Ian Welsh asks what you plan to do with the "toy" that is your life -- and how your choice may impact other lives

PRINCESS IDEA: The world is but a broken toy,
its pleasure hollow — false its joy.
Unreal its loveliest hue, alas!
Its pains alone are true, alas!
Its pains alone are true.
HILARION: The world is ev'rything you say.
The world we think has had its day.
Its merriment is slow, alas!
We've tried it, and we know, alas!
We've tried it and we know.
ALL: Unreal its loveliest hue,
its pains alone are true --
PRINCESS IDA: Alas!
ALL: The world is but a broken toy,
its pleasure hollow — false its joy.
Unreal its loveliest hue, alas!
Its pains alone are true, alas!
Its pains alone are true.
FLORIAN: Unreal its loveliest hue.
HILARION, CYRIL, and FLORIAN: Unreal its loveliest hue.
ALL: Unreal its loveliest hue, alas!
Its pains alone are true, alas!
Its pains alone are true.

Ellizabeth Harwood (s), Princess Ida; Phiip Potter (t), Prince Hilarion; David Palmer (t), Cyril; Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded May 1965

Victoria Sladen (s), Princess Ida; Thomas Round (t), Prince Hilarion; Leonard Osborn (t), Cyril; Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded Oct.-Dec. 1954

Muriel Dickson (s), Princess Ida; Derek Oldham (t), Prince Hilarion; Charles Goulding (t), Cyril; Geoge Baker (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 27, 1932 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

by Ken

True to his word since his fund-raising drive, when he encouraged readers who appreciate what he has to say to contribute or subscribe, Ian Welsh has been producing a steady stream of posts -- mixing observations long and short on current developments with the larger-perspective commentaries and reflections he's been primed to share. If you haven't been keeping up, I encourage you to visit the site and rummage around the archive (and, if you enjoy what you see, to contribute or subscribe).

Obviously in the category of "larger-perspective commentaries and reflections" is Thursday's "Life Is a Toy, Not a Game," which has been rattling around my head. If it winds up rattling around yours, I apologize, but, well, that's life.

First we need to grasp this idea that "life" is a "toy," with which any number of "games" can be devised. I'm not going to try to paraphrase Ian's discussion of the point, which would in addition take a good measure of the fun out of it. Instead let's jump to --


A CLASSIC LIFE-GAME CHOICE (AND ITS
WIDER EFFECTS): SUBURBAN LIVING

Ian looks in toy-and-game terms at a game choice that should be familiar to us, after setting forth a basic principle about such choices: "[T]he choice of what games societies support is largely non-rational, and based on esthetic, moral and ethical choices, along with pure power considerations."

Bankers in the Western world were a net negative through 00s but they had the power and were valued deeply enough by certain parts of society that they were bailed out for a cost of trillions. Suburbs are economically unproductive, pure consumption to a degree that shames monastics and hermits, yet US society is largely set up as a giant subsidy for the suburban lifestyle, because Americans value having a house with a yard away from a lot of other people, surrounded by a bunch of other houses very similar to there’s inhabited by people very much like them, generally far from any productive activity.

That’s an esthetic choice: it’s a choice about what the good life is, “the good life is living in suburbs, therefore we will subsidize suburbs massively, because that’s how we want to live”.

That subsidy is a direct drain on all the people who look at suburbs and hate them, and don’t want to live in them. Living in suburbs requires economic relationships, embedded in law and custom, which are coercive and unequal.

“You win if you buy a big house in the suburbs, have 2 cars and 2 kids and die comfortably.”

That’s a game statement.

Ian has a lot more to say about this distinction between life-as-toy and the games people play, and brings in SimCity as an example of a toy that can be used to play just about any sort of game the player wishes. "Winning" or "losing" at SimCity has no meaning except what meaning you give it. Just as with life.

Who wins life? If you die with the most power or money, did you win? If you did the most good, do you win? If you enjoyed yourself the most? Made great art? Raised great kids? Went fishing as often as you wanted?

"Humans set up games all the time," Ian says. Capitalism is one, democracy another. Not surprisingly, then, "Different societies love different games."

Each game favors a certain type of person: the men and women who rise to the top of the capitalism game have almost no qualities in common with those who rise to the top of the renunciate game [favored by "the truly faithful" in medieval monasteries], and almost nothing in common with the scholar-bureaucrats who ran the Chinese empire so often. Different qualities and different development were rewarded.

WE GET TO CHOOSE OUR OWN LIFE-GAME,
BUT THE CHOICE ISN'T ENTIRELY FREE

Personally, this is the point in Ian's essay which has resonated most for me, because it's a lesson it took me a hellishly long time to learn, and by the time I did, I didn't see a whole lot that could be done about it.

None of this alters the fact that life is a toy, like a ball or SimCity. You can add rules to it, and enforce those rules with sanctions, but ultimately each person decides their own win conditions. One of the decisions is whether to play one of the approved games, of course, and many people don’t realize they can opt out of much of those games.

A society’s level of coercion is easily measured when thought of in these terms: how hard is it to opt out of the socially mandated games; or at least how onerous are the requirements of those games? Will you die? Go hungry? Just not get as much approval? How many different games are there, and how easy is it to move between them, so that you can find a way of playing with your toy that isn’t obnoxious to you, and is at least somewhat socially approved. It’s hard, today, for example, to be a monastic or a hermit; society in the West isn’t set up for it: people won’t feed you. In Thailand, on the other hand, it’s pretty easy. People not involved in the monastic or hermit life think those lives are valuable and are willing to support them.

It's possible that way back when somebody tried to make me understand how much trouble you can be setting yourself up for if you choose not to play your life as one of the conventionally accepted games. Thinking back, I kind of realize that actually most of the people I encountered were doing everything in their power to make me understand this, and I didn't get it, or didn't believe them, maybe because they didn't come right out and put it in such bald terms. I'm not sure what I could have done in any case, though, since it was pretty clear that I would both hate and be no good at any of the "games" I saw in the toy store of life.


FINALLY WE GET TO THE PAYOFF
OF THE TOY-AND-GAME MODEL

"Now some people have probably been offended by me calling life a toy," says Ian --

because we think of toys as trivial and disposable and we like to think that lives aren’t, even though we certainly very often act as if other people’s lives are disposable. But the word communicates that life is something you decide what you’re going to do with. Life always ends: there are no immortals—so what enjoyment or satisfaction are you going to get out of your toy before you no longer are able to play with it?

And, perhaps, what sort of society do you want to live in, so that you can get the most out of that toy? And do you care if others are able to use their toys as they want, or not?

There’s no bedrock here, there’s no ultimate source of authority. Unless you believe in God, there is no system of reason which can logically prove that we should be kind or cruel, want money or not want it, be hermits or epicures; or anything else.

So, what are you going to do with your life, your toy, and how are you going to help, or hinder, others in their enjoyment of their toy?

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