Man, Play and Games

Man, Play and Games (ISBN 0029052009) is a 1961 book, and the seminal work of the French Sociologist Roger Caillois, a translation of Les jeux et les hommes (1958). It is an influential book on the sociology of play and games, or rather in Caillois' terms sociology derived from play. Caillois sees many of the structures in society as elaborate forms of games and many behaviours as forms of play.

Caillois builds on the theories of Johan Huizinga and disputes many of them, adding a more comprehensive review of play forms. Caillois is critical of Huizinga's over-emphasis on competition in play. He also notes the considerable difficulty in defining play, concluding that play is best described by six core characteristics. These are: that it is free, or not obligatory; that it is separate (from the routine of life) occupying its own time and space; that it is uncertain so that the results of play cannot be pre-determined and so that the player's initiative is involved; that it is unproductive in that it creates no wealth and ends as it begins; that it is governed by rules that suspend ordinary laws and behaviours and that must be followed by players; and that it involves make-believe that confirms in players the existence of imagined realities that may be set against 'real life'. This 'escapist' definition is open to later critique, for example in Sutton-Smith's (1997) review of play the idea that individuals in a leisure-based Western culture are 'free' to play is questioned in light of an apparent obligation to spend leisure time 'wisely'. Similarly, we might consider that play forms are subject to considerable social pressures and we might note the economic significance of leisure and media as forms of play. The result is that despite Caillois' attempt at a thorough review, definitions of play remain open to negotiation.

Caillois argues that we may understand the complexity of games by referring to four play forms and two types of play. The four forms are:

• Agon, or competition. E.g. Chess is an almost purely agon game.
• Alea, or chance. E.g. Playing a slot machine is an almost purely alea game.
• Mimicry, or mimesis, or role playing.
• Ilinx (Greek for "whirlpool"), or vertigo, in the sense of altering perception. E.g. taking hallucinogens, riding roller coasters, children spinning until they fall down

Games and play combine these elements in various ways. Examples:

• Poker features both alea, the random shuffling of cards, and agon, the strategic decisions of discarding cards and betting.
• Collectible card games combine alea (the random shuffling of decks and the distribution of cards in booster packs), agon (competition with rules and strategies) and mimesis (cards refer to imaginary beings the player controls in a fictional world).
• Dancing is an ilinx activity, which can be combined with mimesis to portray characters, or with agon in competitive dance.

Caillois also places forms of play on a continuum from ludus, structured activities with explicit rules (games), to paidia, unstructured and spontaneous activities (playfulness), although in human affairs the tendency is always to turn paidia into ludus, and that established rules are also subject to the pressures of paidia. It is this process of rule-forming and re-forming that may be used to account for the apparent instability of cultures.

Like Huizinga, Caillois sees a tendency for a corruption of the values of play in modern society as well as for play to be institutionalised in the structures of society. For example agon is seen as a cultural form in sports, in an institutional form as economic competition and as a corruption in violence and trickery; Alea is seen as a cultural form in lotteries and casinos, as an institutional form in the stock market and as a corruption in superstition and astrology; mimicry is seen as cultural form in carnivals and theatre, as institutional form in uniforms and ceremonies and as corruption in forms of alienation; and ilinx is seen as cultural form in climbing and skiing, as institutional form in professionals requiring control of vertigo and as corruption in drugs and alcoholism.

External links

• Man, Play and Games on Google Books