Arrival of the Russian Sorcerer

'Arrival of the Sorcerer at a Peasant Wedding' - Vasily Maximov, 1875

For the 19th century Russian peasant family, few elements could portend the future success or failure of a wedding more so than the presence of a local witch or sorcerer.  Vasily Maximov addressed such an event in his 1875 painting, ‘Arrival of the Sorcerer at a Peasant Wedding’, with a mix of astonishment and fear depicted on the various guest’s faces.  The bride, standing with her groom at the left edge of the painting, stares with wide eyes as a confidant- perhaps her mother- whispers in her ear, providing sage advice on how to deal with the unexpected- or perhaps invited- guest.  Other wedding participants give the imposing sorcerer, himself covered in snow and sporting a penetrating gaze, clear berth, while the local village priest (seated to the right of the wedding couple and bathed in an obscured source of light) casts a defiant scowl towards the newly arrived personage.  While the feeling of tension is palpable to the viewer of Maximov’s painting, his subject matter succinctly touches upon many themes associated with the role of the witch/sorcerer in Russian peasant life beyond those of fear or brooding sense of comeuppance.

For starters, the witch/sorcerer is a figure placed on the threshold of the sacred and the profane, their powers a curious mix of both benevolence and malevolence that, surprisingly, helped maintain established norms of communal behavior.  They were primarily fixtures of the locality they inhabited, a fact borne out by the relative diminution of power they experienced the further they traveled from their established residence.  As figures who utilized largely unknown arcane procedures, their presence paradoxically engendered a vast matrix of power and knowledge manifested by peasants who either sought their help or feared their involvement in daily life.  Compared to the mystifying power of Christianity, embodied in the village priest, local witches/sorcerers instead promoted an understanding that reified peasant power in contrast to the relative reduction of power peasants encountered when dealing with anointed church representatives.  Finally, the Russian tradition of witchcraft favored male practitioners over female ones, although both sexes were equally capable of manifesting magical power, a fact that puts the oft repeated wisdom of predominantly female involvement in witchcraft, derived from the Western European experience, in a comparative light.

Of all these characteristics, the ‘threshold’ aspect of witchcraft is perhaps the most important.  Russian folk belief is full of thresholds, whether it is the bathhouse (a place where one gets clean and where divination and other practices involving potentially unclean spirits can occur- it’s also where most traditional births happened), the hearth (a place where bread- a sustaining, transformative substance- is made and where the house spirit, the domovoi, also lives), and even the fence surrounding a church (the inside being the realm, predominantly, of Christianity and the outside the realm of unclean or shamanistic forces).

Witches and sorcerers occupy a similar threshold position.  They partake in both this world and the more mysterious world where spirits and other unknown forces govern.  As such, they act as a sort of regulator or control mechanism for unexplained phenomena that plagued traditional societies.  Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, in his book Jasmin’s Witch, states that, “Witchcraft…has always existed as an instrument, either benign or maleficent, for the purpose of manipulating the world of the peasantry- or by which that world imagined it was being manipulated.” (5)  The presence of the witch or sorcerer, while sometimes unpleasant, nonetheless offered a way to cope with events that would otherwise have no reasonable explanation.

And because many malevolent issues could be explained by the intervention of witches or sorcerers, their presence in a village facilitated a sort of perverse attitude of mutual respect.  Since anyone could avail themselves of the witches or sorcerers trade, members of a community were more likely to uphold established rules of conduct lest they anger someone and become the target of spells or other unpleasant effects.  This produced a foucauldian effect of disciplinary behavior, yet the means to enforce this discourse was available not to the few but to the many.  Much like the M.A.D. doctrine governing nuclear weapons use throughout most of the 20th century, the local witch or sorcerer maintained order by the very promise of mutual destruction.  Le Roy Ladurie again: “The fear of being bewitched is the beginning of wisdom.” (13)

There is also the issue of how the witch or sorcerer straddles the threshold of being good or evil.  Several terms in Russian exist to designate the various categories of those imbued with supernatural abilities; ved’ma (witch), koldun (sorcerer), vorozheia (fortuneteller), otgadchik (diviner), znakhar’/znakharka (magic healers), just to name a few.  While some labels were clearly skewed towards malevolent practices, such as the ved’ma or koldun, it was not always so cut-and-dry as to what separated the practices of the local witch or the local healer.  Both used the same materials for their craft- either various herbs and grasses, or perhaps tomes of knowledge that covered topics arcane or medicinal.  Charms (zagavori) or amulets (nauzy) could be obtained by both the witch and the healer, and it seems possession of these effects could cast one in a light of maleficence or beneficence depending on the opinion held by the local community.  If both the witch and the healer could make a love potion, who is to say that one is bad and the other is good?

