Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and th

Gray defines “free play” as “activity that is freely chosen and directed by the participants and undertaken for its own sake, not consciously pursued to achieve ends that are distinct from the activity itself.”

Thinkers of the Enlightenment believed that the Liberal Games combination of freedom, safety, and equal opportunity would go beyond satisfying core philosophical tenets and generate a brilliant side effect: fantastic productivity. The Liberal Games are driven by human nature, just like the Power Games are. But in the Liberal Games, a key limitation

Sir Ken Robinson, who has made the study of creativity in schools his life’s work, has observed that instead of fuelling creativity through play, schools can actually kill it: “We have sold ourselves into a fast-food model of education, and it’s impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies…. Imagin