Originality or from the Origin to the Originary

As will be seen in this chapter, the sociological approach to the concept of creativity lacks some accuracy, since it is addressed from an a priori perspective and admitted without reflecting on what it means socially and culturally. Habitually sociological literature that investigates creativity seeks novelty, originality. However, it is not usual for sociologists to specify what originality means and to link it to time. The etymology of originality refers, dialectically, to the neighboring terms of “origin” and “originating.” While the first supposes, basically, a return to the past and the second, a projection toward the future, creativity generates something original only when it develops a process, a temporal narrative, that expands the present and that relates it, inseparably, with the past and the future.