1. Why take up PLAY in this Philosophy of Education?
Some may think: Kids don’t need to be taught to play . . . kids will naturally play when they get the chance, but they often doresist working. Kids really do need to learn to work! So why take up PLAY in a Philosophy of Education?
My reply is that we hardly begin to understand children and their activity if we ignore their desire to play, including their desire to play with the adults closest to them, as well as to play with other youngsters, and with pets. Those who teach children will benefit from paying attention to this strong – instinct-rooted — desire to play that children have.
It’s obvious that a great deal of work must continue to be done if kids (and any of us) are ever to enjoy some play: Food must be produced, shelter and transportation must be provided, supply chains must be staffed, etc., etc. No philosophy of education should neglect work. Learning itself often requires work – like memorizing an alphabet, and practicing, and studying – and those are likely on occasion to conflict with a person’s desire to play.
But we should not lose sight of the fact that despite the fact that some work is truly, utterly, dreadful — sometimes the same activity can be both work and play.
The importance of this desire to play — that children normally share — is clear from the fact that virtually every nation in the United Nations has declared that every child has a human right to play. [note: The 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child]
Surely you don’t favor ignoring that desire and violating that human right to play — as ISIS does, in its cruel, controlling abuse of children! [note: The Frontline video: Children of ISIS]
Now consider a less extreme case of misconduct toward a youngster than that of ISIS. Recall the earlier example when, unseen, you, a new teacher, witness a bigger kid – call him Bill — beating up a smaller kid, Tom. You quickly approach and demand that Bill stop. Because you stood up to him, he stops, and Tom hurries away.
Attempting to justify himself, Bill says “We were just playing. Tom was playing with me.”
Without giving thought to the concept of play – that is, to what it means to play — are you prepared to reply insightfully to what Bill the bully has just said? (That will require going beyond the Ancient Imperative-rooted moral challenge to the bully, namely: Was that the way he’d want to be treated by a kid bigger and stronger than him?)
2. What Play Is.
Typical speakers of English can easily identify some examples of people engaged in play. And they can identify many other actions as clearly not examples of play. So, at least among many who speak English, there is a widespread (but usually unanalyzed) understanding (or “idea,” or “concept”) of play.
Our common, widely shared idea of what counts as play, leaves no doubt: Tom was not playing with that bully when he was beating Tom up.
(The bully’s false claim that om was actually playing with him, would simply be a lie he thought might help him to escape civilized adult repercussions – being held accountable, or responsible, for having bullied Tom.)
Towards a Definition
Upon some analysis, our widely shared concept of “play” is that of activity that is voluntary, and engaged in for the fun of it, engaged in without external constraint or coercion. That play is voluntary is indicated by such invitations as “Let’s play catch – or Five Crowns — after supper.”
It should go without saying that play is engaged in for the fun of it. Play is a form of enjoyable activity or experience, engaged in (and sometimes consciously chosen from among several options) by children, or older folks, simply for the fun . . . the personal pleasure – the enjoyment — of engaging in it – for some limited span of time.
Back to our example: Tom was coerced, forced to undergo – to suffer — being hit by his attacker. He was certainly not having fun. He was glad to have the bully called off, and he left.
Clearly he had not been playing.
And if someone forced him to say he had been playing at the time, that would certainly not make his forced statement true.
An internet search reveals that (in addition to the vastness of the literature about play) there’s a wide array of direct objects of the verb, “to play,” – that is — very different things that can be played, including playing the stock market, playing the ponies, playing a large fish, playing the slots, playing the piano, playing cards, etc.
Those sharply different things that we can speak of as things played certainly complicate any intellectual effort to analyze conceptually – to spell out — what playing is! That wide array of very different things we speak of as things played strongly suggests that our idea (concept, notion) of playing is an intellectually very messy idea.
And that intellectual messiness only increases when we takthe playing of games as our focus.
And notice that beyond the intellectual mess there’s a “practical mess” – I’m referring to the quarreling, the cheating, the insulting, the fighting, etc. — that’s often closely connected with the playing of games.
But first, before dealing with that intellectual mess, and then with that practical mess, let’s begin with:
3. A Brief Look at 3 Broad Sorts of Play.
(1.) “Just Playing”
“Just playing” — whether alone or with another – perhaps a young child is playing in a sandbox or a bathtub or an inflatable wading pool, or “just playing house” under a table with a doll, or building a sandcastle or a snowman, etc.
