Creativity and conversations

Long term readers will know I have some problems with aspects of Grant McCracken’s thought. But the man does have this habit of coming up with such insightful, thought provoking stuff that I find myself returning to his blog on a regular basis.
McCracken’s blog also highlights a problem I have with the blog as a form, which on checking to write this I find have written about before, again in relation to him. My problem is that because they are built around dated entries there is an implicit sense that the latest is the most interesting and without a lot of internal cross-referencing there is little to encourage the reader to explore.
Now with some very newsy blogs this isn’t a problem, but in the case of someone like McCracken there are hidden riches too easily missed.
Just one example, I take you back a year or so to one of a series of entries where he talks about the nature of creativity. Here’s an excerpt from the entry about conversations and creativity (a subject that is dear to my heart):
“We talked about blogging mostly, whether, how and with what logic this universe would distribute, and several other things. I thought I glimpsed a rhetorical form here, and I began to think that this was our unofficial process for creativity.
One person would take up the conversation lead. He would begin building an argument, looking for the assertions that would singly and collectively make a case. And always you could tell the conversation was as much between the speaker and himself as it was between the speaker and the rest of us. Did this work? Can I say this? Is this the best way to have said it? What could I say next? What is the best next step? How is the larger argument taking shape? Do the one and the other conform to the things I think I know about the topic and the world? Even if these things are not clear or, possibly wrong, am I still in the view corridor, the vector, that I believe to be fundamentally the correct one. And occasionally, we would see someone stumble upon an illumination that was not at all what he meant to say, but we could see that he was now truly on to something and follow up as he began to work the theme, bringing some things with him, leaving other things behind.”

Go on read the whole piece and then explore the rest of his site. I’m sure youll find something that sparks your interest and make the whole trip worthwhile.