Creativity and Loaded Guns

Because I write about aesthetics and have had a life-long interest in art and music, I hold creativity and imagination in very high regard. My book on the philosophy of wine, which is nearing completion, dwells at length on creativity and imagination in winemaking and wine tasting. So one thing that is central to what you might loosely call my “philosophy of life” is that the capacity for creativity (or thinking outside the box in the vernacular) is an admirable character trait and a central element of a good life.

And then I read something like this from a right wing talk show that MSNBC’s Joy Reid was commenting on:

CALLER: “Maybe they could make some sort of vape that could help people, you know, that would atomize chemicals into your lungs and you could blow it out your nose, but uh thinking outside the box is what we need to do now and no one seems to want to do it. I don’t know if I’m crazy.

HOST: No, you’re not, Zack, you’re not crazy, and bingo – you said the word, you said the phrase. Thank you for that call. Thinking outside the box. That’s literally what the president was doing yesterday. That’s what a good chief executive does.

They are of course praising our moron-in-chief who last week was encouraging a shot of bleach to cure the coronavirus. That sure is thinking outside the box, no doubt.

Encouraging creativity in these dolts is like giving a toddler a loaded gun. I need to be careful in the future about who I advise to use their imagination.