Of course, the real reason why witches or sorcerers could have such a normalizing effect on traditional society and be cast among one of several roles was precisely because they were an integral part of the society in which they lived.  Their power stemmed from the fact that everyone knew they were a witch or sorcerer, their reputation predicated on a devotion to locality.  Think of the Good Witch of the North, or the Wicked Witch of the West as found in the Wizard of Oz.  These are broad geographical regions, but the deliberate choice to center these characters in an approximation of locality clearly aligns with the actual situation many exposed to witchcraft experienced.  Witches or Sorcerers that traveled away from their homes experienced a diminution of their power commensurate with distance.  To put it another way, it’s difficult to be afraid of a distant witch if their powers are not known first hand.

Compare this to a similar Christian counterpart of witchcraft- the hermit or aesthetic.  These personages gain power through their distancing and exclusion from the locale of society.  Even the pilgrimage, one of the more devout acts of piety a believer can undertake, relies on the concept of the distant to convey power and understanding associated with the faith.  This is meant to demonstrate a sense of the far reaching effects of Christianity, the fact that its wide base of power can be viewed in locales far from ones own.  Witchcraft is the inverse of this relationship.  While the witch or sorcerer draws upon a similar wide base of power through access to supernatural means, it can only manifest these powers in an acute fashion by remaining tied to a specific locale.  This, again, ties back to the variety of roles played in Russian society by those marked as being capable of wielding supernatural power; if one person’s witch is another person’s healer, then only reputation and first-hand experience could be the determinant factor in classification.

This unique property of locality meant that the witch or sorcerer embodied the traditional version of branding par excellence.  The interesting thing about brands is that they exist within a matrix of understanding and power.  Brands exude a meaning, but that meaning is mediated through the outside observer who places on that brand their own hopes, desires, and expectations through a bonding process.  Marcus Boon, in his book In Praise of Copying, demonstrates that bonding-via-branding is a form of ‘contagious’ magic that channels mimetic desire.  When we see a celebrity lovingly touch a Louis Vuitton bag (the example Boon uses to describe his concept), the ‘contagious’ power of that celebrity is transferred to that bag and thus enhances our desire to own a copy of that bag.  In the case of witchcraft, the peasant knows the power of the witch or sorcerer and seeks to procure or identify a potion, amulet, or charm that mimetically copies that power for the peasant’s own use or avoidance.

Yet if we prod the underlying reasons why the witch or sorcerer conveys such bonding-via-branding power, then we come to the conclusion that it is the understanding manifested by the peasant- not the witch- that gives the potion, amulet, or charm ‘contagious’ mimetic presence.  The abundance of peasant maxims or folklore regarding detection of witches or the explanations of their magical effects attest to this matrix of understanding and power.  The following examples are drawn from Linda Ivantis’ work, Russian Folk Belief:  Traditional Russian belief held that witches or sorcerers possessed a tail, marking their alleged pact with unclean forces that imbued them with magical power.  In the Penza Province, a sorcerer or witch could be revealed by making a fire using aspen wood on Holy Thursday; once the fire burnt out, the sorcerer or witch would come begging for the ashes.  Sorcerers or witches could also be identified by their clothing, their smell, or use of riddles in speech.

Identification of witchcraft and those who practiced it was a primary concern for many in traditional Russian peasant societies.  Such was the pervasive fear of ‘spoiling’ (a common term that peasants used to describe the effects of witches or sorcerers) brought about through witchcraft that no arena of life was safe from its pervasive influence.  Of paramount concern was the potential ruinous spoiling of a new couple at their wedding.  Jealousy or spite held by a member of the community over the nuptials of a soon to be married couple could easily lead one to enlist the services of the local witch or sorcerer in creating a potion or amulet, often made from something personal with regards to the couple in question (like hair, or clothing), that would cause death, infertility, or any number of ill effects.  As a precaution, the often safest course for potential newlyweds was to simply invite the witch or sorcerer to the wedding as an honored guest.  There were many tales in which a place of honor would be accorded to both the village priest and village witch- Maximov’s painting is a testament to the awkward presence of both.  Failure to do so could either open a couple to the malevolent intent of others, or risk drawing the wrath of the local witch or sorcerer whose invite was spurned.  The latter is most likely the occurrence depicted in Maximov’s painting.  The sorcerer, arriving late to the scene as evidenced by his snow covered boots and shoulders, no doubt is making his presence known so as to affirm his potential to inflict harm.

