DECEMBER 2007
Life as Play
-- by Dunja and Ljubodrag Simonovic
[Excerpt from their book 'A New World is Possible'] by Mick
Collins
Sat 09 Sep 2006 03:55 PM EDT
Here's the latest from one of the
great philosophers of our time, Ljubodrag 'Duci'
Simonovic--that he's a great sports hero, too, makes
Simonovic's work that much more interesting, authentic
and endearing to me. It has been incredibly difficult
(yibega!) to get this English adaptation of the
Serbo-Croatian original sorta right--not that I'd presume
this edition is anywhere close to being really right--but
to get a just balance between his voice (which I have
carried around in my head, yibega, since I met him at the
first ICDSM meeting in Belgrade's Sava Center, October
2001) and the finely honed and discretely delineated
ideas about saving what most of us have pretty much
written off as hopeless: the future of the human species.
Now, Play is something I've always been interested in
and done, for better or worse, all my life--I'm nearly 62
and have never stopped playing long enough to grow up and
get a real job--right now I'm in Lodz, in Poland, playing
King Lear in a polyglot production, a reconsideration of
Shakespeare's fattest tragedy, Cut To The Brains,
conceived and directed by my old homeboy, sports
codependent and crimey, Steppling, in the cadre of the
Polish Natl Film School--but Simonovic has something much
more intricate and essential in mind than the foolery we
aged children get up to. His Play is more like an
essential, liberating and life-sustaining force.
So here, Red Star Belgrade's shiningest star indicates
that the human (and humane) imaginative spark, though
faint and badly deprived of the oxygen of hope, has not
yet been totally extinguished. The murderous destruction
that currently sustains global waste capitalism--and that
we've been forced to accept as our obvious daily
bread--can only be halted, and humanity redeemed, if we
return to the ancient pursuit of liberation through the
search for and practice of physical, intellectual, and
(if you will, yibega!) spiritual grace.
I never saw Simonovic play, but I got a feeling he was
poetry in motion. --mc]
Extract from the book “A New World is
Possible”, by Dunja and Ljubodrag Simonovic,
Belgrade (Serbia & Montenegro). E-mail:
simonovic@simonovic.info.
LIFE AS PLAY
Libertarian play
Freedom is the essence of play. In a world in which there
is no freedom, free play is not possible. Only
libertarian play – as an integral part of the social
(political) movement that tends to create the new world
– is a possibility. It has a tendency to liberate
Man's playing being by superseding the ruling relations
and the repressive normative confinement which are a part
of the prevailing play-forms that are in fact a way of
letting off the steam of non-freedom, and as such
represent "chain rattling". On the contrary,
regardless of its intention, play is being reduced to the
creation of space for an illusory "happiness"
within the existing world, where man hopelessly seeks to
discover his own mislaid humanity – and sinks deeper
and deeper into the mud of despair. Libertarian physical
culture does not campaign for "free play" but
for free Man, that is, for a new society within which
free play will represent the utmost (self)accomplishment
of Man as a universal creative and free being. Genuine
play is attainable solely by superseding the existing
world, that is, by totalizing the world through
Man’s libertarian and creative practice, and in that
context through the turning of life itself into a
creation of his playing being. One does not arrive
directly from libertarian play to the genuine play
through the use of new forms of player proficiency, but
by way of the society within which Man has achieved
freedom. True play is a result of the libertarian
struggle that generates the new world.
The most important characteristic of libertarian play is
life-creativeness. Destruction is a totalizing life power
of capitalism; life-creativeness is a totalizing life
power of Man. As distinct from the animal which is
unconscious of its natural life-creation ability
(procreation), Man is a self-conscious life-creating
being that creates its own world. The essence of the
animal’s life-creativeness is determinism; the
essence of human life-creativeness is freedom. Man’s
playing being represents the anthropological basis of his
life-creativeness, and play is the supreme form in which
the life-creative nature of Man is realized. The
“major” religions have also acknowledged the
life-creativity principle. Development of Man’s
self-consciousness as a creative being and creator of
(his own) world represents the basis for the theory of
the world as a “divine creation”.
“God” is a symbolic incarnation of creative
powers alienated from Man, a manifestation of Man’s
independence from nature and the placing of human powers
“above” those of nature. By means of the idea
of “God”, Man becomes an autonomous creative
power and, in that sense, a specific (unique) cosmic
being: creation of the world is a conscious and willful
act. Historically, Man has been in subordinated to the
(real or imaginary) universe of a metaphorical and
politically instrumental nature that serves as means for
obtaining eternalness for the ruling order. Human
life-creativeness is imaginary: creation of imaginary
consciousness becomes compensation for depriving Man of
the ability to create the earthly world in his own image.
Capitalism has degenerated and instrumentalized
Man’s life-creating powers: they now serve to
preserve the capitalist order that destroys both life and
Man as a life-creating being. Libertarian play is guided
by the spirit of life-creating pantheism: all that lives
and creates possibility for life should become a unique
life-creating being struggling against capitalism.
Libertarian play requires visionary consciousness of a
utopian nature. It represents the supreme form of
Man’s change-creating practice by which the
objective possibilities of freedom, established within a
civil society, become realistic possibilities for
Man’s liberation. This affirmation of Man’s
life-creating powers is accomplished by the surmounting
of civilization’s barriers and diversions. The
life-creating power becomes the basis of the
self-creation of both man and society as a community of
life-creating beings. Man used to be a toy in the hands
of “superhuman” powers; it is necessary that he
become a free playing being, while life in its entirety
should become a form of affirmation of his own playing
nature. The basic relation, though, is not one of
play/player, but of society as a community of free men
– Man as a universal free creative being. The moment
when Man becomes a self-conscious and unique
life-creating being is when the true history of humankind
begins. Play per se does not contain what-is-yet-to-be,
for this is not what defines its utopian nature; it is a
specificity of man as free self-creating being: man is
not what he is but what he can be.
Space and time
Man lives in inhuman time and in inhuman space. His
attitude towards time and space is given by the ruling
order. In the contemporary world capital is the master of
both time and space. This goes for the capitalist
determination of time, in a context of the capitalist
totalizing of the world by repressive and destructive
commercialization (“Time is money!”), which
turns the world into a labor-consumer concentration camp.
An “objectification” of time has taken place:
time as a virtual or abstract phenomenon becomes a power
of destiny (“It’s a matter of time!”,
“Time will tell!”…). The speed of
capitalist reproduction conditions the dynamics of social
life. Using science and technology as means for
acceleration of the profit-making process, capital
increasingly “diminishes” human existential and
spiritual space and at the same time creates a growing
gap between people, one that is not measurable in meters,
but in a feeling of loneliness and despair that has
reached epidemic proportions. Acceleration of capitalist
reproduction makes human time, which represents the
duration of life, run out more and more quickly.
“Measuring of time” in sports is a typical
example of the instrumentalization of
“physical” time and space in order to
overmaster Man. In sport, space and time are given
dimensions, independent from Man. This relates to closed
space and to definitive time: upon this ground, and
within this framework, basic relationships and basic
values of the existing world are being reproduced. Sport
is an area where quantitative and mechanical
“mastering” of time and space are most
perceptible, one of the major features of “technical
civilization” used by capital to turn natural forces
into a vehicle for the destruction of human time and
space. In sport, Man exists outside of biological and
historical (cultural) time and finds himself in an area
of mechanical time. “Sport time” is a
phenomenal form in which the process of capitalist
reproduction pulsates: development of capitalism
conditions the “openness” of sport time and of
sport space. This is the essence of record-mania. In
sports where “competing against the
chronometer” dominates, results are not being
measured only in minutes, but in seconds, tenths and
hundredths of a second. From the point of view of the
development of human powers, such improvements are
nonsensical and of an abstract value for Man. There is an
endeavor to preserve the dominant principle citius,
altius, fortius at any cost, and, along with it, the
belief in the “progressive” nature of the
ruling order. Consequently, the “history of
sport” is being reduced to a sequence of numbers
that increase in a linear manner, and to which names of
un-personalized “champions” are adjoined. Sport
“progress” does not represent a moving forward,
but is reduced to limitless and increasingly intensive
circular movement that occurs on the sport track, which
is supposed to halt history and hinder Man’s
striding away from the existing world. The record is not
an expression of the development of human powers but
represents a quantum of destruction of Man as a
biological and cultural being. The “quality of
play” is being measured by the quantity of
occurrences per time unit (scores, points, passes, jumps,
sprints…). Spaces of some future time are not being
developed in sports. Instead, the ruling relations are
being reproduced, at a higher quantitative level. A
sports spectacle represents a symbolic form of complete
integration of Man into capitalist time and space. The
Olympiads (the “holy” four-year period ending
with the Olympic Games) represent a mythological time
that annuls historical time in order to attain
“eternity ” for capitalism: modern Olympic
Games are a reincarnation of the “immortal spirit of
antiquity”.
