Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon
Even in its simplest form on the animal level, play is more than a mere physiological phenomenon or psychological reflex. In play there is something “at play” which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action.
NOTE
Necessity of irrationality for play.
We play and know that we play, so we must be more than merely rational beings, for play is irrational.
Language and play: Behind every abstract expression there lies the boldest of metaphors, and every metaphor is a play upon words. Thus in giving expression to life man creates a second, poetic world alongside the world of nature. rel: Daily Journal
In myth and ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin: law and order, commerce and profit, craft and art, poetry, wisdom and science. All rooted in the primeval soil of play.
“Play is the direct opposite of seriousness” proves false.
For the adult and responsible human being, play is a function he could leave alone. The need for it is urgent only to the extent that the enjoyment makes it a need. it is never imposed as a physical necessity or moral duty. It is never a task. It is done in leisure “free time”. Child and animal play because they are enjoy playing, and therein precisely lies their freedom.
Main characteristic of play - that it is free, and is freedom. Second characteristic - it is not “ordinary” or “real life” it is stepping into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all its own.
All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the “consecrated spot” cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. All of these spaces are temporary worlds within the ordinary world dedicated the the performance of an act apart.
Thought
For me, play integrates itself into learning. It is a distraction from the task, but also necessary for me to continue working on the task for long periods. It allows me to experiment and be creative (play with mistakes and be wrong) rather than purely memorizing.
Play: creates order, is order. The world is imperfect and play brings a temporary limited perfection.
All play has rules.
Thought
I find it surprising that all play has rules. I know play, as in games, as some kind of fixed language that allows cooperation. But personal play seems more rule-less? It is more of a wander, rather than a path? I partake to dissolve the IRL rule-sense for a break.
Perhaps it is rule-based in the end, but rather than following a strict path as in a train’s rail, it is you placing each piece of the rail down, before you go there? Not sure.
Thought
Maybe what is going on here is some mismatch, between what is my understand of a game and what is play. A game is fully rule-ish, you break the rules and the collective spirit of the game is lost (supposing there isn’t some mandated rule breaks as a part of the rule set like Calvinball). Play might have a framework, but feels less rule-ish.
The breaker of rules - the cheat and the soil-sport (the player who trespasses against the rules or ignores them). Society is more lenient to the cheat than the soil-sport, because the soil-sport shatters to play-world itself. He reveals the fragility of the play world. He robs play of its illusion - which has its roots in play.
illusion → in-”against” + ludere ‘play’
It sometimes happens that spoil-sports in turn make a new community with rules of its own.
A play-community generally tends to become permanent even after the game is over.
Feast and play have a very close nature. Both proclaim a standstill to ordinary life. They seem intimately related to dancing. There is a connection between ritual and play.
Play-Concept as Expressed in Language
Sanskrit - the general word for playing is kridati denoting the play of animals, children and grown-ups. Like the word “play” in Germanic languages it also serves for the movement of the wind or waves. It can mean hopping, skipping, or dancing without being expressly related to playing in particular rel:Mummification on the Dance Floor
Japanese have asobase-kotoba (literally play-language) or polite speech, a mode of address for higher rank. The convention is that they higher classes are merely playing at all they do. The polite form of “You arrive in Tokio” is literally “you play arrival in Tokio” and “I heard that your father is dead”, “I hear that your father has played dying.” In other words, the revered person is imagined as living in an elevated sphere where only pleasure or condescension moves to action. This is a masking of aristocratic life behind play.
Latin has one word to cover the whole field of play: ludus, from ludere. Semblance or deception.
The English “play” is remarkable from a semantic pov. Etymologically the word comes from Ango-Saxon plega, meaning “play” or “to play” but also rapid movement, a gesture, a grasp of the hands, clapping, playing a musical instrument and all kinds of bodily activity.
Special application of play as with an instrument. Italian sonare, Spanish tocar, French jouer. Making music bears at the outset all the formal characteristics of play proper: begins and ends with a strict limits of time and place, is repeatable, consists of order, rhythm, alternations, transports an audience out of ordinary life and into a sphere of gladness and serenity, which makes even sad music a lofty pleasure. But we know play is something different. Playing is never applied to singing, and to music making in only certain languages.
Play and Contest as Civilizing Functions
Play doesn’t turn into culture, rather that in its earliest phases culture has the play-character, that it proceeds in the shape and mood of play.
NOTE
Not sure about this.
Solitary play is productive of a culture only in a limited degree.
Closely connected with play is the idea of winning. Winning, however, presupposes a partner or opponent; solitary play knows no winning, and the attainment of the desired objective here cannot be called by that name.
Play and War
Ever since words existed for fighting and playing, men have been wont to call war a game.
Playing and Knowing
The urge to be first has as many forms of expression as society offers opportunities for it. For archaic man, doing and daring are power, but knowing is magical power.
The Greeks of the later period were perfectly well aware of the connection between riddle-solving and the origins of philosophy.
Play and Poetry
All antique poetry is at one and the same time ritual, entertainment, artistry, riddle-making, doctrine, persuasion, sorcery, soothsaying, prophecy, and competition.
The close connections between poetry and the riddle are never entirely lost. In the Icelandic skalds too much clarity is considered a technical fault. The Greeks also required the poet’s word to be dark. Among the troubadours, in whose art the play-function is more in evidence than in any other, special merit was attributed to the trobarclus—the making of recondite poetry.
Summary
Word and idea are not born of scientific or logical thinking but of creative language, which means of innumerable languages—for this act of “conception” has taken place over and over again
Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.”
Magic Circle
In games and digital media, the “magic circle” is the space in which the normal rules and reality of the world are suspended and replaced by the artificial reality of a game world.
Instead of being impenetrable, however, an examination of contemporary virtual worlds reveals that the magic circle is actually quite porous. More directly, there appears to be a relationship between virtual worlds and the outside world.