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Apostolova, War and/as Play
War and/as Play
Key words: play, morality, war.
The focus of the paper: war as play, as per Johan Huizinga’s interpretation
of play in Homo Ludens.
My thesis: Huizinga argues that war cannot be consistently interpreted as
play. In opposition, I will argue that war can be consistently interpreted as play.
What are the implications of my original position? I hope to show that
every aspect of life, including morality can be interpreted as play. With this, I
hope to broaden our understanding of play/game.
Authors to be used: Huizinga, Fink, Wittgenstein.
Huizinga’s thesis: In the last chapter of Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga
argues that, more or less, every aspect of our contemporary civilization can be
consistently interpreted as play. This includes sports, advertisement, business,
music, science, even politics. All but war.
Huizinga’s reasons: Warfare, on the whole, is not devoid of play
elements. As Huizinga points out, ‘war has not freed itself from the magic circle
of play’. For example, the war preparation and the war policy resemble very
much play-attitude. But the big difference for Huizinga is that war itself,
understood as warfare, cannot be interpreted as game because of the moral
content of the war action. ‘It is the moral content of an action that makes it
serious. When the combat has ethical value it ceases to be play.’ In other words,
when one is fighting for one’s liberty and rights, this cannot be interpreted as
play any longer. One’s rights and liberties belong to the realm of objective
ethical standards whose validity we do not question. In other words, for
Huizinga, it is the recognition of a ‘higher goal than the gratification of the self,
the group or the nation’ that allows us to go beyond the play element into true
seriousness. If we perceived war simply as a friend-foe interaction, as a contest,
without a higher goal, then yes, war would be perceived as play.
This allows Huizinga to make the following two conclusions:
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1) taking all human action to be play is a sign of philosophical shortcircuiting;
2) even though play creates a magic circle around the human mind, it is
necessary for us, humans, to be serious, that is, to disengage from the magic
circle of play; and it is through morality (and not logic), that we can distinguish
between serious duty and happiness, and play.
Before moving on to my original position and in order to fully
comprehend Huizinga’s conclusions, I will look at how he defines play.
How does Huizinga characterize play?
Despite Huizinga’s caveat that play is not susceptible to exact logical,
biological, or aesthetical definition, he lists a few inalienable characteristics of
play. Play is an irrational, free/voluntary, non-serious/fun activity, often
shrouded in secrecy, an activity that fully absorbs the player but which is not
played for profit or gain, which proceeds within its own spatial and temporal
boundaries and according to its own rules (it, in fact, creates order), and
promotes the formation of social groupings. Play is holy. Play is understood as a
contest for something or a representation of something.
Analysis: I will ignore, for the purposes of the paper, Huizinga’s first
characteristic, namely, the irrationality of play. I believe it is a terminological
flaw of his work and I will treat it as such, instead of getting bogged down in
analysis that could, potentially, reveal a contradiction in Huizinga’s original
position. As I see it, it appears that for Huizinga play has two very important
characteristics that make it indispensable for human civilization. First, play is
necessary as it is through play that we fully understand, and even define,
freedom and order. Huizinga describes play as the most elemental activity of
naming/ordering, as well as exercising our free will. That is also the reason why
he calls play an embodiment of holiness itself. ‘Archaic man plays the order of
nature as imprinted on his consciousness. … And now he plays this great
processional order of existence in a sacred play, in and through which he
actualizes anew, and ‘recreates’, the events represented and thus helps maintain
the cosmic order.’ (pp. 15-16) Second, play cannot stand on its own, that is, play
is a contest for something or a representation of something. In other words, play
is an image of something. This something is often characterized by us as
‘reality’. So, play is a mirror image of reality, so to speak. It is what Huizinga
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calls the ‘stepping out of common reality into a higher order’. This characteristic
of play is what makes it essential for our individual, as well as, group
development. It is through play that a child develops his or her ability to
identify, distinguish, and symbolize – all of them essential features of rational
thinking. In this sense, if we accept Ernst Cassirer’s definition of humans as a
symbolic animal (“Man has, at it were, discovered a new method of adapting
himself to his environment. Between the receptor system and the effector
system, which is to be found in all animal species, we find in man a third link
which we may describe as the symbolic system. This new acquisition transforms
the whole of human life. As compared with other animals man lives not merely
in a broader reality; he lives, so to speak, in a new dimension of reality….
Hence, instead of defining man as an animal rationale, we should define him as
an animal symbolicum.” Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man, pp. 24-26), we may
conclude that it is through play that we learn to be human.