This leads us to one of the more interesting aspects of Russian witchcraft.  Unlike the experience in Western Europe or America, most documented cases of witchcraft in Russia involved men and not women.  Whereas up to 80% of witchcraft documentation in Western Europe involved women as the primary suspect, this ratio was reversed in Russia.   There is some speculation that this was due to the fact that marginalization of position for females, a factor that led many to embrace  or be forced into the identity of a witch, was less prevalent in Russian traditional society.  Many women, up to the end of the 19th century, lived in extended households that ensured a means of subsistence.  Due to the enforcement of serfdom, and the relative lack of mobility this produced, a women's role in the family and traditional kinship-based networks was more secure than that held by women in the more highly mobile world of Western Europe.  Also, the presence of a codified demonology, which was crucial for those in Western Europe seeking to identify the hallmarks of potential witches, simply did not exist to the same extent in popular Russian thought.

While gender difference was one divergent factor of Russian witchcraft when compared to the Western European experience, many of the other qualities highlighted above- the reliance upon locality, the branding-as-bonding mimetic power, the witch as product of a highly specialized peasant matrix of knowledge- demonstrate that witchcraft shared many similarities across geographic boundaries as well.  One last similarity should be added to this list; the growth of witchcraft trials in both Russia and Western Europe signaled the rise of an increasingly powerful and centralized bureaucratic state.  As authorities sought to bolster their networks of power, the witch became a convenient scapegoat upon which defining aspects of the modern state- surveillance, normativity, and control of population- could be built.  Local, popular knowledge became supplanted by textual decrees and investigations, meaning that articulation and definition of the witch by those removed from the local ultimately displaced both the witch and the locale they inhabited from positions of power.

Of course, Maximov’s painting features no presence of Tsarist officials, only that of the local peasantry.  In seeking to get at the truth of the experience, Maximov has ironically depicted a romanticized version of that experience.  This same romanticizing trend regarding witchcraft continues today, but it is important to realize that all stories about witches harken back to a time when dichotomies between good and evil were more fluid and the witch, far from being a convenient foil for fairy tales, represented a complex and necessary function in traditional society.

Ladders, Builders, and the AHA

'Ladder to Somewhere' by Corey Templeton

If you've ever watched Chappelle Show, then you probably know the series of skits titled, 'When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong'. If you're an academic historian, or a graduate student in history, then you've probably read the recent AHA recommendation to have institutions embargo completed dissertations from digital release for up to six years. There's been a lot of responses, both pro and con, about the issue, but for me all I can think is that the AHA might be the most recent candidate for another episode of 'When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong'.

Why do I feel this way? A few reasons below:

1. I have no doubt that the AHA, in its own mind, has the best interest of junior scholars in focus when they grapple with and think about policies to pursue in protecting nascent scholar's interests. Junior scholars represent the future of the profession, and it makes absolute sense for the AHA to deal with professional issues in a way that makes life for junior scholars better, not worse.
2. That being said, I also have no doubt that the committee behind the 'Embargo' policy tried to 'Keep it Real' by framing their appeal as a means to protect future junior scholars' access to monograph publishing. But in many ways, trying to equate protection of junior scholars through tacit support of a notion that accessibility is detrimental to their career is where 'Keeping it Real Goes Wrong'. 
3. One word never mentioned in either the AHA proposal, or William Cronon's recent support of this proposal, is prestige- and if you are talking about monograph publishing being related to tenure or advancement in the profession without also acknowledging the linkage this process has to prestige, then you're missing a very crucial part of the entire process. 

I've seen the responses, on Twitter and in the comments field for both the AHA announcement and Cronon's support piece, and they essentially fall into two camps. The first camp, what I would term the 'Ladder' group, may feel that the entire publishing system is misguided or essentially enforcing a protectionist scheme on academic work, but they are on the ladder of either a tenure track job or current book deal. (Or they are of a group that hopes to one day be on the ladder) A lot of them sympathize with issues in the system, but for them to get ahead they have to follow the current system's rules- they have to climb the ladder. Why? Because in order to get promotion at a Division I school or seek recognition by their older, tenured peers who often sit on Tenure and Promotion Committees, they feel they have to publish a book.

The second camp, what I would term the 'Builder' group, feel that new digital paradigms are providing increased opportunities for scholars to share their works with wider audiences and this means that several cherished notions of 'scholarly work' need to be rebuilt, or remodeled, in order to accommodate the profession to changing standards. Some of the 'builders' have tenure, while others do not. Some of them are in the academy, others are not. Many of them have personal academic blogs, or perform work that is very public in its outreach and scope. Why? Because for them, the idea that one's work should be hidden behind paywalls, or made to be consumed by only a small subset of the academy, is anathema to their desire to build new structures. For the builders, publishing a book is okay- but so is sharing your work online. They see OA ideals as a blueprint for what their building should look like, what the future of a digital profession could look like.

But- and this alters what I said above- there is also an amorphous third camp, those who are feeling out whether they should be on the ladder or helping the builders. Some of them want to be in the academy, and that means they need to start climbing the ladder. Some of them want to build a new academy, and that means eschewing the ladder not because it is bad but because it takes energy away from building. There's even a fourth camp, those with tenure- but they are largely immune to the direct implications of this debate, even though their voices carry weight for how those implications play out.

