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Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture Paperback – 31 May 2016
by Johan Huizinga (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 317 ratings
In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga defines play as the central activity in flourishing societies. He identifies five characteristics of play: it is free; it is not “ordinary” or “real” life; it is distinct from “ordinary” life both as to locality and duration; it creates order; it is connected with no material interest, and from it no profit can be gained.
With cross-cultural examples from the humanities, business, and politics, Huizinga examines play in all its diverse guises―as it relates to language, law, war, knowledge, poetry, myth, philosophy, art, and much more. As he writes, “Civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play like a baby detaching itself from the womb: it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.”
Starting with Plato, Huizinga traces the contribution of “man the player” through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and early modern world. With an eye for our own times he writes: “In American politics [play] is even more evident. Long before the two-party system had reduced itself to two gigantic teams whose political differences were hardly discernible to an outsider, electioneering in America had developed into a kind of national sport.” With its remarkable historical sweep, Homo Ludens defines play for generations to come.
“A fascinating account of ‘man the player’ and the contribution of play to civilization.”―Harper’s
“A writer with a sharp and powerful intelligence, helped by a gift of expression and exposition which is very rare, Huizinga assembles and interprets one of the most fundamental elements of human culture: the instinct for play. Reading this volume, one suddenly discovers how profoundly the achievements in law, science, poverty, war, philosophy, and in the arts, are nourished by the instinct of play.”―Roger Caillois, editor of Diogenes
Paperback : 232 pages
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José Macaya
4.0 out of 5 stars Nuestra vida se fundamenta en reglas como las de los juegos. El ser humano juega a la vida.
Reviewed in Spain on 12 July 2021
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Aunque nos creemos que todo lo hacemos en serio, todos los elementos serios de nuestra vida están fundamentados en reglas del juego que vienen de antiguo y que empezaron con la tendencia natural del ser humano a crearnos ficciones con reglas que acordamos. Las normas de la caballería medieval, con sus normas de honor, son la base del derecho internacional. Todo el sistema legal deriva de juegos para dar la razón, como el juicio de Dios...
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Ector de la sgrellibus
5.0 out of 5 stars Dovrebbe essere un best seller
Reviewed in Italy on 26 May 2020
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Non si legge in maniera leggera, non è così semplice da apprezzare, ma è semplicemente estasiante.
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Alex Belanger
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential if you like to play... and think about it!
Reviewed in Canada on 20 September 2019
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Could have been easlily found free online but an important book nonethless. Happy to have it in my collection.
University level read for those interested in gaming and humanities.
Gaming would be the fondation of every civilization and the author proves it somehow.
Essential if you like to play... and think about it!
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Anderson Jerome
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book
Reviewed in India on 26 August 2019
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Book is good
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Turtle
4.0 out of 5 stars Immer noch sehr interessant!
Reviewed in Germany on 21 April 2017
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Daß das Spiel in einem erweiterten Verständnis sogar bei der Entwicklung der Jurisprudenz mitgewirkt haben könnte, hätte ich mir nicht träumen lassen! Sehr detaillierte Beschreibung der Kultur um 1400. Huizinga beschreibt primär das Ende das französischen Mittelalters. Da in Frankreich die Kultur der Kelten durch Cäsar und die spätere Besiedelung von Soldatenlatein sprechender Bevölkerung weitestgehend ausgelöscht worden ist, konnte sich die beschriebene - mit Verlauf zu sagen: extrem dekandente - Kultur entwickeln (die katholische Kirche hatte dabei einen extrem großen Anteil). Für z.B. Norddeutschland haben wir kaum vergleichbare Quellen. Aber nach wem wenigen war zu wissen scheinen, dürfte dort ein eher bodenständigeres "Kulturleben" stattgefunden haben, auch mit weniger offensichtlicher Dekadenz.
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Allen Baird
5.0 out of 5 stars For all who suspect there's more to play than GTA5
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 October 2013
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I'm not competent to critique or even interact much with Homo Ludens academically. I read it because I'm interested in games, and people in the know cite Huizinga's book as the granddaddy of all games texts. Actually, he has little to say about games in the strict sense; his focus on play studies rather than technology (game design) or strategic decision-making (game theory).
What I can say is that it is a beautiful book, even in translation. It is rich in ideas, personal in tone, broad in scope, impressive in scholarship and radical in claims. Huizinga's central thesis is that the play-element 'of' (not 'in' as the badly translated subtitle suggests) culture is posterior to and generative of culture itself. Culture in its many aspects - law, war, science, poetry, religion, philosophy, art - bears the characteristics of play. Culture does not grow out from play, as an adult from the child; rather, culture advances "in and as play, and never leaves it" (173).
All I wish to do in this review is throw together some of Huizinga's main themes according as to how they struck me. Some of them seem contrary to the more contemporary game thinking I've encountered. Others serve as a basis for what modern games designers take for granted. Yet others have little relation to anything else in gaming literature anywhere. Let's see how these play out.
