To value imagination and play
A negative view of humanity is just very successful marketing, a pessimistic staple in the western canon of thought going back to original sin.[1] Now more than ever, we need stories to help us find expressions of post-capitalist desire and reimagine relations in the face of systems collapse.[2]
What this value means to me:
- I value imagination's role in helping us get un-stuck, as one of many ways to practice life-long learning. To value imagination is to resurface and amplify narratives from the past to keep compelling possibilities alive in the collective memory.[3]
- To me it also means to play at imagining forwards, like exploring speculative fiction as the genre most interested in what makes someone a person.
- To recognise that craft is not neutral. To see craft as the history of power defining a set of audience expectations, and that craft not only supports a certain worldview but can shape new ones too. Fiction does not make something new, it makes it felt.[4]
- Playing games in any medium or platform without seeing it as a waste of time! A game is when you set an arbitrary goal and limitations for the joy of overcoming those made-up limitations. Enjoying and making games where working towards a goal is what makes the game valuable, where the trying is the fun part, not the winning.[5]
- To build and play role-playing games as a process of shared, collaborative storytelling and problem solving. The active role of players as both audience and co-creator in RPGs challenges conventional storytelling advice.[6]
- I value play as a way of using curiousity and consent, of finding custom approaches to intimacy with each other instead of defaulting to past patterns and learned norms.
- Recognising that even though fighting the bad stuff is important, one has to spend as much if not more time on making space for people to build, affirm and celebrate the world they want to live in[7]— time dedicated to why we care, what is worth defending, the world we are working to build together. This means also valuing reflection, humility, and work that seems too playful or performative for others.
- Prioritising the need to replenish ourselves. Resting is an act of justice that calls attention to the oppressive ways capitalist culture devalues rest.[8]
The cynical and pessimistic myth that humans are innately selfish (the veneer theory of civilisation) was a staple in the western canon of thought, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks around 427 BCE, then the Church and the concept of original sin which trended through the Reformation, and was even the basis of placing reason over faith in the Enlightenment. A grim view of human nature persisted in the men who founded western political sciences, American democracy, modern psychology, even the theory of evolution. They were celebrated as realists, and anyone who thought differently about people were ridiculed. After Rutger Bregman, Humankind: A Hopeful History (2019) ↩︎
After Sophie From Mars, The World Is Not Ending, 18 August 2023 https://liyyusof.com/doomer-mushroom ↩︎
After Sa’diyya Shaikh, Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn ‘Arabi, Gender, and Sexuality (2012) ↩︎
After Matthew Salesses, Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (2021) ↩︎
C. Thi Nguyen says striving play contains a motivational inversion where one selects the ends for the sake of the means it puts one through. In this type of play, achieving the goal without struggling completely defeats the purpose. See C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency As Art (2020) ↩︎
After James D'Amato, The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide (2019) ↩︎
After @KateRoseBee's insight on Twitter from the abortion movement in the US Empire, 12 April 2024 https://twitter.com/KateRoseBee/status/1778567832110059890 ↩︎
After Shawn A. Ginwright, Rest: A Middle Finger to Oppression, a Road Map to Justice, 17 January 2023 https://nonprofitquarterly.org/rest-a-middle-finger-to-oppression-a-road-map-to-justice-by-shawn-ginwright ↩︎
