positive results extending far be-

yond the communication process itself. It may, to be certain, be-

come the basis for higher levels of human relations between student,

102

teacher, administrator, and community.

The component of the communication process which is most
likely to create unforeseen results is that of the relations exist-
ing between the persons who seek to communicate with one another.
The reason for the unpredictability of this factor is intrinsic
within the nature of man's relation with his fellow man. when man,
who is constantly changing, confronts his fellow man, who is like-
wise in a state of dynamic flux, a process results which reveals
the force of this dynamism. This process is the relation which
exists between the participants. In a relationship based upon the
association of creative human beings the relational process has the
potential for vastly superior levels of communication. This poten-
tially superior communication is not based upon the intelligence
of the individuals involved, nor is it necessarily a product of
the knowledge they have accumulated.

We state these facts, because they are important matters
to be kept in mind. Even though superior intelligence may be help-
ful it by no means insures communication if openness to new ideas
and new conditions do not accompany it. There must be a willingness
to create new patterns of thought and new perspectives on the tradi-
tional patterns of behavior. And similarly the accumulation of
knowledge may serve as a kind of hardening of the arteries of thought.
Often this knowledge is the product of an intense specialization
process which tends to facilitate the learning of more and more
about less and less. The concomitant of this specialization is fre-
quently the development of a new language of symbols which admits

only its closest followers to the inner sanctum of its meaning.

103

17

Gross explains this phenomenon:
Independent groups of men strive to order their experi-

ences by inventing languages that tend toward consistency
and completion and that, typically, pass through a succes-
sion of life-histories with origins, developmental elabora-
tions and periods of relative closure. . . . The tendency
of these languages toward self-determined criteria of consis-
tency that are largely independent of concrete reality
explains behavior as different as physics is from advertising.

Based on the current trend toward increased precision of
language structure and usage in all disciplines there seems to be
a need for certain efforts on the part of educational administra-
tors. One such need is cited by Grosslaz

We need empiricists who are committed with strong resolve
to penetrate the full immediacy of human experience; sys-
tematizers who strive to perfect the elegance and preci-
sion of each new expression; integrators who have the
breadth of vision to create ingenious connections between
systems which seem to stand strangely apart in realms that
are not now intelligibly related. Most of all, we need
relatively unspecialized pioneers with the kind of flexi-
ble disposition that will enable them to range with advan-
tage from any one aspect of the world of scientific
endeavor to any other. Their function would be to examine
with acute concern the neglected hiatuses between the
specialities and, when possible, to join the fixed boun-
daries that isolate sciences and scientists from one
another.

From this we see that the task of the administrator is that
of providing the means by which the processes of synthesizing may
be more effectively established. Such a task involves far more
than the mere addition of a course to the curriculum. It also must
be more than a sporadic endeavor to bring together the persons who

are in a position to effect the synthesis. The administrator must

 

l7Llewellyn Gross, "An Epistemological View of Sociological
Theory," Agerican Journal of Sociology, 6S:#hl-##8, March, 1960.

laIbide . p. “’48.

10‘!

be able to lead the way in an on-going process of synthesis through
the purposive inter-relationships of the several disciplines. ls
must be prepared to defend this internrelational function of the
disciplines against the attacks from within his staff and against
the dissident hue and cry of the professional organizations outside
his staff. And to make his responsibilities still more difficult
he must encourage the filtering of this process to the student body
and direct the communication of its purposes and goals to the con-
trolling body of his institution.

The establishment of means for the synthesis of knowledge
among the disciplines calls for the highest level of creativity by
the administrator. He is dealing with the two sources of knowledge
to which we have previously referred, these being the knowledge of
language structure and usage, and the knowledge of human relations.
The first is by far the easier to cope with for it permits of sys-
tematic study; and while the knowledge of human relations allows
for systematic study it also demands a kind of intuitive analysis
which, for some, proves exceedingly difficult to acquire. In the
study of human relations it is possible to acquire a vast amount of
knowledge about man through such disciplines as philosophy, psy-
chology, history, sociology, anthropology, physiology, etc., but
the lessons learned from these areas of human knowledge are to no
avail if they are not practiced. And if the lessons about man are
not practiced with "human" purposes in mind they may, indeed, be-
come either meaningless academic exercises or extremely dangerous
avenues toward human destruction.

The administrator must gain access to the knowledge of human

105

relations but he must also practice "human" relations if he is to
become more than an interested by-stander in the communication pro-
cesses he endeavors to initiate among men. For it is only through
the practice of "human" relations that the administrator gains
access to the "human" experiences which provide direction and mean-

ing to his effort. The acquisition of these means is not a tem-

porary matter--it is a part of life's function itself. Hutchins19

describes the minimum qualifications of an administrator in dealing
with means.

The minimum qualifications of an administrator in his
dealings with the means are four. They are courage, forti-
tude, justice, and prudence or practical wisdom.

When I say that the administrator should have courage,
fortitude, justice, and prudence, I am saying only that he
should be a good man. If the administrator is to function
at all, he must have prudence or practical wisdom, the
habit of selecting the right means to the end. But the
administrator's life reveals that, though the virtues may
be separated for purposes of analysis, they are one in prac-
tice. The administrator cannot exercise prudence without
courage, which is the habit of taking responsibility;
fortitude, which is the habit of bearing the consequences;
and justice, which is the habit of giving equal treatment
to equals.