The Agon-y of Play
Recent literature likes to portray a vision of games as positive-sum, win-win, 'infinite' endeavours in which everyone moves on together (e.g. James P Carse). For Huizinga, the essence of play lies in the ancient Greek word "agon", meaning contest, struggle or competition (30-1, 48). Play assumes an antithesis of two competing parties, striving and suffering in an atmosphere of tension in which something is at stake. There are winners and losers, superior and relative inferior (47-51). This "agonistic instinct" in play is an expression of man's need to fight (61), and it infused the Greek attitude to many activates outside warfare (89), such as litigation (76), art (169) and philosophy (155-6). Indeed, agonistic play lie at the heart of the Greek understanding of the cosmos, in the eternal conflict of opposites (116-7).
Seriousness versus Play
Again, some writers contrast a play attitude with seriousness (e.g. Dan Pink). Common sense seems to agree. Huizinga does not. It has taken me a while to grasp what me means, but here's my understanding of it. Seriousness cannot be the dichotomy of play as that would assume a relationship of equality between them, albeit antithetically. Rather, play is a higher order concept than seriousness, existing at a more primitive and original level of life (119). Play can include seriousness (5-6), whereas seriousness can only try to exclude play (45). Play can operate both below and above the level of seriousness (18-19). In practice, the contrast between then is fluid (8); they form a continuum (110-111). Myth fails to recognise the distinction at all, living midway between the two (129, 131), as does music (159). The greatest human life is a blend of both (145) and the greatest times in history are driven by both e.g. the Renaissance (180-1, 191-2)
The Magic Circle (aka 'Virtual Worlds')
The modern concept of a "magic circle" is as a line that encloses the virtual worlds created by digital media, including games and online social environments, from the outside/offline/'real' world (see Edward Castronova). Huizinga was the first to formulate it. He names the term and uses it to describe one of his main ingratiates in the definition of play: play is secluded, limited in space, a temporary world within the ordinary world, "dedicated to the performance of an act apart" (10) in which the rules of the game apply (11) and outsiders are excluded (12). This playground is identical in form to a sacred spot where rites are performed (20), a startling point Huizinga makes elsewhere (18, 25). The law court serves as a prime example (77), as does the field of war (210). Sometimes the circle can be literal (57); at other times, it can embrace a whole culture (134). We can only disengage our minds from it by "turning towards the ultimate" (212).
Masks (aka 'Avatars')
Masks are made to evoke special emotion, to bring ordinary life to a standstill and make things 'not real' (21-2). When an ancient wore a mask, it was sign of withdrawal from the ordinary world. Wearing a mask transformed him into another ego, which "he did not so much represent as incarnate and actualise" (145). (Remember that avatar is the Sanskrit for incarnation.) Even today, when we attach no religious emotion to a mask, it still conveys the power of mystery, taking us beyond ordinary life (26). And that is its point: to emphasise the extra-ordinary nature of play, where the player takes another part and becomes another being (13, 77). If you are thinking 'super-hero' as you read this, you are right to do so (133 - also 75 and 101-2)!
When it comes to Huizinga's evaluation of the state of play in our contemporary world, it is probably fair to classify him as pessimistic. He contends that play and seriousness have become confused rather than fused together in a positive way. To illustrate his point, Huizinga focuses on an activity only mentioned briefly before (47): games. Many thinkers today wish to contrast games with play by defining games as organized play. Huizinga would have nothing of this; for him, play "creates order, is order" (10).
As games, particularly what we call sports, are taken with increasing degrees of seriousness, "something of the pure play-quality is inevitably lost...The spirit of the professional is no longer the true play-spirit; it is lacking in spontaneity and carelessness" (197). Moving in the opposite direction is business, in which commercial competition and rivalry, egged on by trading records, has turned capitalism into a sport (200). As for the quality of play commonly available and experienced today, Huizinga invented a new label for it: Puerileism (205), a blend of the adolescent and the barbaric. Ouch.
Huizinga cover a multitude of fascinating material from the play perspective, from secret societies and guilds (12, 171, 187, 203), to virtue ethics (64), from Heraclitus (116-7, 211) to creative writing (132 - see also 10). All of life is here. The publishers have classified it as 'sociology' but don't let that put you off. To read it is to engage in mental play with the author, and to engage with your own world in fresh ways as a result. Playful yet profound. No. Playful AND profound. As Huizinga has taught me, there is no contradiction, only shifting waves of seriosity on an infinite ocean of play.
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J Roe
5.0 out of 5 stars The book is in great condition and is also a great read
Reviewed in the United States on 13 February 2015
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The book is in great condition and is also a great read. One should read it with the recognition that it is very language/etymology/semantics heavy but thoroughly explores the concept of "playing man" from cultural, linguistic, sociological, and anthropological aspects. This was an assigned reading in my PhD program and was properly suited for that level of reading while also being rather enjoyable from all of the above listed major fields' perspectives. It is not light, easy reading though and will be enhanced if you understand at least some Latin, German, Dutch, and maybe are minimally bilingual with proficiency.
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K.
5.0 out of 5 stars Crucial Reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 March 2021
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This book is an absolutely mandatory read for everyone interested in studying or even creating games (of all sorts).
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