From “Game-changer: A Philosophy for Homo Ludens” [by Vid Simoniti]

For all who are wondering what the philosophers in England are up to, take a look at “Game-changer: A Philosophy for Homo Ludens” by Vid Simoniti, a review of Games: Agency of Art by C. Thi Nguyen (Oxford UP). Here are the opening grafs:

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“Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry.” When Jeremy Bentham notoriously declared all pleasures to be interchangeable, he chose a children’s game to represent pleasures of the lower sort. What entertainment could be more banal than push-pin, a sort of Victorian “thumb war” played with pins? Since Bentham’s day, though, games have come a long way. Video games now create more revenue than television, music or films. Together with board games, they span a variety of subgenres, and foster loyal communities of connoisseurs and critics. And yet games are still largely considered to be (mere) entertainment rather than art. They are seldom given sustained attention in literary reviews, say, or in university syllabuses.

Thi Nguyen’s philosophy of games seeks to redress this bias. Games are an art form, Nguyen argues, and their medium is human agency. Just as a painter manipulates pigments to create a likeness, so a game designer induces the players to live out certain patterns of doing things. Chess compels us to deduce and to plan; poker to dissimulate and to take risks; and the ungainly choreographies of Twister push us towards hilarious self-abasement. The art of games is the creation of such “agential modes”, be they intense or jovial, cerebral or daft.
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https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/games-c-thi-nguyen-review-vid-simoniti/

Comments

[David Lehman]

Fascinating. But I would point out that the thrust of Bentham's "notorious" statement that "push-pin is as good as poetry" is the glorification of utilitarianism rather than the elevation of games. To measure the value of art on popularity in place of on inherited criteria of excellence is problematic, to say the least, though classic Hollywood can be cited in defense of Bentham's theory.

[Dr. Jill]

Thank you for providing us
(with intelligence)
in the sense provided by Robert Frost
in "Provide, Provide."