Motion through space is the basis of the (existential,
libertarian, visionary) relation of Man to space, from
whence a notion of space derives, as well as the creation
of the concept of space which surpasses the directly
perceived and experienced living space, and represents
the ground for creation of the notion of
“world” and of the existence of us, humans, in
it. It represents the basis of Man's uniqueness and of
his libertarian self-consciousness. What differentiates
human motion from mechanical and animal motion is the
fact that it requires a change-aspiring relation towards
the existing world and a moving toward new worlds, which
means that it possesses a creative, libertarian and
visionary dimension. It is a historical motion - the
essence of which represents freedom measured by
development (accomplishment) of Man's playing being and
by an increased certainty of human survival. Space is not
a given fact that defines the framework of playing,
neither is it an emptiness in which the world exists. It
represents a possibility of creation of a new world and
is, as such, a symbol of Man’s openness toward the
future. The creation of life and life itself become
inseparable contents of time, the "measure" of
its "duration", of the "boundaries"
and of the "dimensions" of space.
Through playing, man ceases his existence in the given
time and space and creates his own (human) time and
space. "Expansion of space" results from Man's
creative practice, opening possibilities for the
development of humanness. In authentic play, space is
limitless and time is endless. The challenge shifts from
the variety of outer world forms toward the richness of
the inner, creative, interpersonal... Through playing,
the duality of the "outer" and the
"inner" is abolished: genuine creativity
represents a "transformation" of the world into
an experience of humanness. The real world is what Man
carries inside and what he creates together with other
men. In this sense play becomes "fascination",
a sense of life taken to the extreme – through
experience based on the creation of life - instead of
evasion as a compensation for a deprived humanness. The
"duration" of playing time and the
"dimensions" of the space are conditioned by a
flourishing of the senses and emotions, by human
closeness and creative life... "Comprehension"
of humanness is the basic and the sole authentic
"dimension" of human time and space. It
requires the annulment of all forms that mediate between
man and world, forms that transform the world into
"otherness". Attainment of Man's playing being
becomes the "source" of playing time and space.
Playing, which is the most authentic human mode for
totalizing the world, becomes a "metamorphosis"
of historical time and space into "purely"
human time and space, and, in that sense, a specifically
human universe. Fantasy represents an essential aspect of
human time and space, not as an escape from the existing
world and daydreaming, but as a projection of a future
world and the creation of novum. It is, anyhow, a sort of
time that has no quantitative dimensions, no comparison
that annuls all humanness. Man’s becoming a human
being is the authentic content and the authentic measure
of human time.
Nature
With the expulsion of Man from nature and the creation of
a surrogate "natural space" in the form of
cities, halls, stadiums, shopping malls – physical
motion loses the uniqueness and steadiness that it can
have solely within a natural environment, and becomes a
phenomenal form of the ruling relations. Libertarian play
inclines toward a genuine natural space. Instead of
creating special spaces for physical exercise, the way it
used to be in antiquity (stadiums, hippodromes,
gymnasiums, palestras) which are assigned the status of
cult sites where, through physical agonic activities, men
tend to achieve a harmony with the cosmic order and to
elicit divine erotic enchantment – nature itself
should become a cult site where the life-creating cult
would be worshiped through life-creating activism that
enhances the natural through development of Man's playing
being. Genuine naturalness, in a word, authentic motion,
is possible exclusively in nature, which for Man
represents not only a physical, but also a historical,
esthetical, living, and visionary space – which
means that nature is the sole space in which man can
experience the wholeness of his own natural, human, and
historical existence. Nature “enters” Man by
means of motion. When man steps into the water and starts
swimming, this experience not only sets the basis for
other bodily activities, but it also influences the
development of his senses and opens new spiritual spaces
– which becomes the basis for the development of the
creative imagination; his perception of the possible is
being completed through his ability to move; he actively
realizes a contact with nature and atones with his own
natural being. Richness of the inner life-creating
impulses can be experienced and refined in the space
where life thrives in innumerable and astonishing forms.
Senses react to the swinging of branches, the quivering
of leaves, to the richness of sounds, scents,
colors… When he finds himself in a glade full of
flowers or by a mountain stream, Man finds out that he is
fascinated. A spontaneous, authentic human reaction
– fascination, that reason accepts with surprise and
unease. Man does not disappear within the richness of
natural forms and motions, the way it happens to the
animal; instead, he becomes a human being. His rapport
with nature occurs through personal experience that
becomes a creative and motivating inspiration
contributing to the further enrichment of his
personality. Man’s need for free physical activism
should be also comprehended as a need to go beyond the
environment in which he, as a man, is encumbered. In that
sense Man perceives a “return to nature” as
existence within a space that is neither given nor
defined with artificial boundaries, but in which he can,
over and over again, create new horizons by means of his
own physical and spiritual activity. For Man, natural
space is at the same time spiritual space; physical
motion is at the same time spiritual motion. When human
sight perceives mountaintops protruding through the mist,
this represents a symbolic “fusion” with the
world that exists “beyond”, and that becomes an
imaginary space of desired humanness – the vision of
which is an inspiration for the creation of the new
world, and not for escape from the existing one. At the
same time, a sip of fresh mountain water develops
Man’s longing for a life in which he would exist at
one with nature and, thus, with his own natural being.
Nature as life-creating life, the thriving of life in an
extreme variety of forms and the unity of all forms of
life – induces Man to create life. Hilarity,
fascination, exaltedness – these are all erotic
reactions stimulated by a stay in nature. When Man’s
senses are better developed he can experience nature more
intensively, absorb its scents, sounds, colors, motions,
merge with nature more completely and more intensively
and be nourished by its power. Being in unity with nature
means being in unity with one’s own primary
life-creating powers. Replenishing the power of nature
represents an inspiration for creative activism, not for
the adaptation of Man to the established (life) rhythm.
Living nature “never repeats, but renews”.
However, it does not represent a mere surrender to the
rhythm of life which then acquires an abstract, mystical
aspect: Man is the creator of his own world. Only when
fear of nature (through mastering its rules) is
eliminated and the esthetic sense (playing being)
developed, does Man attain a chance to experience the
richness of natural forms as creative, libertarian
inspiration. In authentic play man comprehends and
experiences himself as the utmost form of life-creating
natural being.
With animals adaptive-existential activity dominates. In
the course of the struggle for survival, a qualitative
jump occurred in the development of living creatures, in
the form of Man: with the development of instincts,
senses, physical mobility, and of the intellect, the
development of creative powers took place – which
became the basis for the “detachment” of Man
from nature and for setting up an active
(change-aspiring) relationship with nature. While
creating a civilization Man has not developed his own
playing nature “inherited from animals”, but
has developed his own specific playing being which
continuously “breaks through” the limits
imposed on him, in the form of an established
“play”, by the ruling order. There is no
continuity of animal play in the play of Man. A
similarity of behavior between some animal species and
man does exist – based on which Huizinga made the
wrong conclusions. Through playing, man does not confirm
his animal nature, but his human nature – becomes
Man (unique personality), while the animal through
“playing” becomes an animal (a member of the
species). Engendering (one’s own) freedom is the
essence of Man’s play, unlike animal play where
natural exigency is being reproduced. Creation of play as
a symbolic form, which as such represents the highest
point of humanness, provides human play with a special
aspect. Apart from this, unlike animal play, human play
tends toward creation of new worlds, which means that it
has a visionary disposition. There is no
“tenseness” between animal and civilization,
upon which philosophy of play insists; this
“tenseness” exists between Man’s
libertarian and creative nature and the
repressive/destructive capitalist civilization.