If we return at this point to the questions we posed at the
outset of this section we discover that certain answers now appear
eminent. Our first question was: How can man learn to communicate
with his fellow man, or conversely, how can modern man overcome the
problem of limited communication?

In answer to the first part of the question dealing with

"how can man learn to communicate with his fellow man," a brief

__

l9Robert Hutchins, et. al., The Works of the Mind, ed.
Robertsfieywood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1§E7), pp.
137‘13 e

 

 

106

review suggests several means. The establishment of these means
are basically the responsibility of the educational administrator.
Among the more significant of these means are:

1. Acquiring the basic skills of the common language of
the society.

2. Acquiring a basic understanding of human relationships.

3. Practicing "human" relations with courage, fortitude,
justice, and practical wisdom.

It is necessary to mention two facts regarding the answers
we have proposed relevant to our initial question for administrators
to consider. One fact is that the processes we have proposed as
possible means for resolving the problems implicit in our question
are at best tentative. They can not be otherwise for the simple
reason that the question begs tentative answers to the changing
problems which are behind the question itself. The other fact is
that the answers we have proposed are for all men but especially
for the administrator of the educational enterprise. For not only
must the administrator possess these skills; he must also be able
to implement them within his staff and the educational enterprise,
He must likewise be able to articulate on many different levels the
necessity of these means and the ends which must ultimately be con-
summated by them. To accomplish all of these goals the administra-
tor must indeed exemplify that rarest kind of leadership--the

leadership emanating from "human" wisdom.

Question 2: How can modern man, in an increasingly igpersonal, and

complex technological age, acquire a true sense of creativeness?

107

In establishing the basis for the above question we identi-
fied several features of contemporary American society which seem
to be precipitating the problems suggested by the question. One is
the problem produced by the assembly line's destruction of a sense
of relatedness to the final product. There is the problem of in-
creasing inter-dependence of all people due to our complex economic
society. There are problems produced by mass production, mass
marketing, and mass communication which eliminate the extremes and
press all things and all people toward the middle. We have also
the problem of the impersonality of a vast and complex economy
which leaves the "average man" awed and subdued. The increase of
buying power has swept up the laborer of our society in a con-
tinual round of biological flux between non-creative production
and non-satisfying consumption. In short, our point is that today's
average man is becoming better and better cared for yet with less
and less self-satisfaction to fill his life.

It is becoming more evident that materialism can not fill
to completion the total needs of man. Improved standards of living
are important; higher levels of physical health are much to be de-
sired; freedom from want is necessary for all men-~but these alone
do not protect man from the psychic insecurities which derive from
needs other than these. The need to give to his fellow man of him-
self, to contribute his unique share toward human posterity, to
feel a deep sense of esthetic satisfaction in life--these are the
needs of man which transcend the present levels of physical well-
being. These are the needs of man which deserve our intense recon-

sideration in view of the conditions imposed by our modern society.

103

If the administrator is to obtain a grasp of the current
plight of modern man he must study the historical evolution of
human society. Wieman20 discusses this problem from its long-range
perspective by describing five creative transformations in the
history of man. The first was the development of man as the kind
of organism capable of extensive creative interchange and integra-
tion of meaning. The second transformation was the establishment
of civilization with its characteristic features of written lan-
guage and social organization. A third condition was the extension
of man over all parts of the earth. The fourth transformation
Wieman describes as the development of modern technology. He
describes this technology and the transformation which is needed
to counterbalance its force:

Such a technology carries with it a system of communication
and interdependence reaching all people on the planet. This
magnified power of control and this world wide interdepens
denoe can bring on great evils and can reduce creativity to
a minimum. In many cases such has been the consequence and
it will continue to be so, with greater evils yet to come,
unless a fifth condition is added to this fourth. On the
other hand this magnified power to produce good, to or-
ganize, to administer, and to communicate, are indispensa-
ble to the end of enabling all people to contribute to, and
to participate in, the creative transformation of human life.

This brings us to the fifth condition. This is what our
period during the next two or three hundred years must bring
forth.

The fifth condition is what we have been describing
throughout this writing. If is change of institutions and
action of individuals resulting from recognition of the
moral predicament of man and from practice of personal com-
mitment. It is a change in institutions and action of indi-
viduals which will bring into the lives of many people that

 

20Henry Nelson Wieman, Man's Ultimate Commitment
(Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1958),
pp. 301-305.

109
higher dominance of creativity which in the past has
occurred only in the lives of a few.

The secure establishment of all five of the over-all
conditions needed for the fullest measure of creative inter-
change and integration of meanings will not bring man's work
and responsibility to an end. Exactly the opposite is true.
Only after these conditions have been established will men
be able to provide the ever-changing, detailed and local
conditions required for this creativity in the family, in
the neighborhood, between members in the industrial plant
and in the classroom, between the various specialized kinds
of work and research, between political units and cultures,
and elsewhere throughout the multiform existence of human-
ity. Hen may not live up to this responsibility. Certainly
they will not do it perfectly. But after the five condi-
tions prevail, men will have this responsibility because
they will then have the power to meet the demands of crea-
tivity as they could not previous to the establishment of
these over-all conditions.

