Homo ludens

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The Homo ludens [ ˈhɔmoː ˈluːdeːns ] ( Latin homō lūdēns' , dt. The playing person) is an explanatory model according to which people develop their cultural abilities primarily through play : people discover their individual characteristics in play and are made through those made in the process Experiences with the personality inherent in him. The game makes it possible to experience the constraints of the outer world and to transcend them at the same time. Imaginative play serves as a portrayal of inner experience from an early age. Fairy tales are also a form of mental game. In the narrative "game", people add the dimension of an imaginative finding of meaning to their pragmatic experiences. In this respect, Homo ludens is an anthropological counter-term to Homo faber .

Origin of the term

The term Homo ludens , to identify the game as a basic category of human behavior, became known in the first half of the twentieth century mainly through the title of the book of the same name by Johan Huizinga (1938/39), in which the game played a role in forming culture Factor emphasizes and has shown that our cultural systems such as politics , science , religion , law etc. originally developed out of playful behavior ( self-organization ) and have been institutionally solidified over time through ritualizations . The game becomes "holy seriousness", and once the rules have been properly "established" they can no longer be easily changed and in turn begin to take on a compulsory character.

With his name, Huizinga chose a term that contrasts with the typification of Homo faber (anthropology) used by Max Scheler in philosophical anthropology since 1928 , which Max Frisch took over as the title for his hit novel Homo faber in 1957 . In contrast to the "playing people", this marked the "working, handicraft people". The more economic orientation of human activity, on the other hand, is emphasized by the term Homo oeconomicus , which was first used in the Latin form in 1906 by Vilfredo Pareto .

Homo ludens and Homo faber

For the game scientists Siegbert A. Warwitz and Anita Rudolf, the terms homo ludens and homo faber emphasize two different dimensions of world appropriation. Children and adults alike find an understanding of their identity through the coincidences and possibilities of self-sufficient, purposeless and imaginative play. The pedagogue Johannes Merkel also understands early childhood play as a “language of the inner world” - similar to storytelling, fantasizing and dreaming: In play, children and adults alike process the experience that individual psychological inner world and social outer world diverge. The concept of homo faber , on the other hand, underlines the cultural practice of using a purposeful, systematically structured game for learning and for gaining experience. Homo faber uses explicit educational games for this purpose (see also game science , children's games ).

Other representatives of the concept

In his letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Friedrich Schiller emphasized the importance of play and spoke out against the specialization and mechanization of life processes. According to Schiller, play is a human achievement which alone is able to bring out the holistic nature of human abilities. Schiller also coined the now famous sentence : "People only play where they are in the full meaning of the word human, and they are only fully human when they play."

A similar criticism of Schiller's reduction in the way of life was ultimately also exercised by Herbert Marcuse in his work The One-Dimensional Man , published in 1967 , in which he criticized the limitation of the way of life and culture that went hand in hand with the predominance of “ instrumental reason ” in industrial societies, which had no place leave more for wholeness, personality development and autonomous self-development. Similar to Friedrich Schiller, Herbert Marcuse therefore considers a return to the aesthetic and playful to be desirable in order to create a free space for human activity according to self-chosen rules and for their own sake, against the omnipresent constraints.

Artists such as Asger Jorn (1914–1973) and the Situationist International also represented such approaches.

Potential of the game

In summary it can be said that the game is a fundamental human activity that releases creativity and - in competition - energy and strength. The game thus has the potential to break through solidified structures and generate innovation . That is why playful elements are also included in many creativity techniques and modern management training courses aimed at generating new, creative and innovative results. One speaks of a ludic turn in media theory, which is characterized by the dominance of game applications on the computer, and of ludic innovation behavior . The game seems to be a human activity that is able to change the elements of a situation in such a way that new and unknown arise and solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems can be found. According to Huizinga, play also serves to dissipate affects . He stands in the tradition of the Aristotelian doctrine of catharsis . The origin of sport in play as something originally human and sport as a more recent invention that did not develop from old games is controversial.

See also

literature

  • Friedrich Schiller (author), Klaus L. Berghahn (ed.): About the aesthetic education of man in a series of letters . Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-018062-4 (EA Tübingen 1795).
  • Johan Huizinga (Author), Andreas Flitner (Ed.): Homo ludens. On the origin of culture in play (“Homo ludens”, 1939). Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2009, ISBN 978-3-499-55435-3 .
  • Michael Kolb: Play as a Phenomenon - The Play Phenomenon . Cologne 1990
  • Herbert Marcuse: The one-dimensional person. Studies on the ideology of advanced industrial society (“The one-dimensional man”, 1964). 5th edition, dtv, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-34084-3 .
  • Johannes Merkel: Playing, storytelling, fantasizing. The language of the inner world . Antje Kunstmann Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 978-3-88897-238-6 .
  • Constant Nieuwenhuys : Play or Kill. The revolt of Homo Ludens . Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1971. ISBN 3-7857-0074-1 . (Title of the original edition: Opstand van de Homo Ludens published by Uitgeverij Paul Brand, Hilversum, Netherlands.)
  • Volkmar Hansen, Sabine Jung (ed.): Homo Ludens. The person playing . AsKI eV , Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-930370-07-7 (catalog for the joint exhibition 2003/2004 of the working group of independent cultural institutes).
  • Hugo Rahner : The playing person (Christ today / 2; Vol. 8). 11th edition, Johannes-Verlag, Einsiedeln 2008, ISBN 3-89411-194-1 (EA Einsiedeln 1952).
  • Robert Pfaller : The Illusions of Others. About the pleasure principle in culture. 2nd edition, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-12279-2 .
  • Horst Bredekamp : The immunity of football. A feat . In: Helga Rauff (Ed.): Playing between intoxication and rules . Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit 2005, ISBN 3-7757-1565-7 , pages 44-49 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, German Hygiene Museum , January 22 to October 31, 2005).
  • Hans Scheuerl : The game, vol. 1: Investigations into its nature, its educational possibilities and limits . 11th edition, Beltz Verlag, Weinheim 1990, ISBN 3-407-34045-1 (also dissertation, University of Hamburg 1952).
  • Siegbert A. Warwitz , Anita Rudolf: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 .
  • Gerald Hüther, Christoph Quarch: Save the game! Because life is more than just functioning. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-446-44701-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johan Huizinga (author), Andreas Flitner (ed.): Homo ludens. From the origin of culture in the game . Reinbek 2009
  2. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: People need to play . In: Dies .: The sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, p. 36
  3. ↑ Ulrich Prill: Everything was game for me. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-8260-2355-2 , p. 14 .
  4. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: What play means and what features characterize it . In: Dies .: The sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, pages 18–22
  5. ↑ http://www.wortbedeutung.info/ludisch/
  6. ↑ Stefan Derpmann, Ludische design and action patterns in the innovation process, lecture for ad hoc group improvisation and professionalism: Between routine and experimental action from case to case, 35th Congress of the German Society for Sociology Frankfurt am Main, 11th to 15th October 2010
  7. ^ Arnd Krüger : The ritual in modern sport. A sociobiological approach , In: John M. Carter & Arnd Krüger (Eds.): Ritual and Record - Sport in Pre-Industrial Societies. Westport, Conn .: Greenwood 1990, pp. 135-152.
  8. ^ Allen Guttmann : From ritual to record. The nature of modern sports. New York: Columbia UP 1978.