Man’s body represents his immediate nature, his
elementary and natural existence, and the basic
possibility for his achieving a unity with Nature, his
“un-organic body” (Marx). A distinction should
be made between civilizing and cultivating the body;
between disciplining and humanizing the body; between the
repressive and the libertarian pedagogy… In sport
the body is civilized “by means of discipline”;
libertarian physical culture endeavors to humanize the
body by means of cultivation: free physical development
requires free development of the personality. In sport,
the body is molded, which means it is systematically
mutilated in order to achieve the imposed prototype that
incarnates the principle upon which the ruling order is
based. Sport and physical exercise do not just nurture
the body; they nurture Man. A relationship to the body is
in effect a relationship of Man to other people, to the
world and his own self as a man. Man as a universally
creative being “corresponds” to a creative
body. Instead of acquiring skills for performing certain
motions (exercises), attaining abilities to create
motions, the meaning of such a body and of such abilities
as enable the articulation of a creative (playing)
personality of Man – this represents one of the most
significant challenges for libertarian play. In playing,
the dynamics of biological rhythm obtain a human, and
consequently, cultural, that is, libertarian (visionary)
dimension. The rhythm of motion becomes a spontaneous
expression of Man’s creative pulse and, as such, a
non-replicable indicator of humanness, its “sign
mark”. In lieu of the ideal of strength, speed,
rigor (which are oriented toward the creation of a
liege/performer nature and consciousness that should
eventually bring about the turning of Man into
“lethal flesh” and a vehicle for destruction of
life) the challenge should shift toward mobility,
softness, coordination, self-control, intention,
spirituality, tremulousness, motion toward man and
nature, harmonious development of the entire body –
which corresponds to Man’s universal creative
potentials and to his human (individual) complexity.
Creative mobility is a basic aspect of a healthy body. It
requires surpassing of the artistic motion as a way of
producing artistic forms and sensual effects (object,
color, sound…), and affirmation of the genuine
playing motion that represents a creation of humanness in
an immediate form. Physical movement becomes an
expression of Man’s playing nature, which means that
its essence consists of Man’s motion toward another.
Man’s relationship with his own body, as an
immediate nature, is possible exclusively by means of
another human being.
Development of a universal creative body and of
lavishness of motion is the basic condition for
development of mind, Man's libertarian and creative
personality – which is one of the key objectives of
the libertarian play. This represents an essential
difference between physical culture and sport, which
requires an ever earlier specialization that disfigures
not only the body, but also the mind. Rousseau was one of
those who perceived the existence of the conditioning
linkage between the development of sense-based mobility
skills and the intellect. From there derives one of his
most significant pedagogical instructions: "Exercise
incessantly his body; endeavor to make your scholar
strong and healthy, so that he can be clever and
intelligent; let him work and act, let him run and shout,
in a word, let him be constantly in motion. Let him
primarily be Man per strength and he will shortly be Man
per intellect." In his developmental psychology
Piaget has indicated the fact that sense-based mobility
represents the first stage of the development of the
intellect: based on concrete action-related operations
the body attains knowledge that represents the foundation
of the whole of cognitive development. From there derives
a conclusion that stereotypical models of motion limit
the development of intellect. Imposing a defined model of
behavior at the same time represents the infliction of a
defined model of thinking (which means stereotyping and
maiming the mind), but also of interpersonal relations,
the concept of the world and his position towards the
world. This is most clearly expressed in Coubertin's
"utilitarian pedagogy" which represents a
modern Procrustean bed. It should not be forgotten that
"physical education", which dominated in the
20th century, was generated in the grayness of the
military gymnasiums and was, thus, limited to mere
physical drill. Libertarian play represents an integral
part of the overall culture of Man as a universal
freedom-creating being. There is no cultivated body
without a cultural man – there is no free motion
without a free man. The intention of libertarian play is
not to limit and deform Man's instinctive actions through
aggressive exercise, nor to create valves for their
release in the form of violent and destructive behavior,
but to help those actions attain their refined expression
while respecting Man's individual personality. It is,
therefore, not a matter of developing a model of
(physical) motion that should be imposed on Man, but of
encouraging the creation of motions that would enable
each individual to express his own specific and
non-repeatable personality.
Creation and imitation should be distinguished. Like many
other "naturalists", Hebert rejected the
emancipating heritage of the physical culture and reduced
body motion to behavior imitation of the Brazilian
Indians. Instead of humanizing the body and the
body’s motion through the cultural (emancipating)
heritage of modern society, "naturalizing" the
body and its motion occurs through re-introduction of
"primitive" motions which represent spontaneous
expressions of its original naturalness, and are not
limited by any imposed stereotypes that destroy Man's
vitality – as happens with the aristocratic and
Christian physical cultures. What we have here goes for
copying the motions of the Indians, who are reduced to
being "savages", taken out of their original
historical environment (living conditions, hunting, war,
religion, customs...) and are, thus, deprived of their
cultural contents, and reduced to technical motions that
are assigned the dimension of "naturalness".
Man cannot attain his own naturalness by imitating the
motions of animals or those of the natural environment,
but by means of culture, in a word, by means of a
creative activity in which Man’s concrete historical
(social) motion towards another man dominates. Instead of
"melting into nature", where Man loses
individuality, development of humanness, which
corresponds with creative discontent, should be the goal.
Instead of immerging in the existing world, a new one
should be created.
The most immediate form of nature-humanizing is
body-humanizing. Outdoing the capitalist world, dominated
by the dehumanization and denaturalization (robotization)
of Man, requires humanization of Man's natural being
(which at the same time represents his own naturalizing),
in a word, liberation of the body (nature) from the
destructive ruling order, and asserting the humanized
original natural motion aimed at Man within which the
libertarian creative essence of Man is being expressed.
"Immerging in nature" is an illusory opposite
to "technical civilization". What occurs here,
in fact, represents Man's immerging in the existing world
at a "lower" level of civilization – the
way it happens with physical culture of the far East
where Man as an emancipated personality, which, as such,
in his position towards the world, tends to create a new
world in his own human (libertarian and creative) image -
does not exist. "Naturalism" is an off course
in a struggle against the "technical world".
The humanization of natural motion and not naturalizing
of the technical motion is what we are talking about
here. "The liberating transformation of nature"
(Marcuse) requires artistic motion, and therefore a
developed artistic being. Playing a violin does not
merely require attained flexibility of the fingers, hand
and arm (technique of motion), but also a development of
an artistic (creative) being. In that sense flexibility
of the human body requires a creative body: development
of the esthetic feeling represents the basis for
development of sense-based motion. It is a matter of a
natural motion humanized by means of the emancipating
heritage that forms Man's cultural and, thus, his playing
being, and which manifests itself in a relation toward
repressive (destructive) behavioral forms imposed by
"technical civilization". Play becomes the
utmost form of Man’s "embracing" the world
and his most immediate relationship toward his own
natural being, and also toward nature in general. Man
does not "return" to his natural being by means
of play as a specific sphere, but through transforming of
his entire life into a humanized natural life:
"humanization of nature" is achieved through
totalizing the world by means of Man's playing being.
Regarding the relation between play, on one hand, and
science and technology, on the other, we are not
advocating the establishment of parallel spheres, but
bestowing on science and technology an artistic nature
which would enable them to become the means of
humanization of nature and of Man's natural being.
