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Institutional creativity and pathologies of potential space: The modern university

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14753630701273058

1475-3634

Iain MacRury,

Rhetoric and Communication Studies

Abstract Abstract This paper proposes the applicability of object relations psychoanalytic conceptions of dialogue (Ogden, 1986 Ogden, T. 1986. The matrix of the mind, London: Karnac. [Google Scholar], 1993 Ogden, T. 1993. "On potential space". In In one's bones: The clinical genius of Winnicot, Edited by: Goldman, D. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aaronson. [Google Scholar]) to thinking about relationships and relational structures and their governance in universities. It proposes that: the qualities of dialogic relations in creative institutions are the proper index of creative productivity; that is of, as examples, 'thinking' (Evans, 2004 Evans, M. 2004. Killing thinking: The death of the universities, London: Continuum. [Google Scholar]), 'emotional learning' (Salzberger-Wittenburg et al., 1983 Salzberger-Wittenburg, I., Henry, G. and Osborne, E. 1983. The emotional experience of learning and teaching, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) or 'criticality' (Barnett, 1997 Barnett, R. 1997. Higher education: A critical business, Buckingham: Open University Press. [Google Scholar]); contemporary institutions' explicit preoccupation in assuring, monitoring and managing creative 'dialogue' can, in practice, pervert creative processes and thoughtful symbolic productivity, thus inhibiting students' development and the quality of 'thinking space' for teaching and research. In this context the paper examines uncanny and perverse connections between Paulo Freire's (1972 Freire, P. 1972. Pedagogy of the oppressed, London: Penguin. [Google Scholar]) account of educational empowerment and dialogics (from his Pedagogy of the oppressed) to the consumerist (see, for example, Clarke & Vidler, 2005 Clarke, J. and Vidler, E. 2005. Creating citizen-consumers: New labour and the remaking of public services. Public Policy and Administration, 20: 19–37. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) rhetoric of student empowerment, as mediated by some strands of managerialism in contemporary higher education. The paper grounds its critique of current models of dialogue, feedback loops, audit and other mechanisms of accountability (Power, 1997 Power, M. 1997. The Audit Society: Ritual's of verification, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]; Strathern, 2000 Strathern M. Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the academy London Routledge 2000 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), in a close analysis of how creative thinking emerges. The paper discusses the failure to maintain a dialogic space in humanities and social science areas in particular, exploring psychoanalytic conceptions from Donald Winnicott (1971 Winnicott, D. W. 1971. Playing and Reality, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]), Milner (1979 Milner, M. 1979. On not being able to paint, New York: International Universities Press. [Google Scholar]), Thomas Ogden (1986 Ogden, T. 1986. The matrix of the mind, London: Karnac. [Google Scholar]) and Csikszentmihalyi (1997 Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1997. Creativity, New York: Harper Perennial. [Google Scholar]). Coleridge's ideas about imagination as the movement of thought between subjective and objective modes are discussed in terms of both intra- and inter-subjective relational modes of 'dialogue', which are seen as subject to pathology in the pathologically structured psychosocial environment. Current patterns of institutional governance, by micromanaging dialogic spaces, curtail the 'natural' rhythms and temporalities of imagination by giving an over-emphasis to the moment of outcome, at the expense of holding the necessary vagaries of process in the institutional 'mind'. On the contrary, as this paper argues, creative thinking lies in sporadic emergences at the conjunction of object/(ive) outcome and through (thought) processes. Keywords: Creativitydialogueobject-relations psychoanalysishigher educationthinkingconsumerinstiutions Notes 1 Delanty (2002 Delanty, G. 2002. "The university and modernity: A history of the present". In The virtual university: Knowledge, markets and management, Edited by: Robins, K. and Webster, F. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]) and Barnett (1997 Barnett, R. 1997. Higher education: A critical business, Buckingham: Open University Press. [Google Scholar]) sketch useful accounts which serve to characterize the complex of institutional forms, priorities and missions that have characterized 'the idea of a university' throughout its development. Delanty's (2002 Delanty, G. 2002. "The university and modernity: A history of the present". In The virtual university: Knowledge, markets and management, Edited by: Robins, K. and Webster, F. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]) account charts four university 'ideal types' locating these in a loose perodizing schema: The 'Humboltian' liberal/humanistic university of the nineteenth century, the civic/professional university, the mass/democratic university and (presently) the 'virtual' university. Thinking in and about contemporary H.E. institutions residually engages with priorities typified by each of these 'ideals'. 