Wieman's fifth transformation proposing "change of insti-
tutions and action of individuals resulting from recognition of the
moral predicament of man and from practice of personal commitment,"
must be particularly heeded by administrators. It is worth noting
that Wieman emphasizes not only "recognition" but "practice" as
well. The leader of the educational enterprise is faced with two
simultaneous and challenging tasks. The first task is that of
recognizing as best as is humanly possible the moral predicaments
which modern society is producing. This requires that particularly
high level of creative awareness which is demanded of the individual
who must know the problems of men. But, again, not only is aware-
ness a prerequisite for solving the problem but the practice of
creative attempts to resolve it must be effected also. This is the
second demanding task of the administrator. Demonstrating his lea-
dership, making decisions, practicing human relations, creating new

processes; all are necessary forms of action which must be carried

on while the administrator is trying to assess the conditions which

110

will lead him to new decisions and new practices.

Thus far we have discussed only the administrator as a per-
son and not in terms of the educational process he leads. In
addition to his efforts to become aware of the moral predicaments
of modern man and his practice of creative possible solutions to
these predicaments, the administrator must lead the cause for a new
perspective in education. This new perspective is what Iglehart21
refers to as the preparation of children, "not for the passive
acceptance of the world, but for the creation of worlds." This
new concept calls for an image of the child who is himself a crea-
tor. Iglehart goes on to say that "if parents misunderstand the
concept of the child as creator, as a source of whatever world
there is or will be, then the work of the schools becomes infi-
nitely harder. If the teachers misunderstand the nature of this
necessary image of childhood, the work of the schools becomes im-
possible; we can only teach the child whom we, as teachers, can
visualize. If we see the children in our classrooms in the light
of an image out of keeping with the rest of contemporary thought,
or with the tasks of our culture, we are in trouble. We find our-
selves educating children who are not really there."

It is easy enough, however, to talk of establishing a new
ilage of the child as a creative being but it is indescribably more
difficult to bring this to pass. Munroea indicates some of the

anmowns" in education for creativity:

 

leobert Iglehart, et. al., Aesthetic Form in Education, ed.
Michael F. Andrews (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1958),
Po 21o

22Thomas Munro, Toward Science in Aesthetics (New York:
Liberal Arts Press, 1956), p. 50.

111

We know so little of the factors determining creative
genius that it is impossible to say with confidence that
any given method will stimulate it.

Even "free expression"
has not been an unqualified success along this line, after
the first few years of childish interest. Genius has
flowered from educational methods that would now be con-
sidered narrow and repressive in the extreme.

Oftentimes
it seems as though some cramping, irritating counterforce

were necessary to urge it into animated reaction. We can-
not be sure that rationality, tolerance, catholicity of
taste, lack of dogmatism--any of the aims now sought in
general education--will be more an advantage than a draw-
back in a given case. Perhaps the creative mind needs
other educational methods than the appreciative. Perhaps,
as often charged, our whole system of education in the

arts, especially in colleges, is such as to make critics
rather than artists.

Perhaps education can have little
effect one way or the other, and the appearance of crea-

tiveness will always be an unpredictable, uncontrollable
miracle. Perhaps that quality can be influenced through

eugenics, or through proper conditioning of reflexes in
infancy, as the behaviorists believe. But we have not

experimented enough with educational methods to give up

hope that they may sometime become reliable means of devel-
Opment of creative originality.

While Munro expresses a reluctance to suggest a specific
form of education to develop creative genius there are indications

that certain conditions tend to be conducive to creativity in our

society. :E-Strangz3 states that "among the conditions conducive to

creativity are environmental factors that permit freedom of thought
and action within reasonable limits, encourage individuality, wel-
come new ideas and self-direction, require ingenuity, provide appor-

tunity to observe, explore, and participate, and give recognition

and approval of creative efforts. Order and discipline, space and

time, background knowledge and skill, and specific stimuli to

creativity--all these are vital components of an environment hospi-

table to creative effort."

23Paul Witty, James B. Conant, and Ruth Strang, Creativity
of Gifted and Talented Children (New York: Bureau of Publications,

Teachers College, Columbia University, 1959), p. 30.

112

If the conditions suggested by Strang are to be found with-

in the environment of the classroom the administrator must accept

the responsibility for making it possible.

Once more the adminis-

trator must be willing to take the lead in effecting the means to
this end. One of the means toward this end is acquiring teachers
who are creative teachers. Again the educational leader is faced

with the necessity of knowing the human qualities of the teacher

which will complement and re-inforce the creative efforts demon-

strated in the classroom.

It is not sufficient

that a teacher be
only inventive for creative teaching requires more than technical
ingenuity. Indeed, creative teaching, in the Opinion of Zirbeszl+
is both

9

an art and a science, for it is not possible without the
insights and understandings of the human or behavioral

sciences on the one hand, and the high aspiration of the
creative artist-teacher whose vision guides his impacts
on the lives of learners in their becoming.

