You can now read my blog at Psychology Today.
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Much of the scholarly literature on play shows how play can help people—both children and adults—to adapt to the challenges of the real world. Through play we can engage in battle with others without real-world consequences. Or we can experience strong feelings without putting ourselves in dangerous situations. Play happens in an imaginary world, a world that doesn’t count.
That’s true, but it’s also false. Here’s an account of a match—a game—of a sport called “rough and tumble” played on the American frontier about 250 years ago. A man from Virginia is taking on a man from Kentucky:
“The contestants were asked if they wished to ‘fight fair’ or ‘rough and tumble.’ When they chose ‘rough and tumble,’ a roar arose from the multitude. The two men entered the ring, and a few ordinary blows were exchanged in a tentative manner. Then suddenly the Virginian ‘contracted his whole form, drew his arms to his face,” and ‘pitched himself into the bosom of his opponent,’ sinking his sharpened fingernails into the Kentuckian’s head. ‘The Virginian,’ we are told, ‘never lost his hold…fixing his claws in his hair and his thumbs on his eyes, [he] gave them a start from the sockets. The sufferer roared aloud, but he uttered no complaint.’ Even after the eyes were gouged out, the struggle continued. The Virginian fastened his teeth on the Kentuckian’s nose and bit it in two pieces. Then he tore off the Kentuckian’s ears. At last, the ‘Kentuckian, deprived of eyes, ears, and nose, gave in.’ The victor, himself maimed and bleeding, was ‘chaired round the grounds,’ to the cheers of the crowd.” (page 737, Albion’s Seed, David Hackett Fischer)
So, as the Kentuckian will tell you, the imaginary world of play is also the real world, and has real consequences. These men weren’t fighting—at the outset of the match they had no problem with one another—they were playing at fighting. But at the end, that’s sort of an abstract fact for the man from Kentucky.
Furthermore, that’s not the most important conclusion to draw from this breathtakingly violent game. The thing that’s almost impossible to grasp here is that the Kentuckian, as he is getting his eyes torn from their sockets, and even after that, wants to keep “playing.” He is so caught up in the match that some part of him decides to keep going.
If you think about it, many people have a milder version of this experience: Video game players who find it difficult to pull away from the game. Gamblers who can’t stop. Those who neglect friends and family for role-playing games. In fact, almost any form of play can beckon people away from the world, can eventually become painful and destructive. We wouldn’t be human beings without our love for play, but our love for play can lead us into a world from which we never return.
Photo by Polina Sergeeva.
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