Later, just bouncing a suitable ball off a wall and then scooping it up on the short hop; or playing catch with someone else (or with a playful dog), using a ball or a Frisbee, — or flying a kite – would illustrate just having fun, “just playing.”
Just playing — and work
It counts as play when, around the close of World War II, like other neighborhood boys, I built and flew rubber-band powered, tissue-covered balsa-wood flying models. Both the building and the flying were examples of play, since no one was forcing us to do those things, and because we were doing them just for the fun of it.
But was our building those models also work?
Without dismissing our ordinary, unanalyzed idea of work, let’s pay attention to a credible definition of the term: “work.” Work seems well defined (Merriam-Webster) as exerting oneself physically or mentally especially in sustained effort for a purpose or under compulsion or necessity. (Emphasis added.)
At least some phases of our airplane model-making certainly required us to “exert ourselves . . . in a sustained effort:” We had to cut out carefully all those small notches in the balsa formers for the balsa stringers; we had to be careful to create dihedral that resulted in the same slight upward slant for each wing. Ours were indeed such “sustained efforts for a purpose.”
So, as we built those models, our play also counted as work. If a parent had called upstairs to ask what I was doing, it would have been accurate to reply: “Working on my model.”
Further:
No one and nothing was forcing – compelling — us to make or to fly those models.
If some official or other adult, or political organization, had forced us to make them
and to fly them, certainly neither our making them nor our flying them would count as playing, since playing – by definition – is not done under compulsion or forcing, but is done simply because the one doing it enjoys doing it, has fun doing it.
Let’s note that by the definition of “work” we’ve been working with, the work one is forced or compelled to do – think of work done by slaves — certainly does count as work.
And sometimes, as we’ve just noticed, “playing” – as with building those flying model warplanes just for the fun of building and flying them – also counts as “working.”
Sometimes when kids are just playing they’re mimicking things adults do.
Our simple, non-competitive childhood play, often reflects both our desire for experiences that are pleasant, and our growing awareness of the places (including workplaces) and the array of activities (including adult occupations) our universe contains. So it should not surprise us that childhood play often mimics adult activity, and so it often mimics the work (and other activities) that adults do, work that involves interacting with others, and that often benefits those others.
Young boys playing war, with a girl playing their doctor, during the war-crimes-laden Bosnian war of the early 1990s [check Wikipedia], are briefly depicted at about minute 32 in “Amanpour and Company” March 9, 2022.
Perhaps it goes without saying that the strong tendency of children to mimic adults is not only beneficial, but dangerous as well. Its ramifications are very large for the oversight, care, and teaching of children – by their parents and by others who teach.
Those who teach at different stages of education can and should focus discussion on both the
Valuable contributions of those different occupations and on any associated harms and dangers.
Those who teach should help learners to clearly grasp intellectually the motives and the values – especially the harms and benefits for human beings — that are at stake in the success or failure of the adult activities that children may have just begun to mimic – especially those harms and benefits that are not obvious to “the young” — in that broad array of activities that children mimic. This will make careful new vocabulary instruction important.
(2). Beyond “Just Playing” there’s Playing “Competitive Games”
By definition, to compete is to strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same. Merriam-Webster (Emphasis added.)
In addition to “just playing,” our childhood play (like adult play) also includes play that is plainly competitive, because it includes playing games that are clearly competitive.
Our simple, early – but competitive — games might include the crude, very old game King of the Hill (a.k.a. King of the Castle), with its inevitable pushing (but kicking – and harsher acts are ruled out). Do you remember starting it with “I’m the King of the Castle, and you’re the dirty rascal”?
King of the Hill typically involves bullying, and has political and business associations. Politically, think of coups d’etat, insurrections, and revolutions. For more modern bullying in business, think of hostile corporate takeovers.
Clearly competitive games played by children also include simple foot-racing, hide and seek, and cops and robbers. Other competitive games I vaguely remember playing long ago include “musical chairs,” “cowboys and Indians,” and “snatch the bacon.” And then there was ping-pong (a.k.a. table-tennis), and baseball, and touch football.
When I was about ten Dad bought two pairs of well-padded boxing gloves, and he and my older brother and I often took turns sparring with one another. I even subscribed to Ring magazine. In 1946 Joe Lewis and Billy Conn fought for the heavyweight title! – and the match was televised!
