Creativity is a beloved non-word, an almost messianic formulation; one of those public screens onto which everyone can project almost everything. It is a term coined to offer hope and positive expectation; a catchword to employers and a must in job application letters. Invoking it is de rigueur for ‘alternative minds’ rebelling against bourgeois ‘virtues’. And now it has also become an essential part of the EU-speak of the Lisbon Agenda. This is unsurprising. Creativity’s semantic aura suffuses philosophy, contemporary economics and democracy