The creative
teacher's highest incentives and rewards are the intrinsic
satisfactions of this vital role in human fulfillment and
advance.

If the administrator is to fulfill the critical function of

acquiring creative artist-teachers he must certainly know the qual-
ities which are characteristic of such teachers, and furthermore he

must be able to discover their presence with a limited time for ob-
servation. Still more important, however, is the climate which the
administrator provides for the creative artist-teacher. It is in
this regard that he must demonstrate the true quality of his crea-

tive potential. For it is in his relationship with the artist-

teacher that he establishes the "human" climate of co-creation.

2#

Laura Zirbes, et. al., Aesthetic Form in Education, ed.
Michael Andrews (Syracuse, N.I.: Syracuse University Press, 1958),
p. “1.

 

113

The teacher and the administrator can only come to know the truly
cooperative nature of the educational enterprise as they share
their respective responsibilities within the full power of the
creative human relation.

The sharing process which can be known fully only within
the creative human relation centers basically around the teacher
and the administrator. Yet it extends outward from this nucleus
to the students, parents, community, nation, and world in concen-
tric fashion. The teacher is responsible for sharing her crea-
tivity primarily with her students, and also for recognizing,
acknowledging, stimulating and sharing their creativity. She must
also be willing to articulate the total creative efforts of her
class and herself to the children's parents. The major responsi-
bilities of the administrator are to identify the creative processes
in the educational life of the child and to articulate them to that
greater public to whom he is responsible.

By means of these processes the administrator is able to
lead, as well as follow, that public to whom he owes allegiance.

In the sense that he endeavors to transmit the values and wisdom

of the society he represents does the administrator follow his
society. But when he endeavors to establish creativity as a funda-
mental process within the educational enterprise the administrator
has assumed a role of leadership which can not be denied. Corbettz5
describes the philosophical imperatives which the acceptance of

innovation makes necessary:

_.._._._._

25J. P. Corbett, "Innovation and Philosophy," Mind
68:2712289-308, July, 1959.

 

 

11#

Thus, from the moment that innovation has been accepted
as the form of life, there seems to be only one possible
set of general philosophical imperatives: seek out the
deepest contradictions and inhibiting confusions within the
current movements of the world; do not try to stay on the
heights of pure philosophy where the air is so rarefied
that it cannot be breathed; get down into the stuff of
change; find where the forms of language are inhibiting the
flow of novel thought and action; employ whatever means
seem likely to release those jams of understanding; admit
that in the nature of the case there can be nothing perma-
nent in your aims, in your methods or in your results; at
the level of those fundamental abstractions upon which all
the order of our thought depends, seek out, not the perma-
nent fixation of ideas, but their permanent revolution!

There are several difficult problems which confront the
administrator who has committed himself to a role of leadership in
his society. Overcoming his own tradition-bound experiences is one
of the most demanding, for there must be a "willingness to be born
every day" as Frommz6 suggested. There is the problem of effective
communication which we have previously described. Also vital to
this role of leadership for creativity is a thorough understanding
of man and its translation into creative human relations. Finally
there is a need for meaning in what is being undertaken by the
educational enterprise.

It is the final problem which the administrator can neither
avoid nor ignore if he wishes to assume leadership in our society
today. For without meaning or direction, no activity, creative or
otherwise, can assume its proper perspective within the life of man.

2?

It is upon this basis that Tumia defends the challenge of crea-

tive living:

 

26Fromm, loo. cit.

27Melvin M. Tumin, et. al., Aesthetic Form in Education, ed.
Michael F. Andrews (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1958),
Pp. 27"28 e

115

I think this is why I can feel sure in saying that when

we take up arms on behalf of creative activity, we are
literally fighting for our lives.

meaning to our lives.
more fully human.
more than sheer

we are fighting to give
We are fighting for the chance to be
”We are asking for half a try at something

existence. We are expressing our discontent
with the cliches and ruts of traditional orderliness.

This is not something to be condemned as long-haired and
crack-potted and radical and subversive.

This is something
to be praised as absolutely indispensable to the sanity of
any society.

If we want to turn out automatons who will
respond with nice little polite grimaces and make their pro-

per bows and subserviences, and who will do as they are
told by their betters, that's easy.

All we need for that
is a good, strong dictator, a splendid secret police, a
bunch of big brothers.

And, if those don't work, one can
always try cutting out the grey matter from the heads of
the discontents.

But if we're interested in taking our years on earth
seriously, and to take up the challenge which our very exis-
tences toss down to us, and to try to justify our lives to
ourselves, then, there is nothing else to do except to push
just as hard and as frequently and as effectively as we can
for the idea that change, growth, development, emergence--
creative living, in short--is the only kind of living worth
caring about.

The struggle to give meaning to life; the fight for a chance
to be more fully human; the try at something more than sheer exis-

tence; these are the challenges which lead man toward creative
living. For it is in the struggle to give meaning to life, and

to be more fully human that man discovers the philosophical impera-

tive of creative living. By means of his creative search for mean-

ing in life and by means of his creative efforts to become more

fully human does man rise above those conditions in his times which

would deprive him of life's meaning or of his humanity. It is the
responsibility of the administrator to facilitate these creative

endeavors within the educational enterprise. It is to the creation

of these processes that the administrator, who aspires to more than

a managerial function in this enterprise, must dedicate his own

116

creative life.

