Uncreative Writing

One quote that was most interesting to me from this week's readings was in "Petty Theft" when Kenneth Goldsmith answered the question "what's wrong with creativity?"

Goldsmith says that "Creativity as we've come to know it is bankrupt. What passes for creativity in our culture is actually vastly uncreative. Think of the flood of worn-out narratives, passing for originality, be it novels, films or music, and you'll find that what we term creative is nothing more than repetitious formulas, spun over and over. Should something appear that's truly "creative" it doesn't stand a chance of selling and as such, is rendered culturally insignificant and marginalized to the point of invisibility. By opposing creativity as commonly accepted -- in a sense by constructing a negative notion of creativity -- perhaps we can breathe new life into this practice. Hence, my concept of the uncreative."

I get what Goldsmith is trying to do with uncreative writing and I agree that often times the writing, films and music we see and hear today are made from repetitious formulas, but to me this is no reason to turn to the uncreative. Goldsmith says we need to not try as hard to be creative since our own voice shows up in what we write inevitably. It seems Goldsmith has seen other things which he has deemed original and creative go unappreciated by the general public so his philosophy is to stop trying. It's a great way to get people to notice what message you're trying to get across, but if everybody followed Goldsmith's theory, all creative endeavors would be forever doomed. If we simply stop trying to be creative all togehter there will never be an original work again, rather than there being a handful of good original creations in a sea of unoriginal repeats. It seems downright pessimistic.