Einar reviewed The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits
The Grasshopper
4 stars
I heard of the Grasshopper mainly from hearing C. Thi Nguyen in various podcasts, as this is a book that he has based much of his understanding of games upon (I have still not read anything by Nguyen though).
The Grasshopper is a philosophy book on the topic of games. It preoccupies itself with trying to define what games is, but doesn't stop there. It expands into an argument about ethics and the meaning of existence as Suits explains that in Utopia the only thing we will preoccupy ourselves with is playing games.
Suits defines games (as far as my memory goes) as an activity done with a goal in mind and done with certain (inefficient) constraints set by specific rules. Thus mountain climbing is a game as the climber wants to reach the top of the mountain, but only by climbing it, not by using a …
I heard of the Grasshopper mainly from hearing C. Thi Nguyen in various podcasts, as this is a book that he has based much of his understanding of games upon (I have still not read anything by Nguyen though).
The Grasshopper is a philosophy book on the topic of games. It preoccupies itself with trying to define what games is, but doesn't stop there. It expands into an argument about ethics and the meaning of existence as Suits explains that in Utopia the only thing we will preoccupy ourselves with is playing games.
Suits defines games (as far as my memory goes) as an activity done with a goal in mind and done with certain (inefficient) constraints set by specific rules. Thus mountain climbing is a game as the climber wants to reach the top of the mountain, but only by climbing it, not by using a helicoptre. There is more to it than that, and some of the finer details surely was lost on me.
Trying to define games is one thing — as an avid board gamer I am used to this discussion, sometimes to the end of parody (what is a war game? What is the difference between activities and games?) — but the Grasshopper points further towards trying to explain why games is important to us.
I sometimes dabble in computer games, but mainly enjoy board games. I like the mental challenge of it, but also the social interaction. Without the constraints given by the rules these games would not give either of these. If I could fulfil the goal of any game without any friction I wouldn't get to think about how to solve the puzzle of the game, nor interact with my fellow players during the game. Without the friction we wouldn't even have anything to talk about afterwards. It wouldn't be a game.
Suits talks a bit in the end of the book that playing games would be the only thing we do in Utopia. Playing games would be the only meaningful activity when we live in abundance and all our wishes and needs are gratified.
It follows from this (and this is probably Suits intention) that we should think about the role of constraints for our well being in our current non-utopian world too. Do we need constraints, and if yes, which? To challenge oneself through (unnecessary) constraints is a way to make things more interesting and to develop as a person. A game is not interesting because the player fulfils a goal, but because the player fulfils the goal in unexpected ways. This is how we learn and thrive.
I celebrate innovations that make life necessities easier, but I think we need to think about what we enjoy about the world around us as we thrundle towards utopia (we are not). When most of us doesn't need to farm our own food we have the opportunity to grow food for the love of the activity, in interesting and challenging ways (no fertilizer! vertically! in barren soil!).
The book is written as a socratic diagogue between the Grasshopper and a few other characters. This makes it an easy and fun read. It is still a mouthful to swallow and I think a couple of the finer details passed me by, especially in the second half of the book. It is probably a book I should and will read again.