The Right to Be Creative

We talk about so many fundamental human rights: life, liberty, security, education, work, property, protection of the law, and many more. We justifiably regard these rights as inalienable, and take great care to protect them. Diplomatic relations frequently reflect the extent to which countries are believed to observe these rights. We have even resorted to wars when we perceived that certain human rights were seriously violated.

But, what about the right to be creative – evidently the most fundamental of all human rights, and the one right from which most other rights derive their meaning and significance? What about the right to find out one’s natural abilities (talents) and to develop and express them in things that one perceives as important and beneficial to oneself, one’s society, and the natural environment? What about the right to realize one’s potential, to fulfill one’s life purpose and, therefore, to exist more fully as a human being?

The data that have prompted this submission attributes the modern crises to the inability of the vast majority of human beings to exercise their most fundamental human right – to develop and to contribute their special set of abilities in significant and beneficial actions.   If, therefore, we seriously hope to resolve the dreadful crises the world is facing, and to achieve the much-desired peaceful, viable, and sustainable global future, what is needed is institutional patterns and operational relationships that allow all the world’s six billion people to experience themselves as intelligent and creative, and their lives as having meaning and significance. Necessarily, too, we will need to evolve goals for mankind and Planet Earth that people perceive as good for humans and the rest of nature, as giving purpose and direction to their own lives and, therefore, as worthy of the commitment of their time and their creative energies.