If we now return to our second question we find certain
responsibilities for the educational administrator which may serve
to answer the question: How can modern man, in an increasingly
impersonal, and complex, technological age, acquire a true sense
of creativeness?

As we indicated in our answer to the first question the
problems implicit within the second question can best be resolved
through the means made possible by the leadership of the educa-
tional administrator. Thus the administrator must help modern man
in achieving the following processes leading to creativity:

1. Acquiring an awareness of the conditions of the times
and their impact upon him.

2. Acquiring the unique creative skills available to him
within the framework of his particular nature as an individual.

3. Acquiring an image of himself as a creative being.

4. Acquiring a sense of meaning in life through creative

living.

Question 5: How can man attain that sense of direction and meaning

in life which preserves both individual integrity and the human

society?

The final question of this study now challenging our think-
ing has, to a large degree, been answered in our consideration of
the two preceding questions. The problem of communication is cen-
tral to the problems which arise within the question and in our

discussion of it. To be sure, man must communicate with his fellow

11?

man. There must exist a common language, or the means for devel-
oping a common language, if communication is to proceed to ever
higher levels of abstraction. There must also be content in the
communication process other than the symbolic forms of the language
itself. Finally we must come to know the answer to the question
"Communication for what end?" For it is not enough that man be-
comes proficient in the communication process if it all has no
meaning beyond its own function. Communication between men which
is devoid of purpose becomes mere babble and reduces man's life

to a series of animalistic functions.

Looking at the other side of the coin we see that communi-
cation is the key to man's fantastic growth potential which leads
him to new horizons. Through his power to speak and form symbols
man is able to create an enduring language which enables him to
preserve and transmit the cultural forms of his society. By the
same token man is able to assign meaning to, and alter the meaning
of, these forms. Through these variations in meaning of the con-
ventional forms of language does it become possible for men to
differ in their interpretation of linguistic forms. It is precise-
ly this point which led us to suggest that the administrator must
be conscious of the potential for varied interpretations. And, as
we also suggested, he must know the means by which these differences
in the meaning and use of language could be resolved by the communi~
cants. Thus one of the means by which man can try to gain a sense
of direction and meaning in life is learning how to understandthe
words of men who have described their beliefs on the subject.

The means we have just preposed must be viewed as a means

118

available to those who are capable of choice in the matter. What
of those, we must ask, who, by virtue of their immaturity or emo-
tional inhibitions are not capable of choice? What of the child,
especially, who has yet to acquire the skills of language usage or
the maturity to comprehend the deeper meanings and power of words?
Must the infant and pro-school child wait for this level of com-
munication before direction and meaning in life can be communicated?
Quite obviously the answer is in the negative. Communication, in
its most comprehensive sense, must, and does, take place in these
early years of life, with or without the conscious awareness of the
child's parents and others with whom he has contact. Every emotion
expressed by a human being to the child is sensed and becomes part
of the psycho-physical condition of that child's being and becoming.
Indeed all experiences become a part of the total reservoir of
man's psychic life which plays so significant a part in the course
of human events. All that man's life is exists in his being and
becoming. The educator must accept this fact and be continually
seeking its implications for the responsibility which society has
formally delegated to him.

The role of the administrator in the formal institution of
education is, of course, shaped and determined for him by the socie-
ty. This society has certain expectations and role behaviors which
tradition and current conditions tend to develop. It is within
this framework that today's educational leader must make certain
decisions. He must decide to what degree he is going to follow or
lead the progress of his chosen profession. If he decides to fol-

low he elects the managerial path and by so doing must regard

119

himself as an object of utility. For within this function the pri-
mary emphasis is on the objective, mechanical operations of educa-
tion. By electing this form of action he must reconcile himself
to eventual replacement by educational vending machines because
the tasks he elects to perform are objective and utilitarian, and
as such they can probably be performed with greater objectivity and
efficiency in the automation process. This choice is open to every
administrator for there are a multitude of tasks in formal educa-
tion today (and they will increase) which lend themselves to the
fullest absorption of the individual's time and energy. With this’
decision the administrator has elected to limit the structure, form,
and extent of communication to an absolute minimum. It might even
be said that he has decided not to communicate at all for the ulti-
mate effect is the eventual dissolution of the means of "human"
inter-action, which is the foundation of communication among men.

On the other hand, if the administrator makes the decision
to lead the educational enterprise he assumes a responsibility of
infinite magnitude for the communication process. By this decision
he is forced to make many more decisions, each of great signifi-
cance for the ends he ultimately seeks to achieve. Indeed, the
decision as to what end he wishes to lead the educational enter-
prise is, in itself, the most vital decision he must make. For if
he is to lead then he must know the direction and meaning of the
end to which he aspires.

