This paper considers the claims representatives of the ‘creativity movement’ make in regards to change and the future. This will particularly focus on the role that the arts are supposed to play in responding to industrial imperatives for the 21st century. It is argued that the compressed vision of the future (and past) offered by creativity experts succumbs to the nihilism so often described by Nietzsche. The second part of the paper draws on Stanley Cavell's chapter ‘Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow’ (from a book with the same name) to consider a future oriented arts education that may not fall victim to nihilism.