Rousseau's "return to nature" deals with the
notion of a "noble savage" in whose behavior
the principle homo homini homo est dominates, and,
consequently, so does the motion of Man towards another
man. Voltaire ridicules Rousseau and fails to notice that
his "noble savage" has a metaphorical quality
and represents a critique of the distorted aristocratic
world deprived of naturalness and humanness. In the same
way Rousseau and the philanthropists formed their
"alliance" with nature in the struggle against
the ancien régime, contemporary man should form an
"alliance" with nature against capitalism
– only now the struggle is not merely for freedom,
but for survival.
In order to be able to humanize Man's natural being by
means of libertarian (life-creating) play, Man's original
natural motion should be identified and respected.
Libertarian play tends to enable such a passage from
natural toward creative motion as will not cause negative
impact on the development of a personality and become a
source of frustration. This does not mean that Man should
return to the water, but that he should have a notion of
his own original natural motion, of the psychological and
physical consequences deriving from forced adapting of
his system to concrete living conditions (standing
upright, walking on two legs), and he should know what he
must aspire in order to be as close as possible to his
own natural being. It is complete nonsense to assert that
Man was in “unity with nature” a long time ago.
In pre-historical times Man was merely a part of the
nature. In order to merge with nature Man had to become a
man, which means a self-conscious being capable of having
a relation toward nature and, based on this relation, to
merge with it.
His playing skills are the basic expressive option of
Man's playing being, and richness of expressive
possibilities represents the basic precondition of the
esthetic (libertarian). It is grounded in the cultural
heritage of mankind and represents the utmost form of the
refined body motion. In libertarian play skill does not
present itself as independent from Man, from the
(objective) social sphere, but as a form of specific
(individual) human expression. Skill and the way of
playing do not derive from play as a separate social
sphere that possesses its own mechanics of development
and its own rules, but from a spontaneous, creative
relationship between men, where one man is another man's
inspiration for play. In this context the playing skills
developed in sport (giving up the ball, dribbling, etc.)
can be productive. Genuine playing skills require
annulment of the technical sphere as an intermediary in
fulfillment of Man's playing potential, in the context of
annulment of institutional (repressive) intermediation
between men. The range of creative spirituality, opulence
of sensuality and of interpersonal relations based upon
solidarity and tolerance – which means the fullness
of Man's playing being – this represents the basis
of the playing skills and playing manner. Instead of
"motion control technique", body, glance and
vocal conversation should be introduced... The acquiring
of skills through (body) motion control requires
development of human powers, of a rich and unique
individuality, and, thus, the fulfillment of individual
predilections, and not the pushing (destroying) of
humanness into the background and adapting Man to the
"model citizen" pattern. Genuine human motion
is aimed at the whole lot that impedes Man's overcoming
the existing world, that restricts, molds, and degrades
him... Development of playing skills becomes an
expression of the development of Man's universal creative
(playing) powers. This represents the basis for the
development of the creative physical activism that
attains its expression in bodily mobility. Healthiness,
spirituality, harmony of motion – all are comprised
in physical mobility as a supreme spontaneous play of
nerves, muscles, tendons, joints, heart, lungs... Genuine
bodily motion requires a genuine engagement of the
organism. This does not merely mean "the exerting of
a large number of muscles", but a harmonious
activity of the entire system, from whence derives the
"softness" of motion which physical
"elegance". The ideal of harmonious physical
development corresponds to Man's creative universality.
Man's prolific creative life should become the basis for
the development of his playing skills. No free and
contented personality can exist if Man does not liberate
his body and his motion from destructive capitalist
civilization. The supremacy of libertarian and creative
(playing) motion should be established, and this motion
turned towards Man and the living world (nature) that has
no intermediary but represents Man's genuine necessity
for other men. Development of playing skills is being
manifested as openness toward the future, as creation of
novum, and not as "improvement" of the playing
model that represents a ritual expression of
submissiveness to the ruling order, within which Man is
being reduced to a mechanical doll. The most important
task of libertarian play is to enable physical motion,
through the development of Man's artistic being, to
become the playing motion by means of which Man will
attain "unity" with himself as an undivided
creative being, and society will become a playing
community. Schiller's position "education by means
of art is education for art" is one of the most
significant postulates of the libertarian play, for
education by means of libertarian play is education for
the free society. Regarding the universal grammar of
motion (skills), it provides possibilities for
establishing of a comprehensive approach to body
exercise, however, at the same time it enables creation
of an artificial body language which is more of a
technical (strictly defined motions, repetition,
"objectivity" of the form being developed as an
area alienated from Man, space defined in advance...)
than of a cultural nature. Instead of assigning a defined
model of body and motion, which is, in essence, of a
repressive nature, a spontaneous motion which is an
expression of Man's playing being, should be strived for:
richness of motion is conditioned by richness of the
playing personality and by development of interpersonal
relations.
Human motion cannot be perceived merely from a technical
or organic (purely medical) aspect. Not solely the body,
but also Man as a historical and social being plays a
part in the motion. The relations of men with other men,
the world, nature, the future... is comprised in it.
Giving up the ball is not an action of throwing an object
from one position to another that has an
"objective" form and technical character, but
is a humanized (by means of cultural heritage) motion of
one man toward another and, as such, represents
establishing human community in an immediate form. This
is what constitutes its concrete historical (social)
nature and endows it with a "soul". Play is not
an immediate relation of Man to himself, but requires the
existence of a playing community of emancipated, creative
personalities where the motion of Man towards another man
dominates, and where homo homini mirrors humanness.
Therefore, development of interpersonal relations
represents a conditio sine qua non of play. The playing
disposition is a potential human disposition that can be
actualized exclusively within a community of free and
creative personalities. Play is a result but, at the same
time, also a supreme spontaneous form of Man's
self-creation and a supreme mode for generating society
as a community of free people. The spontaneity of play
requires an emancipated personality. If this is lacking,
the effort to express uniqueness leads towards extremism,
narcissism, aggression, destruction... Richness of
personality is a basic precondition for opulence of
interpersonal relations and vice versa. Each new
friendship opens up a new human space inside Man,
develops his sense of humanness, in the same way a
developed esthetic sense provides opportunity for
distinction in music or painting, experiencing and
creation of an abundance of tones, forms and colors. It
is essential to develop a communal spirit while
developing, and not destroying, individuality. The
immediate goal of libertarian play is not to produce
records, improve playing techniques, develop the play as
a normative sphere and create a healthy body, but to
create a healthy society within which creative
personalities will be developed.
Man's need for another is the basic quality of this
life-creating being. Therefore, Man's motion towards
another, as a humanized motion of a live being toward
another live being, represents the essential motion of
Man as a specific natural being, and as such represents
the basis of life-creation. Eros, as a synthesized
live-creating energy, is the most important source of
Man's motion toward another, based upon which life as a
playing act can be developed. Love play between man and
woman is the supreme form of play where the unrestricted
playing being is expressed, in other words:
"production" of humanness in the most immediate
form. It represents the supreme form of humanization of
Man's natural being. Life-creativeness represents the
essence of erotic union with the nature and basis of
erotic play. Without it, enjoyment in the erotic
relationship is compensational, which means of an
adaptive nature. Already in antiquity, in the homosexual
(pedophilic) relationship, sterilization of Man's
(society's) life-creating ability occurred, by means of
partition of the erotic from the naturally reproductive
(fertile). In the homosexual relationship Eros loses its
life-creative disposition and turns into an
anti-existential principle. Narcissistic, homosexual and
lesbian Eros represent a clash with Man's natural
life-creativeness and, therefore, with the likelihood of
the erotic as a humanized natural relationship. The
option of love play as the life-creating play between
genders is being abolished, and the life-creating sexual
relation is being reduced to technical fertilization of
women – to technical production of children.
Play as a form
Philosophy of the play does not make a clear distinction
between Man's playing nature, playing and play. Play is a
form in which playing occurs and, as such, the way of
manifestating Man's playing being. A distinction should
be made between playing as fulfillment of Man's playing
being (playing act) and play as behavior in accordance
with the imposed norms. Play as a normative constraint
has no tendency toward the improvement of Man and of
interpersonal relations, but tends to reduce
("discipline") him to the model of a usable
citizen (subject). It is a matter of endeavoring to
preserve the ruling order and to reduce Man to the
"dimension" which corresponds to that order.
