Can All the Gifts Be Turned to the Advantage of Democracy?
From the perspective of political philosophy and ethics, resourceful citizens in our time are often portrayed as seeking mental shelter in esoteric quarters. By concentrating their passions and energies on their own particular activities of self-actualization, they appear to be leaving the world to itself rather than trying to improve it:
People of the well-fed West become disappointed, overwhelmed, and scared by observing corrosion of established political structures through corruption and violence, and a diet of sleaze and deception on top of that. They respond, argues Critchley , by turning their backs on society and starting to cultivate some private sanctuary instead. In contrast to those who become passive nihilists in this way, the active nihilists find most things utterly meaningless. Far from retreating to their private havens, they aim to destroy this world and bring another into being. As both categories agree on the essential unreality of things, he sees the two as a kind of Siamese twins.1[…] whether through discovering the inner child, manipulating pyramids, writing pessimist-sounding literary essays, taking up yoga, birdwatching or botany, as was the case with the aged Rousseau. In the face of the increasing brutality of reality, the passive nihilist tries to achieve a mystical stillness, calm contemplation: ‘European Buddhism’. In a world that is all too rapidly blowing itself to pieces, the passive nihilist closes his eyes and makes himself into an island. (Critchley 2007, pp. 4–5)
A crucial historical lesson from the twentieth century is that ethics can collapse, and the trajectory of modern democracy can also be one of decline and fall , the historian Snyder (2017) reminds us. This calls for careful consideration of the fundamentals of social and political participation. Words, gestures, and capacity to get engaged—or absence of this—can make a difference as there is defense of freedom and voice in commitments, even when the public involvements appear insignificant and are not expressly political:
Social science and philosophy have profound knowledge of work, and rather less of leisure. Of course, this is not a fact of nature but a subsisting condition based on social history, traditions of thought, and the relative absence of a scientific vocabulary that could give presence and credence to a more nuanced and differentiated perception of what people actually do outside work. The aim of this book is to enrich the field by examining how modern citizens relate to complex leisure, and by suggesting what I hope can be a productive concept—specialized play. My guiding perspective is different from Critchley’s and closer to Snyder’s.Sharing in an undertaking teaches us that we can trust people beyond a narrow circle of friends and families, and helps us to recognize authorities from whom we can learn. The capacity for trust and learning can make life seem less chaotic and mysterious, and democratic politics more plausible and attractive . (Snyder 2017, pp. 93–94)
A notion has persisted that play is losing ground. According to Huizinga (1955 [1938], p. 4), the great archetypical endeavors of human society—language, law, science, philosophy, poetry, war, and politics among them—were all permeated with play elements from the start. But more and more, the sad conclusion forces itself upon us that ever since the eighteenth century, culture has lost most of its play impulses due to the formal training of unimaginative minds, and the exchange of relatively unimportant sums of money. Some decades ago , Sennett (1974, pp. 314–315) feared that modernity was gradually depriving human beings of their ‘art’, that the mastery and sophistication of self-distance through artistic narration was practically destroyed by a cult of shallow intimacy and too few adult settings available for play. Whereas most societies continue and enrich the energies of childhood play as adult ritual, also Sennett was saddened to note that advanced capitalist society did not call upon but rather distrusted and worked against these valuable energies . Erikson (1977, p. 18) concurred: ‘The notion prevails that playfulness has little to do with the vital centre of adult concerns.’
Today, play abounds. Increasing numbers find their way to complex leisure; broad segments consider it eminently worthwhile to spend time in artistic creation, performance, and other intellectually and sometimes physically challenging endeavors. Although choice of ‘game’ and ways of playing are usually related to class, ethnicity, gender, and culture, there is a pursuit for almost everyone. How the social sciences understand and conceptualize the astonishing commitment many have to what they do outside work is anything but trivial. Conceptions open doors to understanding and experience and at the same time narrow and restrict (Wertsch 1998). To define and highlight a category of leisure in order to gain insights, is no less than a move towards shaping the world we live in.
Culturally speaking, the pursuits this book addresses belong to a range of socially constructed activities people can enter or avoid as they please. Politically speaking, they are part of civil society and supply actors with a medium for reflection and deliberation of actual situations and issues. My overall thesis is that citizens who apply their freedom and capacities in complex leisure—guided by its character and collectivity—are likely to generate surprising human, social, and political resources. The graces of the mind that astounded de Tocqueville at the birth of modern democracy nearly 200 years ago still come into play in play, and can be turned to the advantage of society.
Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the graces of the mind, the fire of imagination, depth of thought, and all the gifts which Heaven scatters at a venture turned to the advantage of democracy ; and even when they were in the possession of its adversaries, they still served its cause by throwing into bold relief the natural greatness of man . (de Tocqueville 1945 [1835], p. 5)2
Although quite theoretical, the presentation in these chapters takes advantage of a wide-ranging yet interconnected set of empirical materials, consisting of four source categories: the author’s study of collectors and collecting, published ethnography from diverse activities, players’ autobiographies, and leisure associations’ self-presentations and communications on the Internet. The book contains many case-based descriptions intended to illustrate the structure of the play form, the inherent narrativity of social life in playworlds, as well as aspects of the participants’ cognition, interactions, and commitments in relation to the external world. The overall analysis integrates, extends, and supplements the author’s earlier contributions (Kjølsrød 2003, 2004, 2009, 2013, 2015).
Specialized Play
What climbers, long-term sailors, collectors, role-players, backpackers, birdwatchers, and many other energetic men and women do in their leisure is knowledge-based and often surprisingly demanding. No one can navigate the seven seas without knowing about seasonal variations, winds, currents, and maps, or without ability to improvise and mend sail and motor. Serious amateur3 sailors even learn how to read the stars for safety if satellite communication should fail. Thus, the book explores a type of leisure in which one must ‘work’. Investments of time, learning, determination, and money can be substantial. These pursuits are still play in Huizinga’s (1955 [1938], pp. 8–9) sense. That is, the activity is superfluous—an end-in-itself—and not subject to any economic necessity or moral duty. It is placed outside the normal rounds; players are granted a social license to depart from ordinary expectations and responsibilities. The existence of internal rules protects this freedom.4 To endure tension for some delimited period, to bear uncertainty, to dare, are all essential features of playing, notes Huizinga . Because something is at stake, participants must be able to defer gratification until an outcome is clear. In other words, players enter, take advantage of, and elaborate a bounded space with elements of suspense and flexible rules and procedures. The constellation of characteristics that describes Huizinga’s definition of play differ from the usual dictionary definition which emphasizes enjoying or amusing oneself, or taking part in an activity for recreation. Play can also imply some kind of ‘keying’, that is, normal content put in ‘brackets’ (Goffman’s 1986 [1974]).5 I am using the word play in all of these ways; the context will hopefully explain each instance.
Simmel’s famous essay ‘The Adventurer’ (1971 [1911], pp. 187–198) provides a still valid understanding of how people are able to create opportunity in a space outside the normal rounds. Faced with the inevitable task of molding individuality—not through deliberate choice of subjectivity rather through ‘a movement towards freeing one’s inherent potential’—individuals relate to what Simmel considers society’s most significant social forms, and that is work, art, and adventure. In work, value must be extracted slowly, with careful consideration and systematic effort. In adventure, chances can be captured quickly and pleasurably, without too much consideration or intent. An adventure is ‘like an island in life’, says Simmel (p. 188), it is certainly a part of our existence but in its deeper meaning, it occurs outside the usual continuity of this life. It demands both knowledgeable undertakings and self-abandonment to chance and allows elements from normal life to be abstracted and dealt with from a distance. Something becomes an adventure solely by virtue of two conditions:
The concept specialized play is inspired by Simmel’s notion of adventure, it incorporates the characteristic combination of knowledgeable undertakings, self-abandonment to chance, and connection—‘in the widest sense’—to the participant’s real-world being and concerns. Whereas Simmel mainly describes relatively brief, singular and solitary experiences, the category specialized play includes activities that are often long-lasting and have concrete presence on the ground, and the individual can normally relate to some kind of collectivity of like-minded. Thus, we shall have to pay attention also to a game’s duration and materiality, to more or less shared ways of thinking, and to audiences. A study comprising object- and dialogically orientated perspectives on individual and group process...… that it is a specific organization of some significant meaning with a beginning and an end; and that, despite its … extraterritoriality with respect to the continuity of life, it never the less connects with the character and identity of the bearer of that life—that it does so in the widest sense, transcending, by a mysterious necessity, life’s more narrowly rational aspects. (Simmel 1971 [1911], p. 190)