However, toward the end of the first chapter, Huizinga adds that ‘genuine
play possesses besides its formal characteristics and its joyful mood, at least one
further essential feature, namely, the consciousness, however latent, of ‘only
pretending’.’(p. 22) In other words, Huizinga seems to be warning us that we
should never forget that play, just like any sacred ritual, unfolds on the backdrop
of the seriousness of everyday life. While one may argue, as Huizinga seems to
be alluding to, that play is necessary for our intellectual development (this
includes the development of our imagination as well as our logic), it cannot and
should not be confused with our sense of reality from which our moral
conscience emerges. In other words, the way I see it, Huizinga wants to draw a
line between our intellectual and our moral development. In this sense, life as
we know it may resemble play but it is not, in fact, play.
It also seems to me that Huizinga’s, desperate at times, appeal to morality
as the touchstone of reality, is dictated by the fact that intellectually, we may be
blind to the delicate and elusive distinction between reality and nonreality/virtual reality. In other words, our cognitive capacity to know the world
is not very helpful when it comes to distinguishing between reality and nonreality/virtual reality. The reason for that, as I see it, is that it is through play that
we, in fact, learn to identify and distinguish reality from everything else. This
paradoxical nature of play has been noticed by other philosophers, among which
Eugene Fink.
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In his essay ‘The Ontology of Play’, Fink argues that “Play is itself a
fundamental phenomenon of existence, just as original and basic in itself as
death, work and domination. Only it is not linked to the other fundamental
phenomena in a common pursuit of the ultimate end. It confronts them…” (The
Ontology of Play, p.80) What is more play, understood as an enjoyable activity
with a certain set of created rules, in which we use playthings, and which
activity inevitably creates a play community, reveals the duality of our human
nature for we humans, are creatures forever stuck between the ‘real’ and the
‘imaginary’. We feel every day reality’s resistance to our human endeavors and
yet, we manage to somehow supersede this reality by creating an imaginary
world of play in which we, humans, can actually interpret reality, and give it
meaning. This allows Fink to conclude that “Human play is the symbolic action
which puts us in the presence of the meaning of the world and of life…. If the
essence of the world were thought of as play, it would follow that man is the
only being with the immensity of the universe who can understand the infinity
of the whole and respond accordingly.” (pp. 85-86).
It seems to me that what Fink is trying to say is that we, humans, are the
only animals out of this world, who have the ability to create symbols, which in
turn, allows us to create ‘meaning’ of this world/make sense of it. Making sense
of the world/creating meaning is what we do in order to survive. This, however,
makes us (tragically) dualistic, even schizophrenic. We are condemned to live
between two worlds – the physical world and the symbolic world. The symbolic
world is also an imaginary world. At first, we call the physical world ‘reality’
but once we realize the full extent of our difference from other animals, we start
calling ‘reality’ the symbolic/imaginary world which we truly and fully inhabit.
Play is not only part of this symbolic world, it is its essence. In this sense, play
reveals to us our human nature which is dualistic. Hence, it is through play that
we are truly human.
I have to agree with Fink that the dichotomy ‘seriousness’—‘play’ is truly
complicated for us, humans. It seems that play has to unfold on the backdrop of
some other type of activity which we may wish to label ‘seriousness’ such as
going to work, making money, taking care of our health, dying, etc. However,
this distinction between play and seriousness is quite illusory and elusive. It is
through play that we actually make sense of such things as work, money, art,
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death, etc., so work, life and even death, become play. Thus, play could be
interpreted as ‘making sense of’ the world.
Back to play and war: I think what Huizinga is concerned about is
precisely this blurring of the boundaries between seriousness and play, between
the real and the imaginary. I believe that this is why Huizinga claims that war,
understood as warfare (that is, as an activity of war faring as opposed to only
preparing or strategizing for war), is not play. What is more, he insists that war
should not be interpreted as or likened to play. In war our moral conscience and
with it, our sense of reality is rudely awoken. In this sense, if I may suggest, war
is as necessary to human civilization, as play is. In war the stark contours of
reality are finally presented to us without the colorful disguise of play. It is in
war that we are forced to recognize the weight of all that we value – liberty,
happiness, love, and compassion. In other words, it seems to me that for
Huizinga war is the true representation of reality or of seriousness. It is through
war that we can, it seems, separate once and for all the serious from the
imaginary.
My position: While I find Huizinga’s analysis of play immensely
insightful, I have to admit that it left me wondering about certain things. In the
first place, I wonder whether seeing play everywhere is indeed a sign of
philosophical short-circuiting. In other words, is it really a weakness of the
philosophical argument, to identify every aspect of life as a form of play?
Second, I would like to attempt a definition of morality, and I would like to
know why morality is chosen as the touchstone for the coveted distinction
between play and seriousness.
My claim is that morality can consistently, that is, without contradiction,
be interpreted as play. And if morality can be interpreted as play, war can also
be consistently interpreted as play, with one exception.
