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 army is the true nobility of our country.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte III (1808–1873)
“Hail, comly and clene,
Hail, yong child!
Hail, maker, as I meene,
Of a maden so milde!”
—Unknown. The Second Shepherd’s Play (l. 6–8)
“You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.”
—Epictetus (c. 55–135)
“The socialism of our day has done good service in setting men to thinking how certain civilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by the opulent, can be enjoyed by all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)