Boxing matches are rule-governed and competitive, but folks don’t call a boxing match a game.
But why don’t we call it a game, since that standard Merriam-Webster definition of “game” is: “a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other”? (Emphasis added.)
Playing even the most gentle competitive games – even Tiddlywinks and Pick up Sticks — is noticeably (and importantly) different from “just playing,” because (1) they involve rules which must be understood and accepted by those who are playing them, and (2) a competitive game normally has a winning player or team, and one or more losers.
Children’s understanding and acceptance of the rules of games provides a powerful counter-example to a once-fashionable (and still somewhat influential) theory in psychology (and education): Behaviorism.
Contrary to that theory, youngsters are much more than behaving organisms. Understanding a game’s rules is not the same as any behavior – just as being in pain is not the same as any behavior that one’s pain may give rise to.
In addition to our “outer,” publicly observable behavio that readily lends itself to scientific studies and measurement, is our “inner,” “private” world of both what we’ve learned and our ongoing consciousness, (both of which presumably have correlated brain states): Knowledge, beliefs, feelings, thoughts, pleasurable recollections, sweet, idyllic dreams and fear-filled nightmares, disappointments, debilitating, terror-filled memories, important deliberations and decisions etc., are often (but not always) expressed “outwardly” in our demeanor, and in those decisions and choices we enact as sentient, human personal agents – for which we are often responsible, and may be held accountable.
Behaviorism has tended to make folks overlook, misinterpret, or de-emphasize those humanly very important things. (Similar misconceptions lurk or surface in more recent technologies aiming to measure an individual’s productivity.)
Whether or not human beings “have” or “incorporate” an immortal, non-physical soul substance, it is imperative to bear in mind that we certainly “have” that important “inner, private” world just mentioned, a world that gives meaning to conduct that is loving – as well as conduct that is indifferent to the pain and suffering – or to the joys — of others, or perhaps conduct that is hate-filled.
Back to winning and losing:
As for Winning and Losing: Winning is fun; losing isn’t.
In the 1970s, the introduction to Jim McKay’s Saturday afternoon Wide World of Sports TV program melodramatically exaggerated the fun – the enjoyment — in winning, as well as the disappointment of losing:
“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport…the thrill of victory…and the agony of defeat…the human drama of athletic competition…This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports!” (Emphasis added.)
There are surely exceptions, but generally: Winning is fun – enjoyable — and losing isn’t.
The responses of spectators and acquaintances can add to the fun, to the elation experienced in winning – and to the disappointment, the let-down in losing.
And prizes and trophies for winning – and the hope of achieving recognition, even acclaim – perhaps as an MVP, or as a league champion,
or state or national champion, even a world champion — often call forth great effort to succeed in winning that competition.
Think of the amount of effort put in by those who’ll compete as Olympians. And bear in mind the unacceptable extremes (including use of banned, performance-enhancing substances) that a nation has gone to in hopes of being the most medal-winning nation among those sending competitors to the Olympic Games.
Lest a reader be carried away by these observations, and jump to utterly romantic, head-in-the-clouds conclusions regarding the glories of victory in competitive games, he or she will do well to bear in mind the gladiator games that took place in Rome’s awesome Coliseum. Beginning in 264 CE, this extremely popular form of entertainment featured fights – usually between slaves – to the death.
St. Augustine describes the loud, wild cheering of the crowd on seeing a seriously wounded combatant’s gushing blood. That wild cheering overpowered his lifelong friend Alypius, who had been struggling to avoid watching and being personally entertained by that “sport,” that gladiator game – struggling against being personally entertained by, and against cheering with the crowd during that gory, pain-filled, lethal spectacle.
But Alypius was overcome by the crowd’s wild cheering, and he joined in doing what he hated!
[Augustine’s Confessions 6. 8. 13.]
This is an especially vivid example of what has been called “herd” or “mob” mentality. And perhaps it contributed to Augustine’s historically very influential views on inherited original sin and what would be needed (such as baptism of infants to save their souls from hell) in order for humans to cope with the continuing evils Augustine attributed to the choices made by the first humans – Adam and Eve.
In view of such human mob attitudes displayed in the Coliseum, one may well wonder about the prospects for durable democracy and for lasting national and world peace.