What every camp is concerned about, except for those who already have it, is prestige. The ladder folks want to climb towards it. The builder folks want to build new conceptions of it. The rest of us are wondering if we can ever have it at all.

My sympathies lie with the builder group, because I come from a niche area of history that the ladder does not often reach. I study Russian history, and my dissertation focuses on Old Believers. In my department, many, many students enter to study American history. A smaller subset come to study Western European history. An even smaller subset, far smaller than the other groups, come to study East Europe/Russian/African/Asian history. Although I have not made efforts to shop it, I'm under no illusions that publishers are clamoring to take my dissertation manuscript and shepherd it through to monograph form. I'm not Robert Crummey, or Roy Robson. I'm just Jeremy Antley, a guy who is tackling a small portion of the work those two, comparative giants also discuss. (If you don't know who I'm talking about, then I've sort of made my point already) What publisher wants to invest 20k or more in a book that, literally, a few dozen will find serious interest, with the added possibility that a few hundred more might have casual interest, in reading?

I don't have a track record. I don't have enough prestige to get noticed by large publishers right off the bat. I'm not attending Yale, or Columbia, or Harvard, or Princeton. I'm a product of a less prestigious state school, which I think is a fine institutions with good quality professors in a variety of fields. While I have no doubt that I can climb the tenure ladder of academia if given the chance, I also know that those kind of opportunities, especially in my chosen field of Russian history, are few and far between- especially if I'm competing against other candidates from top flight institutions. If I don't have sufficient personal prestige when applying for jobs, those jobs will default to looking at the prestige of my institution or the prestige of those under which I've studied. There's a little joke I tell folks who ask me what I study- I tell them it's 'Russia+', as in 'Russia + American History' or 'Russia + Women's Studies' or 'Russia + Insert Field Here'. For me to have a realistic chance of getting a tenure track job, I can't just be a Russia guy. I have to build a broader base. As Kurtis Blow once said, 'these are the breaks.'

Here's another rub; I also tackle the subject of games in an academic way. While some have given me praise for the work I do, I've also had some measure of scorn applied as well. Trust me, I would love to write a paper concerned with the intersection of history and games like Twilight Struggle, 1989, and Andean Abyss. But the momentum isn't there yet- the ladder just does not extend that far.

So, for me, any policy that endorses a view of hiding my work just so it will be more attractive to publishers feels a bit absurd. If I had a firm grasp on the ladder, perhaps I would feel differently. But I don't, and I don't see many willing to extend that ladder for someone they don't know who researches in fields not widely accessible or even considered legitimate at all. That's why I sympathize with the builders, because I've achieved a modicum of success in following their path. My two published articles, one on History embracing games and the other on Textual Dualism in Russian history, both came about because I was willing to publish early versions of my thoughts in blog form. I received feedback from these public outings that, in turn, helped shape my larger, revised arguments that were peer reviewed and published in journals embracing an open access ethic. I've been able to attend conferences outside the strict purview of History because others read my publicly shared work and thought it worth supporting. I've been given the opportunity to write for Play the Past and have essays published on The New Inquiry website because my work was open and accessible.

I built my reputation in public view, because to do so in private would have given me none of the opportunities above. I'm a builder because that's the only way someone like me can gain an audience and, subsequently, gain prestige.

I could have hidden my work, could have silently chipped away at it until it was fully baked and ready to be consumed. I could have done all of this in the hopes that the final unveiling would grant me the prestige I rightfully believe should be awarded. I could have outstretched my hands in the hopes that when I opened my eyes the ladder would be there for the climbing. Maybe that's the best way to keep it real. But my gut tells me that if I did those things, my keeping it real would go wrong.

As a final note, in what has been an already rambling post, I want to say that just because I'm for the builders doesn't mean I'm against those who climb the ladder. I don't want to force my ideas on anybody. To be fair, this is an extremely tough time for academics and it's hard to tell someone to suffer for principles I believe in that may cost them a job, especially if that person has a family or other obligations they need to support. Everything I've said above is, in the words of Royal Tenenbaum, 'just one man's opinion'.

I think Dan Cohen is right in that what people are reacting to is the fact that the AHA made their policy with little discussion involved. Now we are discussing it, and that's definitely when keeping it real can't go wrong.