2 For instance, Shaun Woodward, Minister for the Creative Industries said: Our creative industries are internationally renowned and amongst the fastest growing sectors of our economy. But it is clear that all businesses will require a future work force with the ability to think creatively and this report is a significant step towards ensuring that our young people develop such skills. Schools Minister, Andrew Adonis, said: Creativity can help boost self-confidence and motivation and helps youngsters develop communication skills and self-discipline. It is important for pupils and students to gain the creative skills that will help them excel in their studies and their future working life. DfES Press Centre: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2006_0109. 3 Thus a recent government report notes the centrality of creativity across education. 'Creative Potential: Creativity is possible in all areas of human activity, including the arts, sciences, at work at play and in all other areas of daily life. All people have creative abilities and we all have them differently. When individuals find their creative strengths, it can have an enormous impact on self-esteem and on overall achievement' (NACCCE, 1999 National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE). All Our Futures: Creativity and Education London HMSO [Google Scholar], p. 6). 4 Thus Winnicott writes 'I am hoping that the reader will accept a general reference to creativity, not letting the word get lost in the successful or acclaimed creation but keeping it to the meaning that refers to a colouring of the whole attitude to external reality' (Winnicott, 1971 Winnicott, D. W. 1971. Playing and Reality, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar], p. 65). 5 Object relations psychoanalysis is an influential development emerging from the work of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott amongst others. 6 I would propose further that alongside the arguably very positive development of the universities as proto- 'creative industries', as sites for the teaching and research connected more directly to production of 'acclaimed creation' (Winnicott, 1971 Winnicott, D. W. 1971. Playing and Reality, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) in the arts (and various other missionary social programmes) there is a need to consider the extent to which they are creative organizations – not just in the sense implied in terms like 'creative arts' and 'creative industries' but especially in the sense that they foster and support environments and relationships where thinking capacity, developmental experience and productive transformation can thrive. Indeed my conjecture would be that institutional investments in the missions of acclaimed 'creativity' are in part compensatory gestures symptomatic of a felt, but unacknowledged, absence of creative capacity across the institution – this is because, as Milner (1979 Milner, M. 1979. On not being able to paint, New York: International Universities Press. [Google Scholar], 1987 Milner, M. 1987. Eternity's sunrise: A way of keeping a diary, London: Virago. [Google Scholar]) for instance has made clear, the optimization – at the level of the subject in his or her environment – of 'ordinary' creative capacity – is necessary to, if not sufficient for, the pursuit of creativity in the 'aesthetic' sense. 7 Eliot (2005 Eliot, A. 2005. The constitution of the subject: Primary repression after Kristeva and Laplanche. European Journal of Social Theory, 8: 25–42. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) writes of recent developments in psychoanalytic theorization of 'the subject': 'these far-reaching investigations have raised afresh the question of human creation, the question of representation and fantasy, and the question of the imaginary constitution of the socio-symbolic world. In doing so, they offer alternative perspectives on the very nature of representation and repression in the structuration of social action and thus potentially contribute to a reconsideration of social theory more generally' (Eliot, 2005 Eliot, A. 2005. The constitution of the subject: Primary repression after Kristeva and Laplanche. European Journal of Social Theory, 8: 25–42. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 26) 8 This paper is not based on close observation of classroom transactions or on interviews with lecturers or students. See Salzberger-Wittenberg et al., 1983 Salzberger-Wittenburg, I., Henry, G. and Osborne, E. 1983. The emotional experience of learning and teaching, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]; Brown & Price, 1999 Brown, J. and Price, H. 1999. Teaching psychoanalysis: An impossible art. Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies, 1: 87–102. [Google Scholar]; Burman, 2001 Burman, E. 2001. Emotions in the classroom and the institutional politics of knowledge. Psychoanalytic Studies, 3: 313–324. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]; Price, 2001; Yates, 2001 Yates, C. 2001. Psychoanalytic studies: Towards a new culture of learning. Higher Education in Psychoanalytic Studies, 3: 333–347. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) for some powerful and detailed qualitative accounts. 9 As I shall go on to make clear, creativity is of course fundamental to thinking and communicating across all activities and across all communications – formal and informal. However, it is perhaps yet more fundamental to a setting such as the university where improving our capacities for thinking is (arguably) the developmental task. 10 For a more broadly sociological application of the notion of a 'matrix' see Figlio and Richards (2003 Figlio, K. and Richards, B. 2003. The containing matrix of the social. American Imago, 60: 407–428. