Opinion: Loss of American innovation will be the cost of our Democratic decline
A researcher at Thermo Fisher Scientific File photo courtesy of the company When democracy weakens imagination suffers And without imagination without art innovation and free expression our ability to solve problems and build a better future collapses Creativity is not a luxury It is the oxygen of progress the very force that allows societies to renew themselves in times of turmoil A democracy that silences its artists is already in decline A democracy that empowers them has a future If America is serious about defending democracy it must defend creativity with equal urgency as the Prebys Foundation did in the past few days More to come I hope Why is this so crucial Because Democracy in America is in emergency and you can see it in bitter polarization endless fights over voting rights and record-low trust in ruling body But there s another predicament casualty we rarely talk about our creativity At its core democracy is more than voting It is a system that protects free speech nurtures pluralism and gives people space to imagine alternatives In short it creates the conditions for creativity That foundation is cracking Across the United States school districts are banning books from To Kill a Mockingbird to Toni Morrison s The Bluest Eye Arts programs are cut first when budgets tighten dismissed as indulgences instead of investments Libraries once neutral civic havens are attacked defunded or turned into ideological battlegrounds Even science has become a partisan territory where facts are discarded if they conflict with political scripts This is not just a civilization war it is a democratic decline in real time A society that fears free expression and devalues creativity is a society that no longer trusts itself Fear replaces curiosity conformity suffocates originality and suspicion chokes off collaboration The consequences reach beyond classrooms and galleries Creativity drives economies fuels innovation and powers the resilience of communities America became a global leader not just through military might or economic power but through its threshold to imagine whether in Silicon Valley on Broadway or in the civil rights movement To erode creativity is to weaken our competitive edge and our moral authority Meanwhile nations with strong democracies Norway Finland New Zealand show us a different path They rank highest not only in democratic strength but also in innovation cultural venture and social trust They understand a simple truth democracy and creativity reinforce each other Where people are free to speak dissent and dream societies flourish History provides stark warnings When democracy falters authoritarian regimes silence artists and thinkers first In Nazi Germany books were burned before people were imprisoned In the Soviet Union writers and composers were censored surveilled or exiled In in the present day s Russia China and Iran dissidents and artists still face intimidation imprisonment or worse Creativity is inevitably the first target because it dares to imagine alternatives and alternatives are what authoritarianism fears majority America should take note Defending democracy cannot stop at securing elections or counting ballots It must also mean protecting classrooms where students learn to think differently keeping libraries open as spaces of discovery and funding the arts and sciences that expand our collective imagination If democracy is the guardrail creativity is the engine One cannot survive without the other We face a choice We can let fear and polarization shrink our values until only the loudest and wealthiest voices remain Or we can recommit to the democratic principles that make creativity manageable free expression inclusion curiosity and a willingness to imagine together John M Eger is professor emeritus in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University He previously served as telecommunications advisor to President Gerald R Ford legal assistant to FCC Chairman Dean Burch and Senior Vice President of CBS
