An Essay on Romantic Genius, Rorschach Movement, and the Definition of Creativity

Abstract

I have interpreted a recent Saturday Review article (1) most specifically, as a new variation on the theme of anti-psychometrics, (2) less specifically, as a new manifestation of humanistic dissatisfaction with scientific psychology, and (3) generally, as a protest from Snow's “traditional culture” regarding who in our society shall be called intellectually great. The variation involves attacking aptitude tests of creativity for their failure to measure aptitude for artistic creativity. I have suggested that the movement dimension of the Rorschach test does precisely this—although it does not measure what the Guilford originality tests measure, namely, aptitude for unusual, remote, and/or clever response. This aptitude is relatively independent of Rorschach's “capacity for ‘inner creation’,” a capacity which must be well above-average to qualify as a genius in Romantic terms. Because this independence has long been recognized by Romanticism, it is to be expected that an abundance of the Guilford aptitude will not much impress the Romantically-oriented critic, even if the aptitude is coupled with lofty IQ, and the two are confirmed by achievement of the order of a Nobel Prize. The Romantically-oriented critic will call “genius” only someone rich in Rorschach's capacity, i.e., in capacity for “artistic inspiration, religious experience, etc.” Only someone, I add (in the phrase of the article's title), who is something more than a “useful genius.”

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