Homo Ludens (book) - III. Play and Contest As Civilizing Functions

III. Play and Contest As Civilizing Functions

“The view we take in the following pages is that culture arises in the form of play, that it is played from the very beginning... Social life is endued with supra-biological forms, in the shape of play, which enhances its value.”

Huizinga does not mean that “play turns into culture”. Rather, he sets play and culture side by side, talks about their “twin union”, but insists that “play is primary”.

Read more about this topic:  Homo Ludens (book)

Famous quotes containing the words iii, play, contest, civilizing and/or functions:

    The Empress is Legitimist, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.
    —Napoleon Bonaparte III (1808–1873)

    Einstein is not ... merely an artist in his moments of leisure and play, as a great statesman may play golf or a great soldier grow orchids. He retains the same attitude in the whole of his work. He traces science to its roots in emotion, which is exactly where art is also rooted.
    Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)

    It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Woman’s success in lifting men out of their way of life nearly resembling that of the beasts—who merely hunted and fished for food, who found shelter where they could in jungles, in trees, and caves—was a civilizing triumph.
    Mary Ritter Beard (1876–1958)

    In today’s world parents find themselves at the mercy of a society which imposes pressures and priorities that allow neither time nor place for meaningful activities and relations between children and adults, which downgrade the role of parents and the functions of parenthood, and which prevent the parent from doing things he wants to do as a guide, friend, and companion to his children.
    Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)