The ruling historical forms of play are behavioral forms
deprived of humane (playing) contents, alienated from
man. They are reduced to a behavioral model that is in
fact a form of play in which the ruling relations are
being manifested. Playing is reduced to the endeavor most
consistently to imitate the assigned model of play, of
which the rules should not be violated at any cost.
Therefore, the play's "unchangeableness"
becomes its crucial feature. The ideal of
"perfection", by means of which
"cultural" legitimacy and an infinity of the
ruling forms of play are provided, is reduced to the
complete submission of Man to the rules of play, as well
as to the imposed esthetic pattern – which
represents the "stage set" of the ruling order.
Man's longing for another is being mediated by relations
that estrange Man from other human beings and reduce him
to the role imposed on him. A typical example is the
"sport play": it becomes a mechanism by means
of which Man is made to express other men's non-liberty.
The intellectual sphere cannot be Man's compensation for
the senseless life he lives, in the same way the love
song cannot be a substitute for a lack of human
closeness. Instead of endeavoring to define the notion of
genuine life, which always occurs as a response to false
life, the genuine human life should be lived.
Libertarian play does not strive for the creation of new
forms of play, in a word, for assigning a normative
constraint, but for the development of Man's playing
being. Specificity and irreplicability, which derive from
the specificity and irreplicability of Man as a creative
personality, dominate. Instead of the development of play
as a separate social area, we should have a propensity
for development of the playing disposition "inside
Man" and, on that basis, for establishing society as
a playing community, where (potentially) each form of
human activity represents at the same time a form of
expression of his playing being. Libertarian play
endeavors to annul the fragmented man that has been
decomposed in accordance with the requirements of the
fragmented world, where the requirement of
"synthesis" is reduced to the development of
technical expressions that should impress with a
lavishness of color, sound and form and become a
"compensation" for an increasingly impoverished
humanness. It is a matter of superseding the world
divided into the world of "misfortune" and the
world of “happiness”, and a matter of
"restitution" of Man's powers from alienated
social spheres and of establishing the human Ego as an
integral source of Man's relations toward the world as
whole.
The form libertarian play does not represent a
limitation, but an opening of possibilities for
development of Man's playing nature and in that sense
only one of the expressions of his creative nature: the
development of forms of play is an expression of the
development of Man's creative (playing) powers. It is not
an issue of the form as an imposed pattern of behavior,
and in that sense an ideal of "perfection", but
of the form as a spontaneous and non-replicable
expression of the specific moment in the Manifestation of
Man as playing being which is symbolic of the libertarian
and visionary. The "encounter" of men by means
of the pure (esthetic) forms is a clash between soap
bubbles. In a repressive society play as a form
represents a repressive normative confinement that
impedes the fulfillment of Man's authentic playing being.
The endeavor to get through to the essence of humanness
and to "catch" it by fixing human existence at
the level of certain forms, structures, spiritual
formations – inevitably leads toward preservation of
the world in which such forms and structures are
possible. The expression of play has to be of such a
nature as to enable Man to realize his own playing being.
Genuine creativity does not go for the creation of
playing forms, but for the enrichment of the human
personality and development of interpersonal relations.
Play is neither a transcendental nor a trans-subjective,
but an immanent and inter-subjective phenomenon: it is an
immediate interpersonal relation and, as such, represents
the supreme form of establishing a society as a community
of free persons, in a word, the creation of the humanum
in the untainted sense. Commitment to play means a
struggle for the fulfillment of Man's necessities and
abilities for play, and not just becoming skilled and
imitating the imposed model of play – which appears
as the "supreme human challenge". Instead of
play as "cultural form" representing the basic
possibility of playing, there is Man as a cultural
(playful) being: the authenticity of play is the
expression of the authenticity of Man. Play is not a
criterion for determining a playing disposition and
playing, reduced to the transcendental normative form,
but the free realization of human playing (universally
creative) powers. Play is the supreme and the most
immediate form of experiencing the world through creating
it, which means that it represents the most immediate and
the most authentic form of Man's becoming human. In
genuine play the dualism of the “being” (Sein)
and the “ought” (Sollen) has been dissolved.
Nothing is earlier than Man, above Man or exterior to
Man. The so called "universally human" does not
exist outside of Man any more (as an imposed or
transcendental sphere); it is no longer the image of the
"man" for which Man longs and exclusively
within which he can distinguish "his own (human)
look" – but Man as a free and dignified person
becomes the creator and the "image" of
humanness. Instead of the "perfection" model,
the free man becomes a source of the esthetic
inspiration: freedom is the substance of beauty. Schiller
indicated the correct path: instinct for play is the
instinct for freedom. Playing turns into the awakening of
the lethargic (deterred) playing being,
"enlivening" the senses, surmounting anxiety
and shedding the snakeskin of the (petit) bourgeois.
Instead of giving vent to the deterred being, spontaneity
in play requires breaking through the barriers that
constrain Man. What develops the playing disposition is
not play per se, but humanness that developes as Man
faces limitations, misfortune, and challenges imposed by
life. A rich creative life is the basic precondition for
the development and enhancement of the playing being.
Genuine play is the expression of an extended horizon of
the freedom achieved, an expression of enthusiasm for
life, the supreme form of manifestation of Man's
life-creating powers. Enjoyment in play derives from
contentment with the engagement of life; interpersonal
closeness in play is possible exclusively because of the
closeness acquired in the process of struggle for a new
world: Man's motion toward another at the same time
represents Man's motion toward new worlds. The actual
result of playing is not play, but Man enriched with
spirit, emotions, sensuality, and enhanced interpersonal
relations. The completed experience of humanness
represents the "measure" of the richness of
playing.
Libertarian play rejects a competition reduced to combat
between people aimed at preservation and development of
the ruling order, and advocates outplaying (similar to
"outsinging" typical of traditional folk music)
that in essence represents struggle against the
established order of destruction and development of Man's
universal creative powers. In outplaying, Man represents
another man's inspiration, which means that Man's motion
toward another is dominant in it – which is possible
exclusively based on Man's need for another. In this
context Rousseau's principle homo homini homo est attains
its true value. Outplaying requires endeavoring to
supersede what has already been achieved (for creation of
the novum) through the development of interpersonal
relations, and not through clashes between people based
upon the socio-Darwinist principle bellum omnium contra
omnes and the progressistic principle citius, altius,
fortius. The principles of domination and elimination
have been abolished within it and replaced by the
principles of tolerance and solidarity, and all that
creates life opposes whatever destroys life and restricts
freedom. Instead of striving for victory and records,
outplaying calls for an attempt to "enlarge"
humanness and to create a new world. The key issue here
is not how much, but by what means – where the
starting point for defining humanness is not the
repressive esthetic stereotype that tends toward
"perfection", but Man himself. Development of
the "quality" of play requires development of
rich individuality and of interpersonal relations. In
this context, the skills are not manifested in relation
to Man as an independent ("objectivized") power
(reduced to a dehumanized and denaturalized "playing
technique"), but as specific (individual) human
expression. Outplaying in the elements of play, where
playing of one individual represents inspiration for the
playing of another (like in traditional folk dances,
jazz, love play...) creates the possibility for everyone
freely to express his own playing being. Spontaneity,
creativity, imagination – are expressions of the
playing uniqueness, as an originally human uniqueness.
A distinction should be made between Man as play being,
and Man as playing being. In the first case he represents
an object, while play is the subject; in the second case
he is the subject, and play is a result of the
fulfillment of his playing being. Huizinga's homo ludens
is not Man-player but Man-toy of superhuman forces. It is
exactly the same with antique and Christian man, as well
as with Nietzsche's Übermensch: he is a toy of the
cosmic forces. With Fink and Gadamer the notion of play
is being used to reduce Man to a phenomenological
abstraction which is merely a masque behind which the
concrete man, reduced to a toy of capitalism, is hiding.
