Looney Labs Educators Mailing list Archive

RE: [Edu] Curriculum and Cooperative games

  • From"Kate Jones" <kate@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateThu, 5 Apr 2007 16:26:33 -0400
Sue Hemberger wrote:
". . .  If everyone falls to the dark then all players lose together. 

There's the rub.  I don't see how a cooperative game that designates all of
the players as "good" and urges them to work together to triumph over an
unembodied evil does anything to dismantle our war culture.  It's an
us-against-them with "them" logic in which "they" lack humanity and "we"
must suppress internal divisions and urge self-sacrifice.  Sounds like the
stuff wars are made of." 

Sue, you're quite right. It even explains why young men would willingly
immolate themselves by crashing planes into buildings. What unembodied evil
did they believe they were fighting?

We've got to overcome the us-vs-them split. We are all "us". How does the
dehumanization of some of us creep into the mix? How do flawed ideas take
over so destructively? What twisted logic pulls us down that slope?

 
 
"As for games in which all players win or lose, an 8 year old friend of mine
had a really interesting perspective:  'I don't care if I win,' she said.
'It's fun for me when my friends win.  But why play a game where no one will
win?'" 

Your little friend is completely right. We all want happy endings. Why can't
everyone win after suspenseful efforts by all?



"Once everything you do affects whether or not I succeed, the logic goes, I
have a legitimate interest (and should have a say) in what you do and I want
to make sure you don't screw up.  This logic can involve identifying the
presumed weakest link and bullying that person into following the will of
the majority and/or designating a leader who calls the shots."

See? That's why we have a Constitution and representative government and
voting. To make sure the weakest link doesn't get bullied, there's a Bill of
Rights. A leader who calls the shots is usually referred to as dictator.
Hmm.

-- Kate Jones