“The game is the thing.” (Alan Macfarlane, The Making of the Modern World)
Conversation
really appreciating the perspective that takes hobbies, games, etc. as the load-bearing foundation of non-fascist civilization
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Hmm this seems a bit at odds with the perspectives in for eg. Huizenga or Geertz Deep Play (the part about demands of politics/kinship/faith being excluded... IME they strongly define the context of play folkways)
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yeah this is something different - what makes it modern in his view is the decoupling from the other spheres
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So basically organized league style sports and games? The kind that peaked with Putnam's bowling-alone culture?
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putnam's argument kind of falls apart considering how much charity and community is happening on places like twitch.
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yeah that's always been the basic criticism of his thesis, that rise in digital subcultures exactly coincided with the fall in physical subcultures and he kinda missed half the story. Still I think he was onto something. He was talking about "organization man" stuff.


