Creativity and the Ethics of Productivism
In danish we have an idiom which literally means “to create oneself” 1 but in daily use means being childish, losing one’s head or simply being mad. With a modern view on human nature this seems to be non-sensical. Do we not create ourselves constantly—isn’t that the meaning of life? In times where the greatest political challenge by many is believed to be the ”creation” of “economic growth,” and where “personal identity” is a product we create out of nothing in order to sell ourselves on the job market or in the social life, a negative answer to this question seems to contradict every tenet of common sense. But then again, isn’t it mad to think that we actually “create” our own selves ex nihilo—or anything at all for that matter? Answering questions such as these are important for understanding and countering the prevalent ideology of growth, or productivism. One (traditional) explanation for the power of the ideology of economic growth, is that branding and commer