I. Nature and Significance of Play As A Cultural Phenomenon
“Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.”
Huizinga begins by making it clear that animals played first.
One of the most significant (human and cultural) aspects of play is that it is fun. This fun aspect is celebrated by Brian Sutton-Smith in his book The Ambiguity of Play:
“Prime credit in play-theory terms for denying the puritanical and work contentions about play in modern times must go to Huizinga who argues that play is a most fundamental human function and has permeated all cultures from the beginning.”
Read more about this topic: Homo Ludens (book)
Famous quotes containing the words nature, significance, play, cultural and/or phenomenon:
“We feel public misfortunes just so far as they affect our private circumstances, and nothing of this nature appeals more directly to us than the loss of money.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.”
—Truman Capote (1924–1984)
“The men who are messing up their lives, their families, and their world in their quest to feel man enough are not exercising true masculinity, but a grotesque exaggeration of what they think a man is. When we see men overdoing their masculinity, we can assume that they haven’t been raised by men, that they have taken cultural stereotypes literally, and that they are scared they aren’t being manly enough.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain! The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)