These Games are a Riot

"When does a crowd become a riot?" asks Ronald Paulson in his essay-lecture The Art of Riot in England and America, to which the answer is "When it gets out of control." What appears, on face, to be a cheeky answer to what many would assume is a rhetorical question actually brings about a complex field of interactions and expectations on behalf of those who would analyze riots and their articulations in life and art. Paulson's essay focuses on depictions of riot as found on engravings and in literature from the 18th century onward in both English and American culture. Over the course of his 121 page analysis he outlines a 'taxonomy of riot', an attempt to balance what we know about real riots against various artists' representations of those riots, that takes at its core three elements: actual riots, fictive riots, and the aesthetics of riot.

Taking a cue from E.P. Thompson, Paulson seeks to "outline the myths of the insurgents' (the 'radicals') imagination- the formal structures that shaped 'riots', in particular traditional forms of 'crowd ritual'." As an event, riots are both festive and seditious. They are defined in relation to the in-place social order, symbolized in our modern era by the presence of police. Yet the most important aspect of the riot is its affective/effective impact, a subjective measurement that depends wholly on the presence of aesthetics in relation to spectators- both those depicted in the artist's rendition and the outside viewer gazing upon the artist's rendition. The presence of the spectator is crucial for Paulson, who defines aesthetics as the philosophy of spectatorship. After all, a riot would have little impact were it not for the affective power (as opposed to its often diminished effective impact) it holds over those who are witness to its events.

Paulson's work raises interesting questions when extended beyond the engravings and novels covered by his essay. What happens to his analysis when the taxonomy of riot shifts to the medium of games?

That's a question I would like to address now, using three examples that span analog and digital mediums: Brian Train's Battle for Seattle board game, as well as Rockstar's State of Emergency and 2K Games' Spec Ops: The Line video games. What makes these artistic depictions of riot intriguing is how they take the spectator of the player and transform that player into a participant of the riot with a viewpoint that is, nonetheless, wholly defined by the aesthetically influenced spectator experience. The player literally controls an event that is the antithesis of a controlled state.

These ludic depictions also shift the interpretation of riot beyond Paulson's investigation on how festive and seditious acts depicted representation, or the relation of the individual to society as a whole. With the emergence of ludic riots, the interpretation now centers on concerns of a post-Cold War society in which new questions are raised regarding the re-articulation of liberalism and the relation of society to the individual. This seeming reversal (because ludic models are hardly reactionary in their approach) of riotous depiction in our current era still, nonetheless, draws upon the rich history and legacy of riot as encountered in the Western tradition.

On the left, a scene from the upcoming game RIOT. On the right, 'The Zenith of French Glory' by James Gillray

Paulson notes that whereas pre-18th century depictions of riot generally used scenes from the Passion narrative of the Bible, the rise of Humanism/Enlightenment ideals transformed depictions of riot into "a form of burlesque that repeated the Passion as farce." After the French Revolution, when the potential transformation of riot into revolution was fully realized, depictions of riot carried with them this psychic weight of revolutionary memory. It became harder to depict popular violence in a positive light after the events of late 18th century France (a sentiment Paulson attributes to Ian Haywood's Bloody Romanticism) because "the pleasure and festive air of riot is evacuated in revolution, which is without ambivalence."

Ludic riots continue this tradition, utilizing forms that vacillate between actual and fictive depictions placed on the border of what we might call burlesque interpretations. Their representations are often filled with 'revolutionary memory', meaning that the player frequently engages in action that goes beyond limited expressions of pleasure and festive sedition found in riots, moving, instead, towards a more forceful expression of violence that is 'without ambivalence.' All the games examined here begin in riot but either progress towards or allow the player to engage in something much more deadly.

Let's begin with Brian Train's 2000 release of Battle for Seattle. Dedicated to 'the violins in the streets', Train's ludic riot is actually a representation of a real riot that occurred in Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting held there. Two players take on either the role of the 'Authority' (representing the Seattle Police Department, Washington State Troopers, or the National Guard) or the 'Protester Factions' (representing a loose coalition of Anarchists, Environmentalists, Radicals, Liberals, Organized Labor, and Yahoos). The goal of the game is to for each side to gain enough points on the 'Exposure Index', representing favorable publicity and image leverage, to qualify for a win.

There is a limited combat system, in which the Authority player can attempt to disperse or arrest protesting groups or crowds. The protester faction can counter-attack, potentially forcing Authority units to be returned to the 'force pool'. Only the Authority player can 'escalate' the conflict, which allows the Protester player the option of building 'barricades' and the Authority player the option to call in additional police units and utilize 'special munitions', like tear gas or rubber bullets.

From an aesthetic viewpoint, Battle of Seattle gives both players a clear sense of order and the breakdown of that order through the unified blue of the Authority pieces versus the multi-hued and diverse Protester factions. The map, which utilizes a point-to-point system, emphasizes some spaces over others. For example, the Protester gains more 'exposure' by having units occupy the Convention Center rather than the adjacent Seattle University space. This designation that some spaces are more valuable than others also reinforces the notion of spectatorship; one's exposure is increased if actions take place in noted areas, as opposed to nearby, but less important, areas considered distant from the real center of action- the WTO talks being held downtown.

