creativity: theory of cesare lombroso

1. PRESENTED
TO BY
Dr. Indira Dhull Monika Malik
Dept. of Education
monikamalikkharb@gmail.com
MDU, Rohtak

2. In the words of Amabile, 1999
“ Something or some process that is original,
novel, newly thought of, & in some cases as being
useful”.
Psychodynamic approach says creativity arises
from the tension between conscious reality &
unconscious drives.

3.  According to Ariti, “Creativity & mental
illness are two transformation of the same
reality. Both the creative & the psychotic want
to change the world. The creative want to
beautify it & the psychotic want to change the
world that fits his way of living.”
 As per Aristotle, “ No great genius has ever
existed without some touch of madness.”

4. (6 NOV. 1835-19 OCT.1909)
Lombroso is considered to be the
“father of the positive school of criminology.”

5.  Cesare Lombroso was an Italian criminologist,
physician, and founder of the Italian School of
Positivist Criminology.
 Lombroso published The Man of Genius
in 1889, in which he catalogued the eccentric
and often immoral behaviour of past creative
luminaries.

6.  It is certain that there have been men of genius
presenting a complete equilibrium of the
intellectual faculties; but they have presented
defects of affectivity & feeling, though no one
may have perceived it, or rather, recorded it.
 Lombrosso in his book confound genius with
talent; not because they are not quite distinct,
but because the line that separates them, like that
which separates vice from crime, is very difficult
to define.

7.  Cesare Lombroso made us look on another aspect
of creativity which is far from the imagination of
layman which is the dark side of creativity:- Original
thinkers can be more dishonest.
 Lombroso said, “ Unfortunately, goodness & honor
are rather the exception than the rule among
exceptional men, not to speak of geniuses.”
 Many doctors, philosophers, sociologists including
Lombosro suggested both creative geniuses & violent
criminals shared a set of “ degenerate genes.”

8. He argued that artistic genius was a form of
hereditary insanity..
According to him the signs of degeneration are
found more frequently in man of genius than
even in the insane.
It is the doubling & contradiction of personality
in genius which reveals the reality
He says genius is often expiated by inferiority in
some psychic functions , it is often associated
with anomalies in that organ which is the source
of glory.

9. Good sense travels on the well worn paths;
genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not
altogether without reason, is so ready to treat
great man as lunatics.
It as been said of the man of genius, as of the
madman, that he is born & dies in isolation, cold
& insensible to family affection & social
conventions
The appearance of a single great genius is more
than equivalent to the birth of 100 mediocrities.

10. These insane geniuses have scarcely any
character.
Genius is conscious of itself, appreciates itself,
and, certainly has no monkish humility
Some of these unfortunate men have given
strangely precocious proofs of their genius.
Many of them have been excessive in their
abuse of narcotics, of stimulants and of
intoxicants
Nearly all these great men, moreover showed
anomalies of the reproductive function.

11. Instead of preferring the quiet seclusion of the
study, they cannot rest in any place and have to
be continually travelling.
Sometimes they change, their career & course of
study several times in succession, as though the
mighty intellect could not find rest & relief in a
single science.
These energetic & terrible intellects are true
pioneers of science; they rush forward regardless
of danger, facing with eagerness the greatest
difficulties- perhaps because it is these which
best satisfy their morbid energy.

12. These morbid geniuses have a style peculiar to
themselves- passionate, palpitating, vividly coloured-
which distinguishes them from all other writers.
Because it could only arise under maniacal
influences.
Nearly all these great men were painfully pre-
occupied by religious doubts, raised by the intellect,
& combated as a crime, by the timid conscience &
morbid emotions.
All insane men of genius, moreover are much pre-
occupied with their own ego.
The principal trace of the delusions of great minds is
found in the very construction of their works &
speeches , in their illogical deductions, absurd
contradictions & grotesque & inhuman fantasies.

13. Nearly all men- attached great importance to their
dreams.
Many presented voluminous but very irregular skulls
& like madmen have ended by serious alterations of
the nervous centers e.g. Pascal, Rousseau. His brain
revealed dropsy in the ventricles.
The insane characters of men of genius are scarcely
ever found alone. Thus melancholia was associated &
alternated with exaggerated self-esteem with
alcoholic mania , impulsive insanity or sexual
perversion.

14. But the most special characteristic of this form of
insanity appears to reduce itself to an extreme
exaggeration of two alternating phases, viz.
erethism & atony, inspiration & exhaustion,
which we see physiologically manifested in
nearly all great intellects, even the sanest phases
to which they, all alike, give a wrong
interpretation, according as their pride is
gratified or offended.

15. Yet the temper of these man is so different from
that of average people that it gives a special
character to the different psychoses
(melancholia, monomania etc.) from which they
suffer, so as to constitute a special psychosis,
which might be called the psychosis of genius.

16. Between the physiology of the man of genius, therefore &
of the insane, there are many points of coincidence; there
is even actual continuity. This fact explains the frequent
occurrence of madmen of genius & men of genius who
have become insane, having , it is true characteristic
special to themselves, but capable of being resolved into
exaggerations of those of genius pure & simple.
In short by these analogies & coincidences between the
phenomena of genius & mental aberration, it seems as
though nature had intended to teach us respect for the
supreme misfortunes of insanity; & also to preserve us
from being dazzled by the brilliancy of those men of
genius who might well be compared, not to the planets
which keep their appointed orbits, but to falling stars, lost
& dispersed over the crust of the earth.