The decision to lead automatically forces the administrator
into the subjective processes of communication. He can not retreat

into the managerial functions but rather he must advance to the

120

processes of "human" inter-action. He must visualize the end of
education as the "human" end and establish the means which make
possible the achievement of that end. Arendt28 describes this
transformation:

The only way out of the dilemma of meaninglessness in

all strictly utilitarian philosophy is to turn away from

the objective world of use things and fall back upon the

subjectivity of use itself. Only in a strictly anthropo-
centric world, where the user, that is, man himself, be-

comes the ultimate end which puts a stop to the unending

chain of ends and means, can utility as such acquire the

dignity of meaningfulness.

With the dilemma of meaninglessness creeping into our times
there has been an increased pressure upon formal education for lead-
ership toward meaning. This has placed severe demands upon edu-
cation which educators were neither prepared to cope with, nor
totally free to act upon. While the pressure for schools to pro-
vide moral and ethical leadership has derived from general sources,
there has been a tendency for individuals and groups to deny this
pressure or resist facing up to the responsibilities it implies
for them. Thus one of the major problems of communication faced
by today's educational leader is that of communicating the meaning

29

he has assigned to the formal process of education. Fischer de-

fines the significance of this need for communication:

If, as a profession and as individuals, we are to give
the leadership and counsel reasonably to be expected of us,
we shall first have to clarify our own thinking on impor-
tant issues. It is sometimes argued that teachers, being
public servants, should be entirely subject to the desires
of their communities. This view seriously undervalues the

28Arendt, 0 e cite, Pe lsse

29John H. Fischer, "Our Changing Conception of Education,"
Phi Delta Ka an, October, 1960, pp. 16-19.

121

expert's place in democracy and diminishes his usefulness
to the public he serves.

Obviously, public policy must finally be sanctioned by
the public, but the quality of any popular decision always
reveals something more than the unalloyed wisdom of the
electorate. Public action invariably reflects the kind of
information the public has received, the nature of the alter-
natives offered for approval, and the respect the public

has for its advisors and their advice.

Part of the answer to our third major question of this sec-

tion is, then, the communication of the purposes and ends of educa-

tion. These purposes and ends must be known by the public which

formal education is serving. It is the responsibility of the adv

ministrator to communicate these purposes and ends to the public
in such a way that he leads them to a higher level of understanding

of, and participation in, the processes by which the purposes and

ends are established. This communication process, between the lead-

ers of the educational enterprise and the public whose sanction must

ultimately be acquired, is a never-ending process. The task is as

the poet Quasimodo30 has stated:

The image of man is no eternal thing. We must
remake it generation by generation.

Not only must the individual today become conscious of the
direction and meaning of the educational processes in his life but

he must also create the means which enrich the processes as he

experiences them. We emphasize again that this creative endeavor

can not begin full blown at age twenty-one or at any time in life.

It is a process, or to be more eXplicit, it is a series of created

processes which are themselves elements in the creative life

3OSalvatore Quasimodo, "Internal Man and External World,"

Saturday Review, July 11, 1960, pp. 15-16. 39-ho.

122

Since it is a process it must have a beginning. This

process.

beginning for man is really two beginnings.
The second beginning is the

The first is the bio-

logical beginning which is conception.
integration of the new-born babe into the society which follows his

acceptance as a potential member of the society. While both begin.

nings are important it is the second beginning, the social beginning,

which must command our full attention at this time.

The processes of communication become vastly different in
education when the administrator elects to lead rather than follow.

It necessitates the establishment of ends with society's partici-

pation and sanction. It also necessitates the constant communica-

tion of these ends not only to parents who need to be sharing in

their establishment but to the new generation as well. The educa-

tional processes must build a maturing sense of direction and mean-

ing in life for the new generation. While this responsibility is

not alone formal education's task, the fact remains that formal

education must fulfill to the utmost that portion of the task which

31 describes this indispensable function:

the ends prescribe. Wieman

It is not asserted that the school alone can impart to the
people the unifying and directing faith which the society
must have to survive and realize its potential values.

This the school cannot do. This must be done by the daily
interchange going on in society. But the school is needed
to interpret to the youth the sustaining faith and direction
of life which are implicit in the complexities of the social

If the school does not lift out and make explicit

process.
the rising generation will

this faith and direction of life,
not find them nor follow them amid the great complexity and

diversity and power of our society. Not to find them and
not to follow them will lead to disintegration of the devel-

oping personality of the individual and the social system
But if the school is to serve this indispensable

itself.

31W'ieman, o . cit., pp. 188-189.

 

 

123

function it must have as central to its entire undertaking

a commitment of faith which gives unity and direction to
the developing mind of the individual and to the entire

social process.
The fulfillment of this "indispensable function" tests not

only the faith.but the creative powers of the administrator as

well. This challenge to the administrator has greater signifi-

cance today because there is clear evidence that without a con-
stant and creative effort to provide direction and meaning in life
the debilitating forces of our complex, impersonal technology tend

to drive the individual away from his self-integrity and toward a

mold of conformity. As Guggenheimer32 contends, the concept of

the infinite and everlasting value of the individual "has little
meaning until thoroughly believed in by individuals, and the more

an individual is surrounded by skepticism the more difficult for
him to hold the gift of this conviction. We either have societies

in which faith predominate, wherein individuals fortify each

others' convictions, or we have societies of doubters and believers,

in which case there is far deeper and more serious conflict than

may be apparent on the surface."
The difficult task of the leader of today's educational

enterprise is to develOp the means by which the new generation may
learn to live creatively. Living creatively suggests remaining
alive to the dynamics of a world which is itself changing constant-

ly. Guggenheimer33 states the problem and suggests its solution:
The fact is that most human beings waver between the safe
attraction of what is securely, familiarly possessed and
the lure of change, the feel and smell of the new. The

32Guggenheimer, o . cit., p. 137.