Before I get into the actual argument, I would like to say that I do not
think that Huizinga is really concerned about the morality of war, or about war
itself. In my view, what Huizinga is afraid of is the threat of a total and
irrevocable relativism, understood as cultural, moral, etc. relativism. Hence, the
choice of a somewhat derogatory term, namely, ‘philosophical short-circuiting’.
While I do not think it is within the scope or focus of the paper to provide an
answer to the general threat of relativism, I hope, through my analysis of the
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three key concepts – play, morality, and war, to be able to at least hint as to what
I think about the threat of relativism in philosophy.
By philosophical short-circuiting, I understand the creation of a fallacious
argument which eventually collapses under either a contradiction or at least a
serious incoherence. Let us examine is such a short-circuiting will, in fact, occur
in the case of interpreting morality, and subsequently, war, as play.
For this we need to first define morality, and then, war.
Morality: I will use Kant’s understanding of morality as the most
comprehensive one. Morality, according to Kant, is a code of conduct which is
governed by one rational principle (in Kant’s philosophy, the Categorical
Imperative) which principle is given to us by none other than our rationality and
because of that, it is observed by all rational agents, without an exception. So
far, the definition of morality does not contradict anything it was said about
play. Morality is governed by a rule or rules which come from none other than
the moral agent/moral ‘player’. If one tries to appeal, as I suspect Huizinga does,
to the universality of the moral code, it could be pointed out in response, that
nothing it stopping play from being or appealing to universal rules and/or
principles.
To further strengthen my point, I would like to use Ludwig Wittgenstein’s
understanding of game as it is exposed in his later work, Philosophical
Investigations. In the PI Wittgenstein claims that the meaning of a word is its
use in language (PI 43). This basic claim opens the door for what is well known
today as language game. Language games are what Wittgenstein calls ‘forms of
life’. Any and every human activity is a form of language game. They are rulegoverned and always community based. Wittgenstein is very clear on that there
is no such thing as a private language game. One needs a community of
users/players to engage in any kind of a language game. As for the human
‘craving for generality’ which leads us to (pseudo) universal principles,
Wittgenstein believes that what we actually discover is nothing more than a
family resemblance among the language games. This family resemblance is “a
complicated network of similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing” (PI 66). This
allows us to hop from one language game to another without any serious
consequences (such as destroying a given game). We can be engaged in any
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number of games simultaneously, which might also lead to certain games being
merged or modified.
If one is to follow Wittgenstein’s interpretation of language games and the
definition of meaning as use, one will realize that it fits perfectly what was said
earlier about play as ‘making sense of’. Making sense of something happens
through nothing else but its use, that is, through its application in different
scenarios.
War: Defining war might prove to be a little more challenging, both for
historical and contemporary reasons. However, the most charitable definition of
war should mention that war is an intentional activity which aims at a
widespread conflict between two or more communities or between two or more
groups within one community (in the case of civil war). The just war theory has
formulated the rules and regulations to be followed before, during, and after
war. So, war is an activity governed by rules, just like any other language game.
And as Huizinga mentions, war is a result of political activity, and as such, is
part of what he labels ‘politics’. In other words, war should be consistently
interpreted as play.
There is one peculiarity of war, however. War, as already mentioned, aims
at spreading the conflict as widely as possible. It is this widespreaded-ness that
makes war a very peculiar language game. War could be interpreted as, at least
aiming, if not always achieving it, a total breakdown of meaning. In other
words, if war succeeds in turning into a total war, this would lead to a total
destruction of meaning, and thus, a total destruction of humanity. It is only in
this limited sense that I see war not being qualified as a play activity. In this
sense, war is where every human activity/language game, including morality,
breaks down. So, it is not morality but the widespreaded-ness of war that put it
outside the category of play. But this is what puts war outside life itself.
To sum up, I do not believe that, under normal circumstances (which
exclude total warfare) there is any philosophical short-circuiting resulting from
the interpretation of morality of war as play.
Where does this leave/lead us?
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Is war to be considered necessary and indispensable to our human
existence? Has our understanding of play changed? If yes, how? What about the
threat of total relativism?
I believe that war is indeed a phenomenon whose existence cannot be
denied; it is as real as human existence. Even though I believe that
understanding war is necessary for a fuller understanding of human nature, I do
not believe warfare is indispensable to human existence. War, interpreted in its
extremity aims at the annihilation of existence.
I hope to have shown that every human activity can be consistently
interpreted as play. This turns play into ‘making sense of’ rather than simply an
enjoyable pretend-like activity. This being said, I have to note that the threat of
total relativism can never be avoided. It is similar to the threat of extreme
skepticism in philosophy. However, I believe that relativism need not worry us
because just like total warfare, we have not encountered it yet.
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