Lydia Howland

Hmmmm.... maybe I've been out of uni for too long now and my tolerance of postmodernism (and post- post-modernism)is waining because although I found Rushkoff's ideas 'playful' and stimulating, I also found aspects of them more troubling.

My real problem concerns the positing of 'play' as some ideologically neutral means of encouraging people to engage. I think I understand what he means and what he's trying to achieve, but implicit in play are all kinds of power relations that I don't think have been unpicked sufficiently.

As Rushkoff accepts, only some people are eligible to play the game (namely those who have moved up Maslow's heirarchy of needs and for whom survival is no longer the first priority). Yet, those people are least well served by democracy are often the same people who are not able to 'play', namely because the playing field isn't level.

I'm sure there are plenty of people in the developing world who'd like to 'play around' with the WTO, IMF and World Bank and I'm not sure that arguing that a certain liberal elite should be doing this for them by proxy is really an advance on the current state of play.

If the aim is to fundamentally configure the relationship between citizens and democratic processes, then I'm not sure that replacing the pragmatism of one elite with that of another is the way forward.

That said, I liked his punning on Demos as a way of demonstrating how things could be done differently, and the idea of a safe place for ideas without solutions is a very liberating one.

David David

I agree... the issue of play and who is able to play is a crucial one. Lack of education, opportunities, political freedom, even food - and an increasing digital divide - means that the majority of the world's population is excluded from "playing" the Rushkoff way.

However, I liked the idea of "open source" democracy, and making power structures more accessible and open to participation. Leaders as facilitators... who are more "vulnerable" and less rigid in their positions - is that possible in a 24/7 media age?

Duncan O'Leary

I enjoyed the evening and found the lunchtime seminar in particular quite engaging, but there are a couple of points that I have difficulty with. Firstly, the internet seems to be the embodiment of the problem with 'play', rather than an advert for it. The technology and the access to the internet are open to the few rather than the many, leaving 'play' as the preserve of the elite.

An extension of this is that Rushkoff's model of process offers no escape from this, as the boundaries or even aims of 'play' are not put forward. The problem for me then, is that to allow 'play' to become open to everyone - allowing grand narratives to be avoided - a Grand Narrative of sorts is neccessary in the first place in order to put everyone in a position where play is an option.

Bobby Webster

I had a bit of a problem with Rushkoff's deployment of weighted words: if he liked something, it was 'playful', but if he didn't, it became 'narrative'. I think the example of Arnies' election was a telling one - he clearly doesn't like the result, and so obviously it can't be a demonstration of play in politics.

In fact, we didn't really get any kind of analysis of the problems associated with 'playful politics'. What we got was presented as a panacaea for a pretty wide range of ills; and I'm afraid I didn't really buy that.

I can't help but feel that he'd have a hard time speaking to a room of actual practitioners, and facing genuine practical problems, even on the most general of levels.

Andrew Kaye

I found Rushkoff amusing - I am not sure that I found him inspiring. His Woody Allen-esque sense of humour has a certain appeal, but I couldn't help but think his point about 'survival' was a bit pompous.

He claimed - or at least this is the spin I took on it - that as individuals we shouldn't always be so concerned with issues relating to our personal survival. Try telling that to the very individuals who would like to 'play', but don't have the resources that would enable them to do so.

How does he envisage Africa's millions of HIV sufferers becoming playful and autonomous in the game of politics? I have a lot still to learn, but I can't see how he can present his thesis as though it were non-ideological. A thoroughly bourgeois take on life?

Jon Jon

From Rushkoff's blog about his visit and the "nihilistic" response he received:

"I argued that we should act right now as if we have won our revolution, and begin behaving consistent with our truest ideals, rather than making such behavior contingent on a new narrative.

But to do so would have meant taking responsibility for the way things are right now - which is still too painful a concept for too many of us."

So, on one hand, we must ignore socio-political reality and act as if we lived in the best of all possibile worlds (which is itself a grand narrative), but, on the other, we must recognise that all actual ills are the results of our actions. There seems to be no cogent view of the relationship between thinking and doing, word and world. But, I suppose, that's not a very "playful" way of looking at things.