What Ray Bradbury Knew About Creativity That Universities Don’t
The famous novelist believed universities posed a kind of danger to creators and free-thinking individuals.
Every time I watch the latest meltdown of US universities, I can’t help but think of Ray Bradbury.
The renowned American author was famous for his dislike of colleges. He felt that the traditional education system was too rigid and stifling for creative minds. He believed that university students were not encouraged to think independently and explore their own ideas.
He also felt that college professors did not provide enough guidance or feedback to help students develop their creativity. As a result, he saw college as a place where creativity was stifled and discouraged rather than nurtured and inspired.
In a clip I recently found online, the Fahrenheit 451 author explained that writers in particular should avoid universities, saying “the intellect is a great danger to creativity.”
The response seems to shock the interviewer, prompting Bradbury to elaborate.
“A terrible danger, because you begin to rationalize and make up reasons for things instead of staying with your own basic truth: who you are, what you are, what you want to be,” Bradbury says. “I’ve had a sign over my typewriter for 25 years now which reads: don’t think. You must never think at the typewriter, you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway.”
Unlike Bradbury, I went to college. I enjoyed my time there and wouldn’t change my experience.
Nevertheless, I think Bradbury is correct about the dangers universities pose to creators and free-thinking individuals. For far too long college has been treated as something people must do to be successful or accomplished or complete. I think this is a mistake.
Worse, I think universities are actively ruining many young minds by infantilizing students, radicalizing them, and polluting their minds with rubbish.
I’m not saying college can’t work for young people today—it can. But parents and students shouldn’t buy into the myth that it’s the only path forward.
Ray Bradbury is proof that it never was.
My experience of higher education was largely positive and I was not in the Ivy League but definitely the Northeast belly of the beast at one point in a school famous for it left wing ties and yes a Marxist econ department. When necessary I held my head down but in hindsight, I realize I was remarkably open. I learned a lot about Marxism. I’m glad. I can attack from the inside.
Definitely not the only path forward toward success. Heck, my own day job has nothing to do with my sport management degree. But I taught myself SEO concepts, how to write in ways that keep readers on a page - a "little" different from what I'd "learned" in school - and how to leverage my writing voice. None of that came with a degree, just a strong work ethic, grit, and a never-say-die approach.