Conversely, the Authority player must battle to keep its exposure from decreasing by losing 'control' of the situation either through Protestor 'victories' or through excessive use of force via 'special munitions' use/calling in state troopers and national guard units. The ability of the Authority player to engage in 'escalation' hints towards an acknowledgement of 'revolutionary memory'- after all, the Authority player will only escalate the conflict in an attempt to forestall a complete breakdown of control which could allow for far more dangerous situation to develop. (One of the higher levels of victory for the Protester details a situation in which WTO delegates run scared in the streets) Regardless of which side the player is on, their ability to win is directly indexed to the opinion of 'spectatorship' represented by the 'Exposure Index'.

So far, Battle of Seattle demonstrates several degrees of continuity with the sort of riots examined in Paulson's essay. However, one clear difference is that the players of this ludic riot go beyond mere spectators- they become active participants in this fictive depiction of an actual riot. The presence of the WTO as the catalyst for the riot depicted also shifts the question of what the riot represents. Unlike the previous two centuries, this riot is not a question of an individual's place in relation to the state, rather it's about an individual's place in relation to supra-national forces, represented by the WTO, which have called into question the role of liberalism in the post-Cold War world order. All of the various Protester factions see in the WTO personification of agendas that seek to reshape their oft marginalized role in the larger liberal conception of society. This theme of the riot as a means to question and re-evaluate the terms of liberalism continually resurfaces in the other games examined here.

Yet it should also be noted that Battle of Seattle maintains the festive and seditious air particular to the composition of riot. In the designer notes, Brian Train states that, "although this game attempts to model some of what happened in Seattle, it is also partially a SATIRE on the events, perhaps best displayed by the irreverence of the Random Events Table." This irreverence can be seen clearly through use of the Goofy holding an M-16 graphic used to denote National Guard Units, or the 'Coffee Break'/'Hey Beavis…' events found on the aforementioned Random Events Table. Even though the design carries strong connotations of rising violent potential, the entire game is cloaked in burlesque swatches that continually remind the players that this is a construct primarily centered on abstracted spectatorship. Violent outbreaks are always on the horizon, yet never amount to an actual spilling of blood.

Things change decidedly once you start playing State of Emergency. Released in 2002, State of Emergency contains the relatively simple plot whereby the player represents a member of an underground organization bent on the destruction of the 'American Trade Organization' (a rather thinly veiled reference to the World Trade Organization), another supra-national group that ostensibly controls America and that sets off the action of the game by declaring a 'state of emergency' in response to escalating riots against ATO authority. Constructed as an 'arcade'-type game, the player is given a set amount of time to run around various levels and inflict the most amount of damage via destruction of property and elimination of police forces sent out by the ATO. Different weapons, ranging from baseball bats to rocket launchers, are scattered throughout the level, the acquisition of which greatly increases the player capacity to deal out destructive damage. There is no goal other than to rack up points for a high score, and the entire game is depicted in rather cartoony elements with the figures and weapons used taking on exaggerated appearances.

There is a clear attempt by the creators of State of Emergency to have their game also play off of the WTO riots in Seattle. As such, several elements found in Battle for Seattle carry over here. There is the question of an individual's relation to the ATO, and the use of cartoonish animations and over-the-top voice overs (throughout the game, an announcer spouts out phrases like 'Smash the Corporation!' or declares opportunities like 'Smash windows for bonus score!') give the game a festive and seditious burlesque air. (Consider that the first level puts the player in a shopping mall, full of 'innocent' people running around, which could be seen as a farcical take on the bizarre scenes of when shoppers race through a store during Christmas sales) Yet the deadly seriousness ATO police forces utilize in their hunting down of the player place this game almost beyond burlesque and into the territory of true revolution. Were it not for the fact that the core design elements of State of Emergency center on the arcade aesthetic, which emphasizes action over narrative, the earnestness of the situation could be seen as a tete-a-tete in which the player explores the potential ramification of the ATO's influence on the reshaping of liberal ideals.

Spectatorship takes on new meaning when one combines the riot atmosphere with arcade gameplay found in State of Emergency. Beyond the numerous 'spectators' that constantly run around the game universe, the one-upmanship and competitive aspect involved in attaining high scores means that State of Emergency could potentially have several player-spectators waiting in line for their turn to participate in the rioting. The inherent nature of the arcade style means that part of the enjoyment comes from playing against others, and in this way one can say that State of Emergency actually emphasizes the role of the spectator in its fictive display of riot. Unlike Battle for Seattle, the bulk of spectator influence is sourced in real life and not abstracted, giving State of Emergency greater access to the affective impact the real Seattle riots brought about.

