I recently developed a new exercise for the creativity class I teach through the University of Minnesota’s Compleat Scholar program. The exercise is cumbersome, but if you can survive the grind it pays big dividends.
Your task is to design a civilization from the ground up.
1. Make a series of columns labeled Food, Settlement, Government, Arts, etc. (You might want to orient your page sidewise, use multiple sheets of paper, or a whiteboard.)
2. Under each aspect of your civilization make two sub-columns labeled Method and Beliefs.
3. Brainstorm the methods for each civilization aspect.
4. Brainstorm the attitudes and beliefs the people of your civilization might have about each civilization aspect.
You will end up with something like this (click twice to enlarge):
Now comes the fun part.
1. Pick a method and a belief from one of the columns. Look for a combination that makes you smile or frown.
2. Start imagining what a civilization built on that method/belief pair might be like.
In class, we started with Artistic Fishing. We imagined what it would be like if a culture believed that fishing (as opposed to painting or literature) was the highest art form.
3. Pick other methods and beliefs and see what happens to the civilization.
In the Artistic Fishing example, we talked about how a tribal, pre-technological civilization might view fishing as an art for spiritual reasons. But when we imagined Artistic Fishing in crowded, technological society, we ended up with museums filled with bass boats.
4. Make it real. Whether your civilization starts out rational or absurd, keep working the methods and beliefs until it has its own internal logic.
We had a wonderful example on Monday where someone imagined a civilization of telepaths that lived in trees. The high status people at the top passed down their garbage to the level below, who had to live on the castoffs of the rich. Then those people passed on their garbage to the next level below and so on, and all the while no one says a word.
Finally, as with all Awesome Writing Prompts, if you’re reluctant to post your answers, I’m always happy to take a look offline.
In order to reverse global warming and obesity, scientists have engineered a nomadic tribe of gluttonous plant people, who thrive on a mixture of CO2, sunlight, and high fructose corn syrup.
At first, as they spread out across the world, into every city, suburb, and remote village — building solar arrays and “green” manufacturing facilities — they are greeted as heroes. Mankind starts to notice its waistlines whittle and its polar ice caps thicken.
The plant people, who communicate through biofeedback — which is graphed and translated for humans — are indeed a benevolent and charitable race. They want to help. And while they’re around, they pick up a few tips from humans.
It starts out innocently enough. Somebody creates an ungraphable shorthand to share insider plant people jokes. Pretty soon others are interested in cataloging their stories and folklore. Soon enough, a whole plant people literature springs up.
For awhile, relations between humans and plant people are peaceable enough. But as global warming eases, plant people growth unexpectedly starts to accelerate. Like kudzu, they are squeezing out space for humans, and the human birth rate can no longer keep up with the plant people.
In a few generations, humans have been effectively reduced to HFC-manufacturing slaves.