What must we the people learn for those hopes to be fulfilled?
Games and practical messes
Given the standard Merriam-Webster definition of “game” as:
“a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other” it’s easy to see just how practical messes – heated disagreements, quarrels, fights, etc. – do arise from playing games:
Playing a game requires awareness and understanding of, and compliance with (“obeying” or “following”) the rules, which, together with definitions, define that game, including rules as to what constitutes victory, or winning that game. (Informally worded examples of a few of baseball’s many rules: “3 strikes and you’re out.” “A foul ball counts as a strike, but not when the batter already has 2 strikes, nor when, before it hits the ground, a fielder catches the foul ball (or the catcher catches a foul tip).” “The team that has more runs at the close of 9 innings wins.”)
So playing games necessarily involves judgments as to (1) whether and when one or more of its defining rules has been violated, and 2) whether and when victory/success has been achieved.
Those inescapable judgments are sometimes made – in the absence of officials — by the competing players themselves. But because a player’s (or a team’s) desire to win can be very strong and sometimes conflicts with the desire to make an accurate judgment, the judgments tend to be more reliably made by officials, judges – provided the judges are unbiased, not subject to bribes (say, by someone who intends to wager on the game), and when their “calls” (and their non-calls) can be checked via photos or video-recordings.
The powerful desire to win, the absence of officials, and the decisive bad calls made (and failures to make a needed call) by officials, are sources of disagreements: Frustration, cheating, quarrels, fighting, property damage and destruction, and even killings. For one example of competitive game-rooted killings, search the lethal fighting among fans – among fanatics? — at a Mexico league soccer game in Mexico, in March 2022.
Students may well enjoy and benefit from discussing two thought-provoking meanings of the term “fanatic:” (1) a person exhibiting excessive enthusiasm and intense uncritical devotion toward some controversial matter (as in religion or politics), and (2)a person who is extremely enthusiastic about and devoted to some interest or activity. (Merriam-Webster –Emphasis added.)
Spontaneous videos and articles dealing with such incidents, including some that are powerfully revealing and show the rage of irate spectator-parents of school kids – whose kids are just “playing a game,” are plentiful on line as I write.
Obviously, actual games are not always “all fun and games!”
Those who teach the young, and who teach older learners, are probably teaching people who are, or will be, players, perhaps officials, probably spectators, and very probably consumers who’ll be dealing with sponsors – including, very large corporate TV sponsors — of really big games, viewed by millions.
It will be interesting and worthwhile for some instructional time to be given to presenting audio-visual examples of actual conduct, including both commendable – such as the post-game ritual of winning athletes commending those who lost — and deplorable conduct, (suggested above) for discussion, including intuitive evaluation by students. Then students might be guided to work out their own defensible answers to:
(1) What counts as (a) good playing of a game, (b) good officiating, (c) good watching (good “spectating”)? (d) good sponsoring of competitive playing?
(2) What connection do students (and instructor) find between those intuitive evaluations of theirs and the two Ancient Imperatives?
That second activity will nrequire (a) identifying the actor(s) in question. And it will require (b) determining whether the actors — those on the “doing” end – would want to be on the “receiving” end — or to have their loved ones on the receiving end.
It will prove instructive to have students locate some of these actions and to discuss them.
Further,
(3) It should prove worthwhile to have students address and discuss the questions:
(a) Why is winning fun, and losing not fun? and (b) How important for genuine personal happiness is winning competitions – bearing in mind the definition of winning: “. . . defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same”?
(4) Advanced students might compare and contrast the account of love in chapter 2, above, and the list (on line) in the Amazon.love memo.
Some competitive games involve a randomizing factor – something beyond strength, skill, or acquired information – such randomizing things as the shuffling of cards, the spinning of a wheel, or the like. Players know that winning and losing are determined, at least in part, by luck, by chance.
Fortunately, after the Covid-19 pandemic eased somewhat in our vicinity, and congenial card-playing (with the help of a resident’s card-shuffling device) resumed in our retirement community’s card room, wins or losses at euchre or pinochle still do not arouse passionate disagreements, or create fanatics among these elderly, generally civil, vaccinated, boostered, and mostly masked, (and unarmed!) players.
.
(3) Playing Non-Competitive Games – Thank you, Shirley!
What kind of play – if any — is there besides (1) “just playing,” and (2) “playing a game” which, according to a standard definition, involves competition, thus winners and losers?