But what about the issue of revolutionary memory and the stain popular violence carries in our modern milieu? Paulson, again taking a cue from Ian Haywood, states that after the French Revolution, artistic depictions of riot dealt with this stain by allegorically shifting the context of riot to that of natural catastrophes. The fear of riot was displaced by aesthetizing it into an earthquake, or flood, or fire. By evoking a deliberate cartoonish style, State of Emergency finds a way to aesthetize its depiction of riot in a way that neutralizes the violent impulses made manifest. This cartoonish aesthetic can also be tied to what Paulson identifies as a "schematic version of (Edmund) Burke's sublime" found in many articulations of the aesthetized 'nature' riot (often containing a spectator within the scene who is safe from the tremendous event),

"…which leaves the viewer outside the picture as secure as the observer within, a mere mediator of the human effects of the natural catastrophe. Burke's 'delight' and 'terror' refer not to the terrified victim, but to the safe spectator who can identify with the source of danger, sublimating terror into delight." (74)

While State of Emergency uses arcade aesthetics to facilitate this sublimation of terror into delight, Spec Ops: The Line (from 2012) utilizes different allegorical techniques to twist this delight back into terror. While the previous two games discussed above featured already developed riots containing large numbers of participants, Spec Ops: The Line is unique in that it features a developing riot of just three people. In a remarkable analysis, titled Killing is Harmless, Brendan Keogh (@BRKeogh) explores how this game situated in the shooter genre actually pushes the genre forward by bringing the central actor into greater focus- the player:

There’s no shortage of shooters that want to be about something. But very few shooters are brave enough to look in the mirror—or to force the player that enjoys shooters to look in the mirror—and question what they see. Not to pass judgment. Not to ask them to change their ways. Just to understand what is going on here. (4)

Spec Ops: The Line is a game that centers on three member of Delta Squad: Captain Martin Walker, Lieutenant Adams, and Sergeant Lugo. The player controls Walker, but the other two members accompany him through much of the story, acting as sources of additional firepower in conjunction with their role as a type of Greek chorus in questioning and reflecting on the transformations Walker undergoes as the drama progresses. Their mission- and by extension, the mission the player undertakes- is to enter the city of Dubai, wrecked by sandstorms of unimaginable intensity, and look for traces of the 33rd Battalion who entered Dubai six months ago and has not been heard from since. Yet, as Walker and his squad mates progress further into Dubai they concurrently move further away from their original mission. What begins as a search for survivors turns into a merciless quest to hunt down the commander of the 33rd- Colonel John Konrad.

What starts off as a controlled experience quickly descends into uncontrolled chaos. Delta Squad, and the player controlling them, slowly transform into a riotous presence in Dubai. Seemingly a force of counter-riot, or the restoration of order represented by their military/police function, Delta Squad begins by killing masked Arabic men in the opening chapters of the game, but then moves on in later parts to killing members of the 33rd, effectively making them not preservers of order but, rather, instigators of a riot that quickly becomes an uprising. Keogh observes this progression, and the impact it has on the narrative:

Of course, it is worth noting that while the enemies I face become less othered as the game proceeds, the Arabic people are never less othered themselves but merely replaced with more relatable Western enemies (more relatable to a Western audience, at least). On one hand, this is certainly problematic. Nothing that The Line does works to de-otherise Arabic people so dramatically othered in other shooters and media more broadly. But, on the other hand, by replacing them with US soldiers halfway through the game, The Line forces the player to realise they are—have always been— shooting humans. How many players draw that connection back to consider the ‘insurgents’ of the early levels as human, however, is questionable. (23)

As Walker becomes increasingly obsessed with finding Konrad, engaging in more atrocious acts along the way, his own body is transformed through injury, first with cuts and bruises and later with half his face becoming black and burned. The further Delta Squad travels into Dubai, the more their speech and reactions to events become strained and disjointed from their earlier, sanitized military speak. 'Fire on my target' and 'Moving to clear' become 'Got one' and, later, 'Got the fucker', the changes in audible speech and personal appearance an aesthetic effect meant to impress upon the player, the spectator, that Delta Squad is moving from the seditious and festive air inhabited by many shooters towards a more violent uprising that riotous behavior induces. Dubai might have been consumed by calamitous sandstorms, a clear parallel with the allegorical shifting of riot discussed earlier, but instead of sublimating terror into delight, the journey through Dubai reveals that this allegorical shift was only a cover for the real riot occurring through player action. The delight that Spec Ops: The Line is just another shooter transforms into terror as the game continually reminds the player that they are complicit in the plot unfolding, even if they have little choice in how that plot develops.

