War and game, a way of interpreting the world
If we look at game in isolation, Huizinga attributed the following characteristics to it: firstly, game has an agonistic dimension, and what is agonistic is recreational according to Huizinga; game, then, is freedom and spontaneity. Certainly, there are rules but these are not immutable. On the other hand, the rules have to be understood and accepted by the other gameers. Game is also recreation and contentment. It is fiction too, in the sense that it is not ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life. The way we use the verb ‘play’ (game-playing) is significant from this point of view. We play a musical instrument, we play in a theatrical production or in a film, we play tennis just as we play cards, chess, parlor games, etc. Different examples are developed in War and game on this subject. Therefore, several works of literature or cinema are cited. Huizinga also highlights the fact that game in itself is neither good nor bad, “it is situated outside the sphere of moral norms” while also making it possible to somehow moralize society because it “channels the lives of human beings and avoids excesses, in war, for example, where the rules of the game prevent us from descending into total barbarity”. In short, the aspiration of game is beauty and culture emanates from this. This idea is the subject of the utopian novel, The game of glass beads by Hermann Hesse. In Hermann Hesse’s book, the game of glass beads is the pinnacle of culture. It constitutes “an effective remedy against war”(4) and war can also itself be “a means of fostering true culture”. The 20th century, ‘the era of pages of varieties’, is presented as the dawn of creative culture. In these conditions, war is no longer considered a state from which one should flee but rather as a useful means of radically transforming the world order into a new culture. War and game evolve according to the vagaries of chance and randomnessA chess board is something that is often used as an illustration of strategic military or geopolitical thinking. Yet, what could be more random than the geopolitical situations and conflicts it leads to. What could be more transparent than a game of chess? The rules are precise, the pieces can only be moved in accordance with pre-ordained rules, and the adversaries face each other and advance openly. Nothing in this even remotely corresponds to reality. The game of chess leaves nothing to chance, nothing about it is simulated or staged. However, these last two points, the simulated and staged, are precisely what links war to game and game to war, as Achim Küpper reminds us. Some see chess as a symbol of traditional war. “This form of war excludes any kind of unexpected development following the example of chess where what is not allowed does not happen”, explains Achim Küpper. However, “it is a utopian vision that has long since disappeared”. Indeed, chess should rather be considered as an integral part of every war, representing only phases of combat but never taking account of what happens behind the scenes, political decisions and negotiations, strategic thinking, unexpected developments, etc. This is why Huizinga’s work devotes only a few lines to the game of chess. (4) Anne Staquet, ‘Hermann Hesse or game as a strategy against war’, in War & game, p. 142. Anne Staquet is a doctor of Philosophy and a professor at the University of Mons. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
© 2007 ULi�ge
|
||