33Ib1a., p. 145.

12h

pleasant solution does not lie in pretending or in sniffing
out new charms like a beast on the prowl, but rather in cul-
tivating the ability to stay enchanted with all things by

virtue of one's own continuing development vis-a-vis the

A truly alive person is a growing, changing

evolving world.
Such vision

person with a growing, changing, avid vision.
is incapable of boredom because itself and all that it sees

are forever involved in the magical continuum of progressive
being. To be is to be evolving, and whatever is evolving is

never long the same but forever becoming new. It is far
truer to say that everything, rather than nothing, under the

sun is new.
What the administrator must build into the educational pro-

cess is a kind of self-induced evolution. By means of this evolu-

tion the teacher is free to create new educational processes and

the student is free to create the processes of learning and seek-

ing. Only as each succeeding generation learns to live with change
and to create change in the direction it desires can man achieve

his ultimate human dignity. The effect of this type of education

is described by Mearnsj5:
Creative education is the name now given to the train-

ing that first finds and then preserves and strengthens the

better artistry in us, our native truth-seeking and truth-
If we speak here of individuality as

loving personality.
a creative spirit, it is because its distinguishing quality

3 Murphy depicts this creative thrust of understanding as a

(The others are derived from biological

third human nature.
"There are deep forces

evolution and the establishment of culture.)
within us that strive fundamentally for gratification of the need to
forces resistant to standardization and the molding pro-

understand;

cess; forces that nervously and restlessly cut through the chrysalis
of culture. It is just as human to fight against cultural stan-
dardization as it is to submit to it; and, under conditions of
modern living, the creative forces of curiosity and of artistic and
scientific reorganization of the materials and ways of life may
overpower many of the massive conservative forces of culture. This

creative thrust of understanding is a third human nature."
Gardner Murphy, Human Potentialities (New York: Basic Books,

1958). p. 180
3sflughesMearns, The Creative Adult (New York: Doubleday,

Doran & Co., 1940), p. 9.

125

is artistic, it manipulates the material of experience for

its own delight but remains itself independent and unmani-
pulated.

Thus far our attempt to answer our third and final question
has focused on the communicative and creative processes. We must
now turn to the processes which enable man to discover what ulti-
mate purposes his powers to communicate must serve for himself and

his society. The keynote to our concluding discussion is suggested

by Gray36:

I fear that we human creatures do not forget cleanly, as the
animals presumably do. What protrudes and does not fit in
our pasts rises to haunt us and make us spiritually unwell
in the present. The discontinuities in contemporary life
are cutting us off from our roots and threatening us with
the dread evil of nihilism in the twentieth century. We

may become refugees in an inner sense unless we remember to
some purpose. . . . If we could gain only a modicum of
greater wisdom concerning what manner of men we are, what
effect might it not have on future events?

If the administrator of modern education is to prevent the
coming generation from being refugees, in the inner sense to which
Gray has referred, he must create the means of forestalling this
possibility. He must devise new programs and facilitate new
experiences which make it possible for the coming generation to

acquire a sense of individuality and yet remain conscious of the

rights of others. Montagu37 describes this process and its impli- .

cations for education as it is presently functioning:

From the very first, the emphasis should be on the art of
human relations, which is nothing more than the art of
loving. Thus, teachers should be specially chosen for

36J. Glenn Gray, The Whrriors (New York: Harcourt,Brace &
COe, 1959), Pa 2"".

37Ashley Montagu, Education and Human Relations (New York:

Groves Press, 1953). pp. 162-153-

126

their ability to love, this being the primary requirement
in the equipment of the teacher. Where anything that is
taught has any relation to human life, then it should be
taught within the matrix of love. The referent in the edu-
cation of the child should always be how what is being
taught contributes toward the deve10pment of the child as

a healthy human being-~to repeat, health consists in the
ability to love and the ability to work.

What I am suggesting, in fact, is nothing less than a
revolution in our attitudes toward education; I am sug-
gesting that we regard education as the drawing out,
nourishment, and development of the potentialities of
every individual for being a loving human being who co-
operatively realizes himself in relation to the welfare
of his fellows and thus of his own best self. According
to this view, the principal purpose of our schools should
be education in human relations by drawing out and
nourishing the innate capacities of every human being for
relatedness. The teaching of the three R's should consti-
tute a secondary but complementary process in the interest

of rendering more efficient the functioning of such related-
ness.

