creativity tends to prosper with an increase in total artistic activity. Anthropologist A. L. Kroeber surveyed the world’s civilizations and found that “a culture with a content several times as great as another—let us say with a total inventory of items several times larger—has more material to operate on, and ought therefore to be able to produce more combinations of items and richer or more intensive patterns.” Symbols become more complex the more they refer to other symbols, and it helps when more people are involved in creating new ones.