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 11 Evans's recent (2004) book usefully names the problem in its title: Killing thinking. 12 Winnicott refers to the interruptions experienced by infants from over-anxious parents, resulting in failed attunement in their (affective) dialogue and problematic development for the child. 13 The pervasive nature of audit (as a central mechanism in the operation of New Public Management [NPM] (Chandler et al., 2002 Chandler, J., Bany, J. and Clark, H. 2002. Unsettling managerialism in 'mass' higher education East London Business School Working Papers, No. 1 [Google Scholar]) means that some of the patterns of managerial intervention may be recognizable across industries. 14 This is not to say that research should not have outcomes, far from it. It is merely to question the 'end gaining' (Alexander, 1990 Alexander, F. M. 1990. The use of the self, London: Victor Gollancz. [Google Scholar]) instrumentalism that comes to overwhelm research – in conception, design, practice, dissemination. To anticipate my argument later on, the focus on and stimulation of the objective moment of research tasks (the output) is bought at the expense of its proper dialogical engagement with processural moments of subjective and dynamic 'gathering up'. It is the confluence and integration of both 'subjective/fanciful' and 'objective/praxis oriented' moments (conception and output) that is optimal – and more work should be done to institute university environments where such a mode of productivity can more readily be entertained. This is mainly, but not only, a question of resources. 15 Evans (2004 Evans, M. 2004. Killing thinking: The death of the universities, London: Continuum. [Google Scholar]) describes the new nomenclature in terms of an Orwellian strategy of governance – akin to the introduction of Newspeak in 1984's Oceania. 16 By using the term grammar I am not subscribing to any kind of language or signifying system-oriented explanation. In the sense intended here 'grammar' refers to a relational matrix – generative (and perhaps degenerative) and one which is as concrete and embodied as the people and things who inhabit it, and who, at times, engage, or are inhabited by its movements and articulations. 17 The 'consumerisms' of the 1980s and subsequently have in many ways been shown to be more complexly dialogical than is evident in New Public Management conceptions of choice and the formats used to disseminate 'relevant' information about student experience and institutional life. 18 The following is indicative of the periodic 'feel' of institutional relations: When managerial processes are … enacted face to face, co-operative and supportive relationships tended to emerge. When imposed at a distance social relations seem to become impersonalised, seen at best as transactions between 'strangers' whose needs may be ignored … the relation is indeed a strange one, as sniper to victim (Chandler et al., 2002 Chandler, J., Bany, J. and Clark, H. 2002. Unsettling managerialism in 'mass' higher education East London Business School Working Papers, No. 1 [Google Scholar], p. 10). 19 Wittgenstein writes: 'Thinking too has a time for ploughing and a time for gathering the harvest' (Wittgenstein, 1980 Wittgenstein, L. 1980. Culture and value, Oxford: Blackwell. [Google Scholar], p. 28e). 20 Sennet (2006 Sennet, R. 2006. The new culture of capitalism, New Haven: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]) refers to the various temporalities of capitalistic production throughout the history of his surveys of working lives – noting that most recently both strict and life long regimentation and its opposites (always starting anew) bring their attendant and stifling forms of alienation – typically anti-creative. 21 Wittgenstein offers a not dissimilar account of 'philosophising'. Like Coleridge's, the metaphor (in physical movement) accentuates the continuities between 'mental' and bio-physical processes in the organism. Again the pattern is of a proto-dialectical engagement of opposites. I find it important in philosophising to keep changing my posture, not to stand for too long on one leg, so as not to get stiff. Like someone on a long up-hill climb who walks backwards for a while so as to revive himself and stretch some different muscles (Wittgenstein, 1980 Wittgenstein, L. 1980. Culture and value, Oxford: Blackwell. [Google Scholar], p. 27e). 22 Thus Koestler (1989 Koestler, A. 1989. The act of creation, London: Penguin. [Google Scholar]) has no problem in seeing that creative production and comic production follow the same pattern – of integrative 'bisociation'. The timing of the perception of new congruencies is all important – and requires both concentration and a studied inattention. 23 Students allowed to set their own exam A lecturer who wants to engender trust and respect in his students has let them set their own final-year exam. They were also allowed to take notes into the exam hall in case they could not answer their own questions. The move is part of a growing shift from 'sudden death' exams to 'assessment for learning' in which students play a part in judging their performance. The Daily Telegraph, via The Times Higher Education Supplement, Online, 30 June 2006).