Work and Creativity. Thir Occasional Paper, 6.

Miller, Eric J.:

ISBN 10: 0901882224 / ISBN 13: 9780901882226

Published by London: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, 1983

About this Item

18 p. Lediglich leichte Gebrauchsspuren am Einband, sonst ein sauberes Exemplar ohne Anstreichungen / only slight signs of usage on the cover, otherwise a clean copy without markings. - WHAT PEOPLE MEAN BY 'WORK' AND 'CREATIVITY' The English language, like others, is rich in abstract nouns: our everyday conversation is littered with them. Unlike concrete nouns, such as 'table', 'chair', 'door', 'window', they have no obvious physical referents that we can point to. Yet most of the time when we use them we take it for granted that we shall be understood with just as much precision. We all know what we mean by (democracy, freedom, intelligence, work etc.), don't we? We fail to recognize that our ilsage relies not only on a socially determined classification of the world - which, after all, is equally applicable to concrete nouns, in that it defines a chair as a fourlegged something to sit on - but also an assumption of shared experience and shared feelings and values associated with that experience. If we want to question such assumptions, a good starting point is to ask ourselves what our associations are to, say, 'work' and 'creativity'; what synonyms and meanings do I assign? We can then check this out by putting the same questions to others. These lists are a product of three such exercises. [.] Imposing my own classification, I see the 'work' items as roughly grouped into three sets. The first ten describe activity per se and the experience of it. Then there are a couple of ambiguous words - 'occupation' and 'job' which lead into a second set that has mainly to do with relationships involved. Finally, there are those concerned with outputs. These last few show an overlap with creativity. Finding no such obvious classification for the second column, I have resorted to alphabetical order. We can take clarification of meanings one step further by asking what the antonyms or opposites are. I myself, and apparently many others, think of two quite divergent antonyms to 'work'. One is 'play', which is a well- established opposite: for example, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". The other is 'unemployment'. Secondary opposites that come most immediately to mind are 'idleness' and 'leisure'. So work is 'non-play' (excerpt from the introduction). ISBN 9780901882226 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 501. Seller Inventory # 1212598

Bibliographic Details

Title: Work and Creativity. Thir Occasional Paper, ...

Publisher: London: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations

Publication Date: 1983

Binding: Paperback.

Condition: Gut