Is creativity valued in our culture?

Is creativity valued more in a culture/system that operates without money?

I'm with you on the Aborigines and the Red Indian culture - fantastic - but even they are being challenged in the name of profit.

Valued? yeh well how do we show we hold something in high regard these days? its a bit like the word "success" - usually quantified by ... Money or lots of possessions.

Imagine a world without : Music, Art, Poetry, films, books, dance

Thats two very good political science phd theses questions you could write there Jill!

In a very small nutshell, the answer to the first is no. The World Bank,in which our elected politicans have had more than their fair say in over its lifetime, uses a set of 'key development indicators' to determine how developed a country or region is. At the top, and regularly referred to, are GDP/GNP and the dollar a day measure, all of which are complete tosh, but thats another thread. After that the indicators are mainly health and primary education based, and ironically its countries like Cuba and Venezuela, supposed undemocratic dictatorships, which regularly top the figures for indicators such as literacy rate, life expectancy and infant mortality rates.

But what about creativity? It's no harder to measure than any of the above. But try finding data using developmental indicators such as percentage spend on research and development, or number of trademarks made annually, and you'll fast hit a brick wall.

As for the second question, I don't really think i'd want to comment without more knowledge or experience of a culture which operates without money. I've read a bit about some of the 'brains' behind the technological advances of the first 'liberal' period, however, and it has repeatedly occured to me that, even in such a class based, money driven society, creativity was valued in popular discourse far more than today. For example, i believe Brunel (who pretty much designed every bridge/railway in the South West) was as popular in his day as David Beckham is today.

hi there. personally, my belief, is that in our current sense of society/reality we are pre-programed from birth to work towards a money/material oriainted lifestyle. Ther is no real system in place that teaches us and rewards us to be creative to think for ourselves, we are expected to learn and accept what is put infront of us, our lives are layed out for us from birth, and if you are creative or spiritually connected there is no program set in place for you so you are doomed to fail in life if you are to rely on a system that doesn't account for individuality. And by the time you realise this, if you do,that is, it is too late and you become trapped in the prison of day to day life. And about your earlier views on abbos and indians, infact any indigionous peoples. Their cultures where mostley wiped out for what they belive in, or for just being different, some mite say.