The emancipated playing personality requires a man as a
unique life-creating being, and as such a creator of his
world – and, thus, a self-creator. Through playing,
the playing disposition turns into play that becomes the
basis for identification of the limitations of playing
and of the possibilities of its development.
In the capitalist world play is a vehicle for entangling
the repressed working "masses" into the
spiritual orbit of the bourgeoisie and, therefore,
attains a "classless” determination –
which is manifested in the well-known maxim "sport
has nothing to do with politics". Libertarian play
is not apolitical, but represents an inherent part of
political struggle against class society. As regards
Nietzsche, he perceives in play a vehicle for the
creation of a "new aristocracy" in an exclusive
organic (class) community. It is, instead, an issue of
creating an organic community of free creative
personalities by means of play. The new society cannot be
created through play but through political struggle,
however, there is no true political struggle if, at the
same time, it does not represent a struggle for the
liberation and development of Man's playing being.
Schiller's fascination with play was directly encouraged
by the French Revolution, which opened the gates for the
new era. Likewise with Goethe, Klopstock, Fait... The
struggle of the repressed and the awakened and, in that
context, the belief in Man and in his ability to realize
his libertarian being, provide play with a meaning.
Without the struggle for the free world play becomes
escapist and an empty form.
Play as a cosmic phenomenon
Play is a specific cosmic phenomenon. It is the most
authentic human way of creating the human world, which
means creating the new universe. In the act of playing,
the process of cosmic life-creation attains a new quality
– in which the specificity of Man as a cosmic being
is expressed. In ancient Greece play is the basic cosmic
phenomenon of a divine (metaphoric) nature and, as such,
represents a symbolic incarnation of the ruling relations
and values. It is the most original way for Man to
integrate into the cosmic order. Man is the toy of the
gods, and the world is their playground: the divine
necessity for playing ensures survival of the human world
and provides it with a meaning. Modern man is an
emancipated cosmic being and, as such, the
"nucleus" of the new universe. When Man becomes
a self-conscious libertarian being, play stops being a
privilege of the gods and the instrument for devaluing
Man, and turns into Man's self-creation and the creation
of the human universe. The essence of play is not
determinism, which is fatalist in nature, but freedom.
A stance regarding the universe is a projection of the
stance regarding the earthly living environment. In the
contemporary world the prevailing stance regarding space
(universe) is based upon the expansionist spirit of
capitalism. By means of instrumentalized science and
technology a "break" into the universe is going
on in order to "conquer" it. Capitalistically
degenerated science has the same stance regarding the
universe as it has regarding the Earth: the universe has
been reduced to an object of exploitation. The position
of the "extraterrestrials" towards the Earth is
a projection of capitalistically degenerated man's
attitude towards the universe. Technology, based upon the
quantity principle that corresponds to the ruling
principle of capitalist reproduction (augmenting of
profit), turns into the destruction of human
life-creativeness as a specific form of cosmic
life-creativeness. "Conquering the universe"
becomes a vehicle for obtaining a legitimacy in the
endeavor to supersede "traditional humankind"
and to create the new (master) race of
"cyborgs" that will be able to
"compete" with the "intelligent
machines" and to "conquer" the universe.
At the same time, the myth of the "conquest of the
universe" is being used for preservation of the myth
of the "progressive nature" of capitalism,
which is being identified with the conquest, and for
creation of an illusion that technological development
would ensure the survival of mankind. The way the
Europeans were "discovering" the new
continents, contemporary man will be “discovering
the new worlds and populating them”. The Earth turns
into a springboard for the conquest of space, and not
into Man's cosmic home that needs to be preserved. The
"conquest of space" project is based upon an
assertion that the Earth will "certainly
collapse", which contributes to a fatalistic
surrender to destructive capitalist craving. The
possibility that capitalism will destroy life on Earth is
far more certain than the possibility that life on Earth
will disappear – in five or ten million years. It is
an issue that opens, by way of a cosmologic concept, the
possibility of establishing a critical distance from the
ruling order of destruction and toward creation of the
new world: the stance toward the universe should function
as a defense of life on Earth and of the development of
humanness. The issue of the survival of humankind will be
resolved on Earth, and not in space. Instead of
"conquering of space" a clash with capitalism
must take place in order to prevent the destruction of
life on Earth.
The prevailing position toward reality, dictated by
dehumanized science and technology, does not permit Man
to comprehend the essence of his own human existence,
and, therefore, the essence of the world he lives in, and
the essence of the universe. Ancient peoples were closer
to the cosmic essence of Man than the contemporary
(petit) bourgeois, for they were, in spite of ignorance,
prejudices, mythical consciousness – guided by
symbols of a holistic nature: for them the issue of the
universe was the issue of Man. Contemporary Man possesses
an incomparably wider knowledge, however, the way and
manner of attaining this knowledge deprive him of
comprehensive humanness without which he can neither ask
the right questions nor provide the right answers. The
more Man knows about the universe, the more remote is the
possibility for him to experience his own cosmic essence.
Instead of human questions, Man asks technical ones
imposed on him by capitalistically degenerated science
and technology – which mutilate Man and annihilate
the possibility for him to ask the significant human
questions. Also, "primitive" man was conscious
of what freedom and slavery were, in contrast to the
"average" modern (petit) bourgeois who, being
stuck in the nothingness of "consumer society"
and the television screen that offers compensation in the
form of an illusory world, has lost the notion of
freedom. Capitalism deprives Man of his natural cultural
being and transforms him into a technical vehicle for the
employment of assets – a walking mechanical corpse.
Development of Man as a cosmic being is not possible on
the basis of (mechanical) cosmic rules or by means of
technical control of time and space, for they transform
Man into a mechanical (lifeless) "being", but
only by means of a quality that provides a possibility
for a "union" with the universe – in which
the cosmic essence of Man is included. The universe that
is being created by Man is not comparable with the
vastness of the cosmos. It has a qualitative, not a
quantitative, dimension. Man's attitude toward the
universe, which means his attitude toward himself as a
cosmic being, can not be established by means of
technology, but by means of the esthetic that can enable
Man to supersede the quantitative dimension of the
universe and reach (his own) cosmic essence. It is an
issue of relating to the universe by means of symbols
that enable Man, as a life-creating being, to experience
the universe. By means of those symbols the phenomenal
form of the universe can be superseded and his very
essence can be reached – by means of which a dualism
of the earthly and the cosmic existence of Man is being
abolished. In that context a possibility is being created
for the notion of "God" as the one, which
supersedes the infinite quantum of the universe (the
endless lot), where it is not an issue of "God"
as a superhuman force, but of "God" as a
constantly new, increasingly splendid product of the
creative powers of Man that represents a symbolic
incarnation of the "unity" of man with his own
cosmic essence. "God" becomes Man's host in his
own cosmic home. A new clarification of the notion of
"God the Son" is needed: Man's life-creating
power represents an autonomous cosmic force that enables
Man – as a unique libertarian being - to be a
creator of his own, which means of the new universe.
Man's "conquest of outer space" is being
achieved through development of his playing being. This
is an issue of a specific human cosmic dimension –
creative freedom and sociable disposition – which
means, it is of a new cosmic quality upon which space and
time, that have no quantitative dimension, are based. In
the physical universe, the passage of mechanical time is
measured by movement through space; in the human
universe, the passage of historical time is measured by
the development of Man's creative powers, and eventually
by his freedom. The physical universe is regulated by
relations between celestial bodies (particles): the human
universe is regulated by relations between human
beings... Physical time is characterized by quantitative
(linear) temporality: historical time is characterized by
qualitative changes, which means by sudden rises. Human
existence represents opposition to the cosmic laws of
motion which destroy quality and reduce everything to the
lowest (energy related) level (entropy). The cosmic
life-creativeness is fatalistic: all that is being
originated eventually disappears. Human life-creativeness
is productive: all that Man creates becomes a (potential)
basis for creation of the new. Solely Man is capable of
creating something new, of being the demiurge of the new
world.
