Edited by Pat Kane (email)


:: This Ain't No Discord ::

Part of the enduring power of play comes from its strong sourcing in biology and nature. Play is the form of communication, creativity and expression that unites us with other animals - not just other complex mammals, but birds too - rather than language, which separates us.

The biologist Brian Goodwin, my friend and colleague in the IFF, often talks about play as a concept that brings us closer to the creativity of the natural world, and thus to nature itself:

Play is a crucial way in which the possibility of emergent new order is created in living beings—and it is interesting to connect this notion of play in the natural world with the playful postmodern pastiche of different styles, the ‘invitation to the carnival’. Play is by nature spontaneous and purposeless; it is simply for its own sake; it is dangerous in not attending to the harsh realities of existence; yet it is helpful to living creatures because it contains the possibility of novelty.

The biology of play is a fascinating subject for amateur pop-science fans like myself: the best I can do is to keep an eye on the field, and watch the form of the most interesting scientific horses. One lithe new contender is the Norwegian Bjorn Grinde, who has written a popular best-seller in his native country, Darwinian Happiness: Evolution As a Guide for Living and Understanding Human Behavior. His book focuses on the "mismatch hypothesis" - the notion that much of our contemporary unhappiness stems from the "Discords" between our hi-tech, flexible lifestyles and our evolved natures. Yet as his reviewer notes, many of these have playful solutions:

Discords may be encountered throughout the lifespan and in all areas of life. Inadequate parenting is a Discord that can have tragic consequences for development and psychopathology. So is the punishment and psychiatric labeling of boys who express a strong drive for playing when their culture (mis)values sitting quietly and obediently...Oppressive sexual mores can be Discords that stifle and distort natural impulses for kindness, intimacy, and sexual joy...Grinde offers dozens of sound and practical remedies for the Discords of our time. Among other strategies, he recommends more play, more exercise, more learning, more touching, and more kindness and altruism.

That's a great last line - and, incidentally, maps on several of my rhetorics of play.


:: Hi-Tech/Hi-Touch ::

"More touching", indeed. Who could complain? Indeed, there's a challenging essay in the Jewish ideas journal Tikkun which argues that we need to recover our creaturely sensuality in general. Here's my favourite point from the piece, a caution to digital obsessives like myself:

There is, of course, nothing wrong with the computer, nor with the many realms now so rapidly being opened for us by the astonishing capability of our computers—as long as we bring to these new realms the sensorial curiosity, creativity, restraint and ethical savvy that can only grow out of our full-bodied encounter with others in the thick of the earthly sensuous. But if we plug our kids into the computer as soon as they are able to walk, we short-circuit the very process by which they could acquire such creativity and such restraint.

A little too Luddite for my taste, but beautifully written. Sample with John Naisbitt's High Tech, High Touch for a slightly less organic viewpoint.


:: America as an ethical player? ::

I always keep an eye on the writings of Robert Wright, the most articulate populariser of game theory as a explanation of social progress. Out of all the American commentators on 9/11, his position has been the most intriguing - arguing that America's role should have been to recognise that their cultural power is much more important than their military power, in a media-drenched globalised world. This piece in the New York Times ties his analysis to game theory explicitly:

Globalization dates back to prehistory, when the technologically driven expansion of commerce began. Early advances in transportation — roads, wheels, boats — were used to do deals (when they weren't used to fight wars). So too with information technology. Writing seems to have evolved in Mesopotamia as a recorder of debts. Later, in the form of contracts, it would lubricate long-distance trade.

All this is grounded in human nature. People instinctively play nonzero-sum games — games, like economic exchange, in which both players can win. And technological advance lets them play more complex games over longer distances. Hence globalization.

What makes globalization precarious is that nonzero-sum relationships typically have a downside: both players can lose as well as win. Their fortunes are correlated, their fates partly shared, for better or worse. As a web of commerce expands and thickens, this interdependence deepens.

But does this justify Wright's call to Americans to lead "a moral revolution", based on the need to reduce antipathy to their power? Not sure. In the meantime, remember to celebrate Sept 12th next year...Interdependence Day.


:: Play Times ::

A Dali-ance with Disney In a great season for animation, surely the one worth waiting for: the completion of 'Destino', Dali's planned cartoon with Disney.

"Hourly, In Play..." Incomprehensible casino capitalism. "Today's point gainers list is dominated by tobacco (MO +4.60, RJR +4.28) and retailers (TLB +1.76, URBN +1.54, ANN +1.53), as well as: GPRO +5.18..." Urrgh.

"I come from the Playstation Generation" says Dizzee Rascal, winner of this year's Mercury music prize. "We make music and beats on anything we can...creating beats, messing about with flows..." The boy's a social portent, and sounds like this.

Are You TIRED? And do you want to "pro-tire"? I'm sure you're both...TIRED standing for Thirty-something Independent Radical Educated Dropout, and "protiring" meaning an alternative to retiring - mid-life downshifters, eager to explore more leisurely or creative pursuits outside of work. Nice puns, neat research...but I think the word they're looking for is, "player"...

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