"Heroes Are Active Self-Creators"

Otto Rank's Insights into Cultural Geniuses and the Creative Life

As I sit here in 2022, I imagine myself in the year 1928. I imagine I’m interviewing Dr. Otto Rank. Rank, a German, is 43. For 20 years he’d been in Sigmund Freud’s inner circle in Vienna, Austria, and was the young intellectual darling of the Freudian movement. Until last year. 1927. Last year Freud and Rank had a falling out and they severed all ties with each other.

Now Otto Rank’s trying to develop a constructive human psychology. He’s doing something original. He’s making fertile discoveries. He’s a pathfinder.

In my imagination, my interview with Otto Rank goes like this:

Me: “Doctor Rank, let’s discuss the person you call the creative productive individual.”

Rank: “Certainly, Mister Weber.”

Me: “When you say ‘creative productive individual’, are you referring to a creative person who invents or produces something?  Especially a person who produces a work of culture?”

Rank: “When I refer to creative productive people, I include people who produce cultural works.  But I include people who don’t produce a work of art or culture.  A scientist doing research.  A businessman managing manufacturing.  A journalist or an essayist.  And I include productive people who aren’t that creative.”

Me: “All right.  If you will, Doctor Rank, let’s focus on the culturally creative and productive individual. You like speaking about Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and two of your fellow Germans: Goethe and Holderlin.  Why do these six stand out to you?”

Rank: “Well, each of these six men is a genius.  Each one is a unique individual.  And they are tied to their age.  They do not belong to the age of the Gothic.  They belong to the age of the Renaissance.  They share the outlook of the Renaissance.” 

Me: “So each genius in world history was tied to his or her age?”

Rank: “Sure.  Da Vinci needed the knowledge of anatomy.  Michelangelo needed the marble.  Shakespeare needed both the Renaissance outlook and the rising Reformation outlook.  Rembrandt needed previous advances in oil painting techniques.”

Me: “I see, Doctor Rank.  And your fellow Germans?”

Rank: “Goethe needed to wrestle with both the gothic Sturm and Drang outlook and the Romantic outlook before moving on to the Mediterranean Renaissance outlook.  Holderlin needed diverse outlooks.  These gave rise to the lyrical power of expression of Goethe and Holderlin.”

Me: “Makes sense.  So in a society of the past or present, we see cultural works circulating and we see an outlook – a spiritual ideal, a social ideal.  Certain forms are ready at hand.  And then the genius comes along and creates something new within that outlook.” 

Rank: “Yes.  There is an interplay between the collective outlook and the personal outlook.  Great cultural works are usually a harmonious combination of the current age’s outlook and of the creative producer’s personal outlook.  Works of art and other cultural works connect with the prevailing culture but add a personal expression to it.  Either the artist vitalizes his society’s outlook or transcends it.  The super-achievement of an incomparable masterpiece often does both.”

Me: “Fascinating, Doctor Rank.  Of those six geniuses, you can relate best to Goethe?”

Rank: “Yes, Mister Weber, but that’s not why I dwell on Goethe.  I dwell on Goethe because, to me, he most embodies my key finding, my central theme.”

Me: “Which is?”

Rank: “That the creator of culture must first create himself.”

Me: “I see.”

Rank: “Goethe remains the model of a universal genius in the modern age.  And his works are a unique expression of his life.  He shaped his vital life and his cultural works into a constructive whole.  His art served him and helped him to live.  Goethe’s greatness is in his attitude and his approach to culture and to life – and how he conceived their relation to each other.  Ultimately, his life came first and his art came second.”

Me: “Compelling.  And you’re saying that Goethe left Romanticism behind?”

Rank: “Yes.  And that’s a good thing.  On the positive side, Romantics love transcendent beauty.  But a Romantic confuses culture and life.  Romanticism is a cult of personality that only cares about liberty.”

Me: “Interesting take, Doctor Rank.  You prefer the Renaissance?”

Rank: “Sure, Mister Weber.  The Renaissance drew from Judaism and Christianity, from Roman and especially Greek Classical ideals, and from strong dynamic individual personalities like Michelangelo.  That’s how they emancipated themselves from the Gothic and Medieval outlooks.  What a change in attitude and outlook!  The Renaissance involved such vigor, courage, and foresight.  The geniuses of the Renaissance felt that change of attitude and outlook intensely – and they, in turn, shaped that change.”

Me: “Ah-ha!”

Rank: “You see, eh?”

Me: “I see, Doctor Rank.  I do see.”

Rank: “Good, good.”

Me: “How about Modernist art and culture?”

Rank: “Modernism relies on the dynamic rhythm of modern life.  That’s why the Modernist outlook is best expressed in music, in song, in dance.”

Me: “Dance?”

Rank: “In dance we encounter the rhythms of the infinite in time and space.  Dance can lead each dancer through a rebirth.”

Me: “I get you. All right, Doctor Rank, if you will, let’s turn our attention to the creator of culture – the artist.  What, in your view, lies behind personal artistic genius?”

Rank: “Most culture is produced by the individual artist’s motivation to produce something enduring.  A genius does create a work that is enduring.”

