session 1: games and politics
Ludic metaphors for politics abound—from military strategies in treatises on the art of war to the rhythm and sense of nursery rhymes, from political expression in videogames and the significance of a poker face, this session will compare and contrast the formal elements of games and politics.
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Reading:
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, reprinted 1980), Foreword, and Chapters 1 and 12. |
student reflection
© Christine Zenino"The Play Element in Life"
By Lucas Treep
BA (Hons) Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University
An important question that was discussed during the first session was: what is ‘play’?Diverse answers were given by students: play is fun, joy, a performance, interaction, recreation, flirtations, thinking outside the box, etc. It became clear that what one means by ‘play’ is very ambiguous, subjective and context specific.
Huizinga (1949), who tries to investigate the play-element in culture, describes play as something non rational and as something that cannot be denied. The play concept should accordingly: “…always be seen as distinct forms all other forms of thought in which we express structure of mental and social life (ibid.: 7)”. He argues that play is: a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary life” as being “non serious”, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means (ibid.: 13).
On the other hand, Huizinga argues that play can be very serious, especially when he discusses the play in relation to ritual in “primitive” societies. Play, like the practice ritual, presents its own rules; thus, the braking of these rules can provoke angry reactions from playing
participants (ibid.: 20). Play also promotes a formation of social groups: when play ends, it then forms permanent groups or communities (ibid.:13). The fact that the play “represents” a contest or becomes a contest for the best representation (ibid.: 13), makes it something very serious to me, something that has implications for social relations and dispositions that individuals take in play relations or during play interaction.
Then, one could argue that even if play is something non rational, the play element is something important and a necessity for the interaction order and the functioning of social relations in society at large. This became evident to me when Huizinga started describing the play content in his “modern” life (in the 1940s) in the fields of business, art or politics. Interaction within these fields, he suggests, is conducted largely according to the “rules of the game”; and players have to commit to the“true play spirit” within these fields.
The word ‘play’resonates with the performative aspect of social relations as in the theories of Goffman (1959). Moreover, if we assume that the play-element is important for the social and symbolic relations among and within groups, it is in my opinion also relevant to look how the
play-element creates demands on the level of social interaction and how it generates certain dispositions. In this sense, the sociological perspective of “interaction rituals” (Collins, 2007) would come to mind when referring to what could be called “the play element in life.”
By Lucas Treep
BA (Hons) Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University
An important question that was discussed during the first session was: what is ‘play’?Diverse answers were given by students: play is fun, joy, a performance, interaction, recreation, flirtations, thinking outside the box, etc. It became clear that what one means by ‘play’ is very ambiguous, subjective and context specific.
Huizinga (1949), who tries to investigate the play-element in culture, describes play as something non rational and as something that cannot be denied. The play concept should accordingly: “…always be seen as distinct forms all other forms of thought in which we express structure of mental and social life (ibid.: 7)”. He argues that play is: a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary life” as being “non serious”, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means (ibid.: 13).
On the other hand, Huizinga argues that play can be very serious, especially when he discusses the play in relation to ritual in “primitive” societies. Play, like the practice ritual, presents its own rules; thus, the braking of these rules can provoke angry reactions from playing
participants (ibid.: 20). Play also promotes a formation of social groups: when play ends, it then forms permanent groups or communities (ibid.:13). The fact that the play “represents” a contest or becomes a contest for the best representation (ibid.: 13), makes it something very serious to me, something that has implications for social relations and dispositions that individuals take in play relations or during play interaction.
Then, one could argue that even if play is something non rational, the play element is something important and a necessity for the interaction order and the functioning of social relations in society at large. This became evident to me when Huizinga started describing the play content in his “modern” life (in the 1940s) in the fields of business, art or politics. Interaction within these fields, he suggests, is conducted largely according to the “rules of the game”; and players have to commit to the“true play spirit” within these fields.
The word ‘play’resonates with the performative aspect of social relations as in the theories of Goffman (1959). Moreover, if we assume that the play-element is important for the social and symbolic relations among and within groups, it is in my opinion also relevant to look how the
play-element creates demands on the level of social interaction and how it generates certain dispositions. In this sense, the sociological perspective of “interaction rituals” (Collins, 2007) would come to mind when referring to what could be called “the play element in life.”