As my beloved wife of more than three decades – a respected retired teacher — pointed out to me, there are non–competitive games that kids (and others) sometimes play. Videos of the playing (and lists of the rules) for both competitive and non-competitive games can be found online.
For example, there are such non-competitive games as Sevenses, and Solitaire — or games like Jacks and Hopscotch that can be played either competitively or non-competitively. Like Hopscotch, golf too is a game that can be played either competitively or non-competitively.
Note that even when golfing non-competitively, golfers often keep score. If there’s any competition in “playing non-competitive games,” I suppose it’s competition against oneself, against one’s previous efforts in this sort of play.
So the Merriam-Webster definition of “game” that requires striving to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same, is mistaken by being too narrow: There are non-competitive games, and there are games that can be played either competitively or noncompetitively.
While sorting out the “intellectual mess” surrounding the playing of games, we should also note that two very different activities may bear the same name – such as (a) the non-competitive game called Hop, Skip, and Jump, currently manufactured to be played by young children, and (b) the athletic activity – hop, skip, and jump (a. k. a. the triple jump, an Olympic game since 1896) — engaged in by teen-age and older athletes — that’s clearly competitive — designed to differentiate a winner – who’s best at it (at least on a given occasion) — from others, the losers.
Perhaps it’s because competitive games are so common and so numerous that, by a common, standard definition, the term “game” is even defined as competitive: The Merriam-Webster definition says a game is “a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other.” (Emphasis added.)
But, by failing to accommodate non-competitive games, which have rules – but neither winners nor losers — that definition of “game” is too narrow.
4. Play in Retrospect
a. Surely, in some straightforward sense of the terms, competition is inevitable, and the young should be educationally prepared for it. On line there are numerous lists of “the benefits,” the “values,” of competition. I won’t offer another such list, nor assess any of those.
My concern has been to clarify meanings to show that:
(1) Not all playing is playing of games.
(2) Some playing of games – namely, non-competitive playing of games — does not involve anyone’s losing to someone else, and so does not conflict at all with our normal, instinct-based preference or desire for experiences that are fun, pleasant, enjoyable.
(3) In our present, far-from-ideal world, for us to approach that ideal world of human fulfillment — (see especially chapters 1, 2, and 9) – I urge that both work and the competitive playing of games should be guided by workers, (and those employing or overseeing them), and by players, whose attitudes include the love called for by those Ancient Imperatives.
(4) I suspect that a very strong interest in – and the frequent excitement about — attending and viewing competitions – (especially athletic competitions – including major league American football) viewed by millions, hyped by pep rallies, fanned by sensational cheer leaders and half-time extravaganzas . . . athletic competitions that are very profitable to corporate advertisers, broadcasting, cable, and streaming corporations, and team merchandise producers), stems from an unsuspecting, insufficiently examined overestimate of the importance of both personal success in athletic competitions and in becoming prominently wealthy.
Some individuals prominent in the world of professional sports are aware of, and outspoken about, the greater importance of other values: At the passing away of National Basketball Association super-star Bill Russell, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said – in a statement in the Washington Post: “Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that he stamped into the DNA of our league.”
How humanly important – how fulfilling for human beings — is it, for example, to be “the best,” or “the champions“ at American football, or the world’s champion in the pole vault (or any other competition), or the owner of the world’s most wealth-garnering race horse, or to be one of the world’s five richest persons?
Let the reader be sure to note at this point that there are many important forms of non-competitive — often shared – enjoyable human activity — including visiting friends, conversing and having a meal with them, singing, playing a musical instrument, listening to music, jogging or going for a stroll, enjoying a significant pause to behold (and perhaps to describe, to draw, to paint, or to photograph) a remarkable scene, or going on a trip with friends, and many more.
Childhood is the time to learn about many of this unfolding diverse array of delights (pleasurable, satisfying activities and experiences) – whether old or new, whether calm or exciting, whether “freestanding” pleasant experiences – or joys that are clearly fruitful, consequential. Competition, winning, and losing, must be seen in that perspective, against that backdrop, in that setting.
The story of very “successful,” – or more accurately: very wealthy — Wall Street hedge fund manager, Sam Polk, is a dramatic illustration of both the unfulfilling nature – the personal turmoil and emptiness – that can result from successful devotion to personal wealth, as well as the personally fulfilling nature of Neighbor Love – treating others as one would – on reflection — appreciate being treated in such circumstances.
