Free Creativity by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

new truth? Although none of these considerations bears in the least on the theory of relativity, they were all verymuch part of how the media portrayed Einstein—and it is these traits rather than the profundity of his theory that presumably convinced most people that he was worth including in the cultural pantheon.
    Fields can affect the rate of creativity in at least three ways. The first way is by being either reactive or proactive. A reactive field does not solicit or stimulate novelty, while a proactive field does. One of the major reasons the Renaissance was so bountiful in Florence is that the patrons actively demanded novelty from artists. In the United States, we make some effort to be proactive in terms of stimulating scientific creativity in the young: science fairs and prestigious prizes like the Westinghouse, which goes to the one hundred best high school science projects each year, are some examples. But of course much more could be done to stimulate novel thinking in science early on. Similarly, some companies like Motorola take seriously the idea that one way to increase creativity is for the field to be proactive.
    The second way for the field to influence the rate of novelty is by choosing either a narrow or a broad filter in the selection of novelty.Some fields are conservative and allow only a few new items to enter the domain at any given time. They reject most novelty and select only what they consider best. Others are more liberal in allowing new ideas into their domains, and as a result these change more rapidly. At the extremes, both strategies can be dangerous: It is possible to wreck a domain either by starving it of novelty or by admitting too much unassimilated novelty into it.
    Finally, fields can encourage novelty if they are well connected to the rest of the social system and are able to channel support into their own domain. For instance, after World War II it was easy for nuclear physicists to get all sorts of money to build new laboratories, research centers, experimental reactors, and to train new physicists, because politicians and voters were still enormously impressed by the atomic bomb and the future possibilities it represented. During a few years in the 1950s, the number of students in theoretical physics at the University of Rome went from seven to two hundred; the proportions were not so far off elsewhere around the world.
    There are several ways that domains and fields can affect each other. Sometimes domains determine to a large extent what the field can or cannot do; this is probably more usual in the sciences, where the knowledge base severely restricts what the scientific establishment can or cannot claim. No matter how much a group of scientists would like their pet theory accepted, it won’t be if it runs against the previously accumulated consensus. In the arts, on the other hand, it is often the field that takes precedence: The artistic establishment decides, without firm guidelines anchored in the past, which new works of art are worthy of inclusion in the domain.
    Sometimes fields that are not competent in the domain take control over it. The church interfered in Galileo’s astronomical findings; the Communist party for a while directed not only Soviet genetics but art and music as well; and fundamentalists in the United States are trying to have a voice in teaching evolutionary history. In more subtle ways, economic and political forces always influence, whether intentionally or not, the development of domains. Our knowledge of foreign languages would be even less if the U.S. government stopped subsidizing Title IV programs. Opera andballet would virtually disappear without massive outside support. The Japanese government is heavily invested in stimulating new ideas and applications in micro-circuitry, while the Dutch government, understandably enough,encourages pioneering work in the building of dams and hydraulic devices. The Romanian government was actively involved