Man will not "enter" the universe through a
hole bored by a science alienated from him. Telescopes
and space sounds do not direct Man toward his cosmic
being; play does: the development of Man's playing being
is a path that leads toward the development of his cosmic
being. The key is not in the "conquest" of
cosmic vastness, but in the development of spiritual
richness and of interpersonal relations. It is an issue
of "transformation" of the outer quantity into
a human quality, of a "metamorphosis" of
physical space through a widening of human space, which
is not attained by means of technology, but by means of
play. Cosmic space merely appears to be open. The
openness of cosmic space is preconditioned by the
openness of Man, which means by the development of his
creative powers. Fullness of Man's creative being is what
fills the cosmic vastness. A thought, a song, a painting,
an embrace – tell more about the essence of Man as a
specific cosmic being than do all the "space
programs" combined. Finally, Man's stance toward the
universe is a depiction of his stance toward his own
self. The issue of infinity should be resolved in a
manner that provides possibilities for Man's
self-confirmation as a life-creating being. Man's
unlimited creative powers are the "measure" of
infinity: the enhancement of humanness represents
widening of the boundaries of the new universe. The
essence of the physical universe is determinism; the
essence of the human universe is freedom. By means of
freedom infinity attains an authentic, in a word, a human
dimension. The occurrence of Man is the only truly cosmic
occurrence; Man's becoming human is the only truly cosmic
process.
Life as a play
In ancient Greece, the entire life of the Hellenic people
was filled with agonic activities performed as a ritual
service. It is a similar case with Christianity and other
"great" religions: life is of a liturgical
nature. In capitalism, the spirit of victory, based upon
social Darwinism and progress (elimination by means of
triumph that attains a better result/record), represents
a totalizing power that conditions Man's life, the nature
of the body, of motion. The "Sportivization" of
society is a process by which the total domination of Man
by the ruling order is established.
Not only play, but also the very approach to it is being
dehumanized. "Bewilderment" dominates this
development, for play as a form is being mediated by
dehumanized and denaturalized spheres to such an extent
that it is becoming a vehicle for the degeneration and
destruction of humanness. Time, space, technical means...
have been instrumentalized in it. Man is always present
in a defined (assigned) time and space where the dynamics
of the destruction of humanness (life) become more and
more intense behind a masque of "elegance",
"clarity", "functionality",
"efficiency", "precision",
"harmony", etc., in a word, through a
spectacular act that makes the basic values of the ruling
order non-esthetic (non-erotic). Where, in the
contemporary world, the authentic position of humanness
is given, Man appears as a fly in the spider’s web.
Aspiring toward genuine play is not a theoretical
project, but an issue of concrete political struggle. It
requires the development of critical consciousness about
the existing world – perception of the objective
possibilities for creation of a new world and for
development of the playing self-consciousness as a
libertarian and creative self-consciousness;
demystification of the present serves as an area where
people will discover joy; development of interpersonal
relations, of the artistic disposition, orientation
toward nature, toward the emancipating heritage of
humankind, development of the visionary consciousness...
Instead of play as a form, the objective aspired to
should be liberation of Man's playing being; instead of a
tendency toward escapism and "distraction", the
key motif of the player should be Man's life-creating
necessity for another human being. Development of
spontaneity does not require development of a normative
consciousness, but rather the development of
comprehensive humanness. Liberation of Man's playing
being is the most important immediate task of libertarian
play. This represents its specificity, as a form of
libertarian struggle, compared to other forms of
struggle. Freedom is a reasonable desire, and the
awareness of a necessity is an indispensable, but
insufficient, precondition for freedom. Genuine freedom
does not consist of the possibility of choice between
what Man can and cannot do, but between what he can
– and wants or does not want to do. It is not based
upon knowledge of the world, but upon the experience of
Man.
The endeavor to create genuine play is not an expression
of the hope to establish a separate social sphere that
exists "parallel" to the "world of
worry" (like Fink's "oasis of happiness"),
where Man will futilely try to fulfill his playing needs
and powers, but is rather an expression of the endeavor
to create a truly human world where life itself
represents the realization of Man's playing being. A
critique of established play (world) is not the
expression of an aspiration for "free play",
but of an aspiration for life that manifests itself as
the fulfillment of the universal creative (playing)
powers of Man as an emancipated member of the human
community. For libertarian physical culture play is not a
separate area of life, but represents the entirety of
human living within which Man strives to realize himself
as a playing (libertarian/creative) being. Since living
is understood as a series of interpersonal relationships,
we are referring here to a totalizing man who interacts
with other people proceeding not from separate areas of
life (work, science, philosophy, play...) but from
fundamental humanness: Man's life-creating need for
another human being represents the basis of Man's motion
toward another man. Life as play requires the abolishment
of Man's duality as a social being and a
"player", which means that Man, as a concrete
social being, has realized his own playing being –
which represents his original social being. The playing
sensitivity is the supreme form of the realization of the
sense of humanness, that is, Man's ultimate and most
complex ability to experience another human being. It
requires not only a creative body, but also a creative
(life-creative) motion. The self-production of Man as a
playing being is the highest human act and requires the
(self-)production of the society as a community of free
creative personalities. Man's need for another human
being, from where derives Man's original playing motion
toward another man, represents a genuine motif for play
and the authentic basis for establishing of a society as
a human community: homo homini is a mirror of humanness.
The significance of playing is not in the production of
objectivity or form, but in the immediate development of
humanness. The abundance of playing forms becomes the
opulence of genuine interpersonal relations. By means of
playing Man’s creative being is fulfilled in such a
way that a need for artistic expression, as a
compensation for non-expressed (non-fulfilled) humanness,
is superseded. From the sphere of production of works of
art by isolated individuals, who discharge their own
desire for humanness through their works, play
establishes the immediate relations between people,
within which the opulence of Man’s playing
(creative) being is realized. Play, as an interpersonal
relationship, requires an emancipated man for whom
“the freedom of each represents the basic
precondition for the freedom of all” (Marx). This
does not refer to people who know what
“freedom” signifies, but to those who
experience other people as their brothers, in every sense
of the word. Play is the supreme form of performing
humanness – the utmost human act of which the
immediate result is a contented man. The attempt to
preserve “humanness” in a form of normative
confinement, or artistic form, is an expression of
disbelief that freedom is possible at all. Replacement of
the “imperfect” normative consciousness with a
“perfect” one does not imply the creation of
the “perfect” man. The normative sphere is not
the one that should be changed. The sphere of fundamental
interpersonal relations, that is, the ruling order,
should be changed.
In the world that turned out to be fulfilled humanness it
is futile to establish normative criteria upon which
human existence is to be determined. In it, there is no
more dualism of approach to Man in which the real and the
ideal world are contained, which means that a model of
man – a projection of life alienated from Man, has
been abolished. In a society where Man is genuinely happy
it is absolute nonsense to determine the ideal of
“happiness”: life itself becomes the fruition
of the ideal of humanness. In the same way, the
“esthetic sphere” which counters the
non-esthetic (ugly) world, is being abolished. Instead of
the endeavor for “perfection”, that is for a
constrained world, development of unconstrained humanness
becomes the supreme challenge. This requires the
abolition of separate spheres, including the sphere
within which the novum is sought. For libertarian play
homo homini represents the supreme challenge and is, as
such, a mirror of humanness, and not an idealized
(abstracted) “man” that represents an
incarnation of the “future” society for which
struggle is waged. Therefore, not an aspiration towards
“the future” as an abstraction, not even as a
real utopian project that confronts the existing world on
an intellectual level and turns into a certain normative
idea of the future, but the life-creating necessity of
one man for another, that is being developed as a
response to an increasingly dramatic destruction of life,
becomes the basis of creative life that represents the
creation of the future. In play, what Man can be is being
fulfilled: Man’s becoming a human being is the
criterion of genuine progress. Only when the development
of his playing being becomes the “measure” of
humanness will the real development of Man’s
universal creative powers occur – the one that today
we can merely fortell. The “tenseness” of which
Marcuse speaks, will always exist, for Man will always
strive to be more than he is, for he will always have a
critical/transformation-aspiring attitude toward the
world in which he lives trying to create a new, better
one. However, the nature of this “tenseness”
will be conditioned by fulfillment of two key
preconditions of freedom: freedom from natural imminence
(natural forces overcome) and freedom of man from man
(abolition of class society and of exploitation). The
third precondition for freedom still remains, liberation
of Man’s universal creative powers – which will
dominate in the future society and which requires
humanization of nature and development of interpersonal
relations. “Tenseness” in play does not result
from the development of the theoretical mind, but from
Man’s endeavor to realize his own freedom and his
own creative universality – through the superseding
of forms of play in which limitations imposed on Man by
the existing order are manifested. Aspiration toward
play, in its essence, represents endeavor for the free
expression of humanness, basically, it is the supreme
form of determination for being Man – creation of
humanum in an elemental form. Freedom, creativity,
humanized naturalness and sociability – these are
the characteristics of playing, in a word of playing and
of play. Man’s authentic nature is a genuine origin
of authentic play.