Despite his financial success, and vividly realizing his own personal turmoil and emptiness, Sam left his very high-paying hedge-fund management job, and chose a personally fulfilling – and widely admired and appreciated — life of bringing affordable food to many folks who live in the “food deserts” of low-income neighborhoods.
Sam’s memoir – For The Love of Money – is riveting, widely praised, and should not be overlooked. His story has been repeatedly commented on in the NY Times.
Unlike the young Donald Trump, no youngster should be given the impression that worthwhile human activity is limited to success in competing for personal wealth.
The benevolent sorts of lives chosen during retirement by extremely wealthy Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett – people with extraordinary options – speak volumes. And so do the lives of less prominent people who are fortunate enough to enjoy the genuine human fulfillments described a few paragraphs earlier.
5. Under compulsion or necessity: Joyless, Unfulfilling, and Dreadful Work
William Warfield’s and Paul Robeson’s performances of Old Man River, from the 1923 musical Showboat, powerfully express profound personal dissatisfaction with a life deeply marked by pain and oppression, and by wearied struggle as a black laborer on a Mississippi riverboat, in a time after slavery had been outlawed in the US.
Such life is dominated by a “land” that’s racially prejudiced – a land that is no more caring about his life than the Mississippi River is.
Some of the lyrics:
Here we [or Niggers, or Darkies] all work ‘long the Mississippi Here we all work while the white folk play Pullin’ them boats from the dawn till sunset Gettin’ no rest till the judgment day . . . . .
You and me, we sweat and strain Body all achin’ and racked with pain Tote that barge and lift that bail You get a little drunk and you lands in jail
I gets weary, and sick of trying I’m tired of livin’, but I’m scared of dyin’ But ol’ man river, he just keeps rolin’ along
Robeson’s recording of The Song of the Volga Boatmen conveys the emptiness and mind-dulling repetitiveness that can mark lives that are polar opposites of play-filled.
Ilya Repin’s 1873 painting of the Barge Haulers on the Volga foreshadows how some inventions can help to make slavish toil a thing of the past:
Notice that steam–powered tugboat in the distance near the right edge of the painting. That invention will eventually replace the grueling labors of those featured barge-haulers. And steam-powered tugs won’t be impeded by the headwind depicted near the left edge of the painting.
Ukrainian grape-growing expert, Konstantin Frank (PhD, Odessa National Polytechnic University) would – during Stalin’s rule — invent special plows for use on the first tractors to reach Ukraine. Thousands were produced.
Those plows would relieve thousands of peasants – mainly women – from their back-breaking work every year of burying grapevines as winter approached, and uncovering them in the spring – with only shovels and hoes for their tools – all to produce fine table wine to be enjoyed by the well-to-do.
While Dr. Frank was living in Ukraine – before he emigrated to New York State’s Finger Lakes region — Communism arose in Russia, and Nazism arose in Germany.
Britannica provides reliable concise accounts of the rise of both of them. Both must be mentioned in this chapter on both play and work, but will not be developed.
Communism involved a call to the workers of the world to unite and by a violent revolution to throw off the bonds of rule by capitalists. From the Britannica article on concentration camps: Many corrective labour camps were established in northern Russia and Siberia, especially during the First Five-Year Plan, 1928–32, when millions of rich peasants were driven from their farms under the collectivization program. The Stalinist purges of 1936–38 brought additional millions into the camps—said to be essentially institutions of slavery. (Emphasis added.)
For my purposes in this chapter, Hitler’s Nazism is to be remembered for both (1) its mainly anti-Semitic concentration camps which were the scenes of inhumane starvation and lethal forced labor, and for (2) extermination centers, or death camps, that specialized in the annihilation (Vernichtung) of unwanted persons, mostly Jews – but also Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, alleged mental defectives, and others.
The extermination camps played a central role in the Holocaust, which was “the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.”
You may access the CNN documentary 8/26/2022: “Never Again: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: A Tour with Wolf Blitzer.”
The extraordinary September 2022 six-hour PBS documentary “The U.S. and the Holocaust” — Executive Producer Ken Burns – depicts those horrors most instructively.
