So I’ve started reading Homo Ludens finally, because I have to (sometimes I think it’s kind of awful that I have to be made to do these things, but I think I would eventually, it’s just that things get done faster when someone is there to man the bellows) and I’ve been thinking a lot about how Huizinga talks in his introduction about the mysterious impulse of living things to play, and I kind of wonder if this has something to do with the way the brain works — in ways that we’ve come to learn now, post-Huizinga. Since he writes about the performative creation of art, religious ritual, and the phenomenon of flow, I can’t help but wonder if maybe there is something about play that is related neuropsychologically to our need for religion.
I think I just wanted to jot that down because I just got really excited about it. Back to reading.
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17.January.2010 at 7:59 pm
AJPL
Thought you might be interested: Adorno talks about this (or around this) in Aesthetic Theory, and about Huizinga’s Homo Ludens in general.
18.January.2010 at 11:17 am
Cayden
I thought so — next on my reading list.