Creative Destruction and Destructive Creativity

These days, I have observed that some young people are very proud of their creativity, which is destructive; in fact one of my friends claimed it as one of his strengths!

I remember this scene from in one B&W Hindi movie:

Johnny Walker and his son used to sell windowpanes. One bad day on streets, their sales were nil, and then they discovered an ingenious way to turn their fortunes. First, his son throws a stone and breaks the window of a decent apartment and runs away. Then the Johnny appears and is immediately hired to repair the broken window. By this way, they use their destructive creativity to open new avenues for their income.

I tried to understand creative destruction and destructive creativity, and was amazed to find out that in fact, these two terms are opposite to each other. Let us see some examples to understand this.

The example of Johnny Walker may immaturely conclude that it is the people like them who do this. But the phenomenon is too widespread. Destruction of colonies created markets for the European nations. If the farmers of Champaran didn't plant indigo in their lands and thereby their soil losing fertility, the cotton mills of Britain wouldn't have made that much profits. Of course, this is imperialism more than destructive creativity, but think about the first man in whose mind this idea came, that pure business (which East India Company started with), was not enough and colonization is the best thing to do. Recent example is the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq; there are credible reports of how much American companies earned out of contracts to rebuild the destroyed cities. This phenomenon of destructive creativity even spreads to modern companies and businesses. They have found that selling their new products is difficult, but success lies in moulding an entire generation into their target consumers: first they want you to grow obese, and then they will do weight loss therapy to cure that! And the creative destruction while firms compete is also well known. The monopolies destroy any new entrants into the market, which is one reason governments have been hostile to the big M&As (remember derailed GE-Honeywell merger?). In market though, there is some destruction that is inevitable; e.g. music CDs and VCDs destroyed cassettes and VCPs/VCRs. These are naturally happening creative destructions.

I can put the availability of foetus sex determination machines under this category. And the invention of Atom Bomb? These were all creative, but they destroyed many a things also in the way… A live example is the Setu Samudram Project, where government of India is willing to spend Rs 2600 Crore of taxpayers money (80% Hindus) to destroy a mythical bridge between India and Srilanka, in order to make some ships pass though and save some travel time. What overwhelms the protagonists is nothing other than the joy of Destructive Creativity!

In the way, I have mixed up the two terms: Destructive Creativity and Creative Destruction. Creative Destruction is defined as the process of 'transformation' that accompanies 'radical innovation'. This may be positive. For example, when competing companies and competing technologies destroy others, it is called creative destruction. Like digital MP3 players are destroying MP3 CD players. But, Destructive Creativity is the process involving generation of ideas and behaviours focused on 'harmful goals'. Examples, we can easily think of. But companies some times utilize this method to find the loopholes within their own systems, before some one finds it and use it to his/her advantage. E.g. in software companies, one of the desired skills of a s/w testing engineer is destructive creativity. 

The harms due to these tendencies are many. Things like ethical hacking may seem cool, but in general, destructive forces will never achieve for mankind, a minuscule of what pure creativity does. Getting broken glass replaced may not be a big deal, but the broken hearts and souls may never get their due. In the name of ethical destruction, or spreading civilizations, destructive creativity has already done substantial damage. Let us not idolise the destructive creativities. It takes years for a tree to grow, but our creative lots may take a few minutes to turn the clock back. There will be two alternative solutions, for example, for India-Pakistan conflict: diplomacy or a war. First is constructive and second is destructive. And hence, the biggest question in front of mankind is: how to ensure that creativity remains constructive and not destructive?