Me: “Sounds right.”

Rank: “What is enduring is usually rooted in what is good, what is useful, and is often rooted in what is super-sensible, which includes religion and other faith in higher forces.  The most important factors in culture are ideas of the soul.  The ends of art and culture are spiritual.  That’s why some art has enduring value.  That’s why some art provides satisfaction.  The artist tries to represent and make visible what is Divine or spiritual, to help us comprehend and feel and see the soul, to lend the soul tangible existence, to make the soul real.”

Me: “So how do we judge art by this standard?”

Rank: “It’s all up to the viewer of art, the listener to music, the reader of literature.  Does the work produce in the recipient a spiritually gratifying experience?  Do the artist and the recipient, beyond their mortal egos, reach a spiritual unity?  Does the artist restore the recipient’s unity with the cosmos?  Does the receiver feel a oneness with the soul living in the work of art?  Does the recipient believe that the artist’s outlook is true?  Does the recipient find in the work the essence of the artist?  Does the work of art or culture enrich the individuality of the recipient?”

Me: “So it’s all about valuations placed on the work by the artist’s contemporaries?”

Rank: “And valuations by posterity.  The artist can live on in spirit for centuries.”

Me: “Very well, Doctor Rank.  So your approach provides us some insights into the creative process?”

Rank: “That is my aim, Mister Weber.”

Me: “Where should we start?”

Rank: “At the beginning, eh?  At the beginning of a work, a great artist may have a clear original conception of the work.  But the artist is rarely clear about how he will form, work out, and complete the work.  During production, the work moves beyond the original conception and plan to something different.”

Me: “So we rarely directly observe this creative process, right?”

Rank: “True.  Although in jazz music we often do.  When it’s improvisational.  We may observe the process of creation of music in improvisational jazz. Many artistic individuals do not fully live their lives.  Jazz musicians seem more likely to do so.  But artists often live in their artistic creation instead of living in actual life.  This is not ideal.”

Me: “I see why not. Doctor Rank, you have some clear ideas about the potential within each of us.  What do you suggest to us?  What are you calling us to do?”

Rank: “Fair question, Mister Weber.  There’s nothing wrong with living an average life.  But if you desire to lead an exceptional life, consider the heroes of our literature.  What do heroes do?  Heroes convert their conscious will into deeds.  And heroes do more than this.  Heroes rise from the role of a passive creature to that of an active creator and even the role of an active self-creator.”

Me: “What do you mean, self-creators?”

Rank: “People who create themselves – who actively, consciously create their own personalities.  People who exercise their volition in shaping and reshaping themselves.”

Me: “That’s what you’re calling us to do?”

Rank: “Humbly, yes, I am.  The first creative work of all productive individuals is the forming of their new self.  And this remains, fundamentally, their chief work.  Creativity begins with the individual – with the self-making of the self.”

Me: “I feel that you are speaking to me directly.”

Rank: “I say to you, create yourself.  Actively, consciously create your new self.  Exercise your volition in shaping and reshaping yourself.”

Me: “That’s rather profound.”

Rank: “You see, eh?  I say, you have the creative power to form your new self.  Devote your creative force to life itself.  Place your creative force directly in the service of your new self.  Form and reform yourself, then affirm yourself.  Continually build yourself anew as the person you desire to be.  Listener, I say to you, manifest your ideal self.  Live your outlook.  Let the ideal self you’ve formed in your mind seek your goals and set your goals.  Manifest creatively your positive individual will.  Translate your positive will into action and achievement.”   

Me: “Astounding. Doctor Rank, what is your message to business managers, scientists, journalists, essayists, productive people in general, creative people in general, and what, especially, is your message to the creative producers of works of culture?”

Rank: “Living first as a human being, creative productive artist-type people desire to express through their work the best of a collective outlook as well as their personal outlook.  Culture is a collective expression.  Creative productive personalities are crystallizations of the culture of their age.”

Me: “Interesting.  So what do you say to the person who’d like to be more productive and creative – and maybe even produce a work of genius?”

Rank: “I’d say, after you’ve developed your new self from your own will, you have a fullness, you have a surplus.  And you can creatively produce from that fullness, from that surplus.” 

Me: “Aha!”

Rank: “You see, Mister Weber.  So, shift to how you want to represent the best of your outlook and our society’s outlook in an enduring work.  What inner truth, goodness, and beauty do you want to bring into the outer world, into outer reality?  Let the best of your development of your new self take shape in your work.  What is your distinctive theme?  What materials of your experience and of the human experience will you use?  What form do you choose to impart your theme?  What techniques will you apply in that form?”

Me: “Marvelous. So this is how geniuses convey something to their own age and to posterity.”

Rank: “Yes.  Once your powerful creative force has manifested in your new self, you are ready to produce your creative work.  Now take your primal creation – your new self – and create something of high value, something that will endure.  Let your work serve your outlook.  And when you create, use the whole of your new self.  The work itself will represent only a part of yourself.  But it will represent the whole artist within you.  So put it into your work from your whole being.”

Me: “Brilliant.”