With the introduction of automation, conditions are being
established for abolishing repressive and degenerating
work-related activities, and for instituting creative
work that offers opportunities for the development of
Man’s playing being and, thus, possibilities for
refinement of Man’s natural being. On the basis of
creative work, which can only result from libertarian
struggle, and cannot represent a mere consequence of the
development of technical processes, division of work
between intellectual and physical, as well
“private” and “public” zoning, in a
word, the institutionalized political powers alienated
from Man - can be eventually abolished. When the rule of
creative work is instated the most important causation
for dual perception of the world as the “world of
worries” (labor, suffering, misfortune), and the
“world of happiness” (illusory
“play”) disappears. Work becomes not only the
“primary life necessity” (Marx), but also the
primary human necessity, and play ceases to be a
compensatory activity and becomes the supreme form of
Man’s spontaneous creative self-realization and the
supreme form of interpersonal closeness. Only when work
stops being an activity where man is alienated from
himself as a creative and libertarian being; when the
dualism of homo faber and homo ludens is abolished with a
creative man; when creative work becomes affirmation of
human freedom: only then can Man’s playing being be
liberated from all forms of compulsions – only then
does true play become possible. It is an issue of the
attainment of “unity” between the playing
being, playing and play – in a free, spontaneous and
creative endeavor, that is, of play as a realization of
the playing disposition through a creative effort –
through comprehensive self-creation of Man (human
community). With creative work Man renders not only his
own existence, but at the same time generates himself as
a creative and social being. Creative collectivism
represents the basis of playing collectivism.
Instead of the martial contests that dominate sport,
life-creating competition should be introduced, based
upon outplaying, where there are no winners and no
vanquished, and where a physically, emotionally,
spiritually and intellectually enriched man is being
created. A consequence of outplaying is not the removal
of the “weak” and the triumph of the
“strong”, but a humanized man, an individual
who experiences his own self in his own way, developing
his own individuality. Instead of immerging inside
himself, Man should aspire toward the enrichment of the
contents of interpersonal relations. This is exactly
where the apex of the genuine life creating practice that
generates a society as a human community is being
manifested – with Man’s turning into a human
being. Life as play means that creation of interpersonal
relations is the supreme manifestation of the playing
disposition: Man’s social being becomes his
fulfilled playing being. Play represents the making of
the society as a playing community in the most immediate
sense, which means that living becomes an artistic act,
and life a work of art. The joy of creative fulfillment,
attaining true respect through companionship (playing) is
manifested in an attitude toward “ecstasy”
which is, in the existing world, the supreme form of
exhibition of slavery as an imitation of
“spontaneity”. Physical and spiritual activism,
without which no play exists, requires creative effort:
creative activism determines the rhythm of play. It is
aimed at establishing and developing interpersonal
relations and represents the basis for attaining (self)
respect. Play turns into midwife skills – delivering
humanness through creative labor, that is, through the
most immediate form of Man’s self-creation. The
specificity of play as creativeness is in its being based
upon Man’s spontaneous, unconditioned and unmediated
necessity for another human being. Genuine play is based
upon authentic love developed in a creative (libertarian)
exaltation, unlike petit bourgeois love which originates
in the context of struggle for money and power where,
rather than human symbols, status symbols which incarnate
prevailing values are dominant. The development of a
necessity for Man, true belief in Man, opening new
spiritual spaces, development of creative personality
– these are all inducements for genuine play. Homo
homini becomes the supreme challenge, instead of being
reduced to a vehicle for fulfillment of pathological
“needs” imposed by capitalist civilization. The
experiencing of Man always reappears as an option of the
new, more complete, more beautiful… Human nearness
becomes the source of life’s warmth. Co-living has
no temporal and spatial dimension, only a human one.
Instead of being an escape from nothingness, play becomes
an eruption of unrestrained humanness.
Through playing, the world is being abolished as
outer-human reality and becomes Man's self-existence. The
variety of the outer world forms is not a challenge
anymore but is being replaced by the opulence of the
inner, the interpersonal... The world is what Man carries
inside himself and what he can establish together with
other people. Authentic creativeness is
"transformation" of the outer world into an
experience of human intensity, happiness... Instead of
the world of misfortune as a negative basis for play,
which is, therefore, an expression of a hopeless attempt
to escape from the society, the world of happy people
will become the ground and inspiration for the
development of a rich playing personality. Genuine play
is not merely Man's supreme intellectual relation with
the world; it does not only represent Man's
self-knowledge and self-expression, but also his
self-creation, and is, as such, the most comprehensive
form of experiencing the world. No more will Man live in
a world he refers to as something (im)posed and
outer-human (alien). Instead, he will perceive the world
as his own creation, in a word, as his manifested (and
not "infested") humanness. This is not an issue
of simulated totalizing of the world by means of simple
subjectivism, as is the case with romanticism, but of
totalizing the libertarian/creative activism of which the
main "product" is a society as a community of
free people. Playing becomes the supreme form of
"appropriation" of the world by Man, which
eventually represents the "appropriation" of
himself with "no residue". Man will not attain
"unity" with the world through labor,
technology, play, art... – but will make the world:
creation of the world will become Man's self-creation;
"unity with the world" will become
"unity" of Man with another human being. The
development of Man as a universal free creative being and
the enhancement of interpersonal relations will become
the "measure" of development of the world. Life
itself will become the supreme symbol of humanness.
In the world of freedom the real value will be attributed
to poetic expression, which will also imply the
body-talk. In that sense, not language, but play becomes
the supreme form of establishing human society. Instead
of living the life of the chosen, as it is with
Nietzsche, the acme of life will represent living life as
free, creative people; instead of the aristocratic class
as an organic community united by parasitism and by
existential fear of the laborers, the supreme challenge
will be the society as an organic community of free
creative personalities; instead of the need to suppress
repressive normative confinement and the repressive
esthetic canons (by means of which the elitist class
status is determined), Man's need for the other as a
physical and spiritual being will dominate; instead of
the child's subordination to repressive normative
stereotypes, the child's education by means of living
life as free creative personalities will become the basic
pedagogical principle... It is an issue of superseding
the "fragmentized" and of attaining the
"synthetic" man who represents a unity of
Apollonian and Dionysian, that will not represent a
privilege of the "new nobility", as it is with
Nietzsche, but the basic human right.
Man has nowhere to return to. He has to build the home
that he never really possessed. In pre-Socratic times Man
did not exist in his own world, but in the world of gods
who temporarily assigned him their own powers so that he
could entertain them. In contrast to antiquity, where Man
could not be at one with being, in the world of today
possibilities exist for Man to reach being. Man's
becoming a human being and the creation of being
represent the same process: Man's self-creation becomes
the self-creation of being. True history will begin when
Man's playing being becomes the indisputable source of
his own life. In the beginning there was play.