sus
Moderator
Not the book, the concept.
You see thoughts about this in: Schelling, Goffman, Garfinkel; Gossip Girl, Jane Austen; Eric Berne, @Woebot's Retreat (has a chapter on games), Timothy Leary, Leonard Cohen's Favourite Game. Wittgenstein's & Lyotard's language games. Sontag, in "Aesthetics of Silence," talks about modernism as a game, in which even abnegations of the game qualify as moves:
The games & strategic interaction frame was huge in the Sixties (see 70% of the references above) and has since disappeared, resurfacing only in PUA manuals, or the rich metaphorical language of Gossip Girl (recently rebooted). From Jacob Clifton's recap of Gossip Girl S1E2:
I've written a bit on "selection games," which I see as the man-made equivalent to natural selection, playing out in job and college apps, dating, friendship, sports, etc. I also think discourse can be usefully framed as a game or form of warfare. There are two dominant cultures of discursive play, and when players from different cultures interact, conflict arises.
Let's talk about games. What kind of games do people play? What counts as winning? Are there overlapping games? What defines a game? Do people play games unconsciously, while in conscious denial (for public relations benefit) as some have argued?
You see thoughts about this in: Schelling, Goffman, Garfinkel; Gossip Girl, Jane Austen; Eric Berne, @Woebot's Retreat (has a chapter on games), Timothy Leary, Leonard Cohen's Favourite Game. Wittgenstein's & Lyotard's language games. Sontag, in "Aesthetics of Silence," talks about modernism as a game, in which even abnegations of the game qualify as moves:
In other words, "no style" is a style, and naturalism is an affect. In Kubrick's Paths of Glory, the colonel is accused by top brass of playing a politics game, after he pushes back against his superior's orders—although the colonel is acting out of genuine protectiveness of his men, game players will always think you're "in it" with them, and publicly denying your engagement to gain a strategic advantage.A genuine emptiness, a pure silence, are not feasible—either conceptually or in fact. If only because the art-work exists in a world furnished with many other things, the artist who creates silence or emptiness must produce something dialectical: a full void, an enriching emptiness, a resonating or eloquent silence. Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech (in many instances, of complaint or indictment) and an element in a dialogue.
The games & strategic interaction frame was huge in the Sixties (see 70% of the references above) and has since disappeared, resurfacing only in PUA manuals, or the rich metaphorical language of Gossip Girl (recently rebooted). From Jacob Clifton's recap of Gossip Girl S1E2:
If Jenny came there looking to use B for a tool, then that means she’s in the game. And if she’s in the game, then that means she is a tool in turn. If Blair’s going to start a War, she needs soldiers, and here is one offering itself on a platter, with no allegiances and a hunger so deep she’d give herself up to Bass again… Jenny is maybe too young to understand the terms, but hungry enough to make a deal. “An Eleanor Waldorf original is the uniform of B’s private army. But will J be a loyal soldier, or side with S’s rebel forces?” ... I love it when you talk in war metaphors with teenage girls, because… teenage girls invented war. My friend Karen has a t-shirt that says “I Survived Eighth Grade.”
I've written a bit on "selection games," which I see as the man-made equivalent to natural selection, playing out in job and college apps, dating, friendship, sports, etc. I also think discourse can be usefully framed as a game or form of warfare. There are two dominant cultures of discursive play, and when players from different cultures interact, conflict arises.
Let's talk about games. What kind of games do people play? What counts as winning? Are there overlapping games? What defines a game? Do people play games unconsciously, while in conscious denial (for public relations benefit) as some have argued?