It is perfectly clear that both Communism and Nazism must reject or ignore – and are utterly incompatible with — the kind of all-embracing, over-arching educational aim advocated in this Daring Proposal (see especially chapters 1, 2, and 9), which calls for Education that:
(1) helps to prevent the rise of — and helps to overcome — those attitudes that sustain mistreatment of any human beings, as with enslavement in the US of blacks by whites, mainly (but not only) in the southern US, beginning in 1619 CE, and as with both Communism and Nazism.
Positively, this Daring Proposal calls for education that:
(2) instead helps to form in every learner (and every parent, and others who teach – and those who will employ and those who will govern others) — the attitude that actively embodies – that brings to life — that pair of ancient imperatives.
Do check online for Apple CEO Tim Cook’s very brief: Tim Cook’s Last Look: Reflections for 2020 Graduates.
When employers live out that attitude of love for one’s fellow human beings as oneself, the negative quality of experience of those who are oppressed – a quality given expression in the lyrics of “Old Man River,” will be fading.
That “Treat others the way you’d want to be treated” sort of education will
(3) Help to overcome both:
(a) persistent lingering working class hostility toward the moneyed minority, as well as remaining indifference on the part of the moneyed minority to the quality of life experienced by the non-moneyed masses, and the
(b) persistent Nazi (and neo-Nazi) hatred of Jews (and of the other targets of Nazionalsozialismus – Hitler’s National Socialism – including LGBT people).
And that sort of education will:
(4) Encourage and facilitate the invention, development and the sustainable and constructive use of labor-saving machines and devices – as sometimes took place with cotton gins, tractors, and special-purpose plows like those developed by Dr. Konstantin Frank.
(5) Encourage personally fulfilling ways of producing and distributing goods and services — that replace painful, dehumanizing, mind-dulling work, and sadistic forced labor, and slave labor, all of which stand in dramatically sharp contrast with both work that’s fulfilling and normal play.
6. Play and work, incidental learning, and troubling tendencies
Both play and work can and often do provide a setting – an occasion – for the incidental learning of beneficial attitudes, habits, information, and social skills (including those associated with emerging leadership and dependable, mindful followership). These will serve him or her well, and benefit their future associates and others.
Such incidental learning during childhood play can include sharing one’s playthings rather than being selfish with them, being considerate, being a cooperative “team player” able to make, to discuss, and to intelligently support valuable suggestions — rather than being, either unthinkingly acquiescent, or bossy, let alone disturbingly noisy, or unwantedly pushy, or excluding some from joining in playing, despite lacking a good reason — a justification for excluding them that stands up to moral scrutiny.
And, whether or not such learning takes place while working, or in some form of play, incidental learning can develop skills that can make later engagement in some beneficial activities easier, more like “child’s play,” even “a piece of cake.”
However, parents and school teachers and administrators (and school nurses, school-bus drivers, custodians, school guards, and cafeteria personnel) may well be aware of, and troubled by, such “negative” tendencies – just mentioned – that kids sometimes exhibit, when they might instead be playing, or at least not bothering, badgering, or insulting anyone.
Those “negative” tendencies have long troubled not only those on the receiving end, but educators and others, including thought-leaders like Augustine. Those “negative” tendencies present us with two groups of questions:
1. Why does such unfriendly conduct on the part of kids occur? Is it simply because such kids spontaneously (then habitually) mimic some conduct they’ve encountered in their entertainment, or elsewhere in adult conduct?
If so, how could such conduct get started in the first place?
Is there something genetic at work in these kids, but that is not effectively at work in those who don’t exhibit such unfriendly conduct? Or shall we shrug and dismiss it with the quip: “There must be something in their water.”
2. What should be done by adults – parents, teachers, or others — to cope with, to address, those negative tendencies? Will genetically-informed counselling be sought by couples considering starting a family? Will gene editing be called for?
Those Ancient Imperatives urge actions that will benefit – not harm – all who act — as well as the others they care about and love. As new information on remote causes of our harmful tendencies comes to light, then we may have new and important opportunities, and, as the old hymn suggests, “New occasions teach new duties.”
Looking back on this long chapter on work, play, and success, we’d be Pollyannaish if we ignored the fact that many of the evils that threaten us and that we deplore have themselves emerged alongside — or in the midst of – play and entertainment. And far too many have come to light as work that some people have cruelly forced others to do – things they’d certainly not want done to themselves or their loved ones.