Despite our allegations concerning contemporary American
society with its cry for conformity and its increasing complexity
and impersonality we recognize that there is also an American
tradition which makes possible the creation of Montagu's concept

of education. This tradition is described by Anderson}8 who con-

tends that,

Americans have sought the necessary resolution of human
conflicts in the terms of a human community, where, in
principle, the allegiance of the individual was obtained
by the assurance of the progressive accumulation of human
values and the further release of individual and individu-
ating energies. They have sought to formulate the nature
of this progress on the ground of a common humanity. The
idea of mankind has seemed to them to provide the key to a
consolidation of human power which could support human ef-
fort and release it, which could provide for the rebirth

of the individual in the supporting context of his relations
with his fellows.

Within the American tradition and despite certain of the

38John M. Anderson, The Individual and The New World
(State College, Pa.: Bald Eagle Press, 1955), p. 161.

127

restricting conditions of our times there is a latitude of action
which is still available to the educational leader if he seizes
the initiative. There is still much room for a more meaningful
comprehension of the lessons which the humanities can offer us.
The creative arts afford unlimited possibilities for self-
expression. Yet the most significant and creative revisions of
modern education are still comparatively undeveloped. These are
the revisions which can be made in the creation of human relations
and in the develOpment of an awareness of their significance for
the individual and his society. The most pertinent question may
very well be: Whose responsibility is it to bring about these
necessary developments in our educational program? Our answer is
specific-~the administrator of the educational enterprise. We
recognize, however, that the administrator does not operate in a
vacuum, and that in the final analysis all men must share in this
vital reconstruction of education. Toynbee39 discusses the problem

from the long-range point of view:

This immense and growing mass of knowledge about man
and his non-human environment daunts the minds that are
eXposed to it and throws them on the defensive. In self-
defense we are tempted to ask ourselves again whether our
institutions for formal education cannot simply reject the
greater part of this formidable load, or, short of that,
divide it up into packages that can be distributed among
different pairs of shoulders without risk of breaking any
backs. The reply to this cry of distress has to be in the
negative: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto" ("I
am a human being, so I cannot be indifferent to anything
that has to do with human life and human nature"). Every
man, women, and child alive today is living in a world in
which mankind is faced with the extreme choice between
learning to live together as one family and committing

39Arnold Toynbee, "Education: The Long View," Saturday
Review, 43:58-81, September, 1960.

128

genocide on a planetary scale. Neither the human race nor
any living member of it can afford to ignore the present
human situation. We must cope with it if we are not to
destroy ourselves; in order to cope with it we must under-
stand it; and trying to understand it commits each and all
of us to making some acquaintance with at least three vast
realms of knowledge: a knowledge of nonhuman nature; a
knowledge of human nature; and a knowledge of the charac-
ters and histories of the local and temporary cultures-
some relatively primitive, others relatively advanced--
that man has created and transmitted and modified and dis-
carded in the course of the ages that have passed since his
pre-human ancestors became human. Formal education's mini-
mum task has thus become a big undertaking in our day; and
every child will have a strenuous course of formal as well
as informal education to run in order to grow up into being
an effective citizen of our new world.

If man is to live as one family and if man is to realize
his potential value as an individual, he must endeavor to create
those means which will lead him to his humanity. Failure to act
may, indeed, result in the failure of man to continue his exis-
tence as man. On the contrary, action guided by the humanity man
now possesses holds the promise of a future which unites man, as
an individual, with all men in a human society.

We return at last to our third, and final, question: How
can man attain that sense of direction and meaning in life which
ppeserves both individual integgity_and the human society?

Our persistent theme throughout this chapter has empha-
sized the responsibility of the administrator of the educational
enterprise for the establishment of those means by which the
problems implicit in our three questions might be resolved. We
again suggest that the answer to our final question is best stated
in the following means which the administrator must create in order

to fulfill his responsibilities as the leader of the formal insti-

tution of education:

129

1. Acquiring the capacity to communicate.

2. Acquiring a sense of individual creativeness.

3. Acquiring an understanding of man and his conditions
on this earth.

4. Acquiring the skills needed to relate to others in a
human way.

5. Acquiring a love of oneself and of one's fellow man.

This study has been an attempt to establish a viable theory
of creative human relations. The scope of its content is broad and
far-reaching. In such a theoretical structure as we have herein
created there is considerable latitude for differences of Opinion.
In our thinking this is both understandable and good. Today's
leaders of the American educational enterprise must be willing to
deal with problems of these proportions and perplexity. Only by
coming to grips with such problems can we insert into the educa-
tional process the meaning and purpose it must ultimately possess
if America's struggle for world peace is to be more than one of mere
re-action. The vitality of American education depends upon the
kind of leadership which educational administrators can provide.

Education today is big business but vastly different from
Big Business. The product of the business of education is a dy-
namically, growing human being. Our responsibility as leadersin
the educational enterprise is to promote this dynamic, growth in
such a way that it has direction and meaning for all involved. It
is toward the mature acceptance of this responsibility that this

thesis has been dedicated. For education is, in the final analysis,

130

of, by, and for the people. If education is going to be improved,
then it must be directed by leaders with a sufficient understanding
of humanity to bring about changes within people for the good of

all. This is today's challenge to the administrator-leader of the

educational enterprise.

131

Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with essence.

John Keats, "Endymion"

 

 

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é;_§99§§

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133

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13#
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135

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Research Institute, 1952.

 

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