The setting of Dubai, and the use of American soldiers as primary actants, again demonstrates that the central issue of this particular riot relates to questioning the role of liberalism in a post-Cold War order. Being a location that symbolizes the intrusion and extension of Western capitalist ideals, having Spec Ops: The Line depict Dubai as laid low by both natural catastrophe and Western-sourced sociopathic motives calls into question the goals and expectations of liberalistic influence. To make matters worse, had the player and Walker, working in tandem, not entered Dubai and engaged in riotous behavior, some semblance of liberalistic good might have been salvaged. Yet once the player and Walker begin on their narrative path, the inevitable progression from order to riot to revolution must occur, moving the festivity of the shooter towards a situation that is without ambivalence.

Clearly, the depiction of riot has well-defined articulations in the medium of games. Many of the elements analyzed by Paulson- the aesthetics of riot and the presence of the spectator- are also utilized in ludic riots, although their ultimate goals and techniques used to achieve an aesthetic effect on the spectator differ from the engravings and even novels examined in The Art of Riot. While the games examined here are done so in a somewhat cursory fashion, there is a clear path here for others to pursue. The art of riot is alive an well in games, both analog and digital, and examination of how these riots are created and ludically depicted reveals something deeper about ourselves and our society.

Drones on the Brain

A short update to highlight work of mine published elsewhere:

1. Morally Guided Drone Strikes - Over at re/Action Zine, I've written a post about playing the card game DRONE, recording my games using Vine, and what sort of moral questions this combination of play/record summons regarding our understanding, or lack of understanding, on the sort of impact drone warfare presents.
2. Dronefire - A short story (gasp, fiction!) I wrote for The State's 'Murmuration: A Festival of Drone Culture'.  It was heavily influenced by a recent reading of Nabokov's Pale Fire, so I hope the reader can forgive my blatant mimicry.

Games, Truth, and Defense of the Private

Image of VanDusen Botanical Garden Maze, via Wikimedia Commons

So it's no secret that I know lots of people who read more than me, who know more about various subjects than I do, and who make arguments that are pretty much right on.

Daniel Joseph is one of those people.

Before you read this post, go check out his take on games, the separation of games into a 'private' sphere, and personal sovereignty. It's good, and it's important to state up front that I think Daniel is on to something here. But I'm not going to just parrot his words and add more, because the whole Marxist take on the subject is just something I'm not well enough versed in to add anything of value.

Instead, I want to take some of Daniel's points and talk about games and truth. This is more of a riff, just like Daniel's post, so know that these ideas are evolving and definitely in need of some evaluative critique. I'm hoping as other read this, they can bring in their own perspective and help me sharpen my own.

I think that Daniel is right to see in games (or, to be more accurate, gamers that play games) an activity that has clearly been separated, clearly been demarcated, from what we might call 'public' life. Playing a game is a private act to many, even if they turn around and spout all sorts of opinions on the subject all the time. By 'private', I don't mean a hidden activity- I mean a personal relationship between a person and an object of culture that they, generally, pursue in settings one wouldn't label 'public', i.e. your house, or basement, or even on a friend's couch.

I also think that mass production of games brought the various forms of entertainment out of a publicly shared sphere (I'm thinking here of Baseball in the glory days, way before consoles or even commercially produced board games) and into one's own home, or basement, or shared with a close friend on their couch. While we certainly still have organized sports, I'm hesitant to classify them as 'games' in a 'private' way. Most viewers of organized sports are 'fans', not 'gamers'. But if we want to talk about Bioshock: Infinite, Twilight Struggle, or the latest Twine creation, then I'm much more comfortable with calling these 'games', because players not only participate in the culture- they also have a hand in shaping how the culture around these artifacts comes into form.

But there's another reason why I think games are largely seen as 'private'; they have been, and still are, arbiters of truth. Human agency mediated through gameplay produces truth that is applicable to situations outside the strict, deterministic boundaries of ludic reverie. Sometimes this truth takes on abstract form. If you play 'Go', for example, you're not necessarily learning directly applicable military tactics, but you are learning basic strategic and tactical lessons. Other times, truth from games takes on a much more directly applicable form, such as the reasoning behind Christoph Weickmann's 'Great King's Game'. A far more complicated version of Chess, Weickmann's game had pieces that were modeled after positions found in 17th century German political-military circles. If a lower ranking piece captured a higher ranking piece, it could take on that pieces 'attributes'- in effect, it could become promoted to a higher position.

Yet beyond this design mechanism, Weickmann also saw the 'Great King's Game' as a means to quickly evaluate candidates for service to the King. What would previously take years of personal observation, with Weickmann's game one could evaluate a person's inner qualities in a matter of hours or days. Play became an arbiter for truth. It's no coincidence, at least to me, that the at the dawn of the modern age, when bourgeois values began their ascendancy, we see games take on more direct linkages to the production of truth. It's also no coincidence that this direct linkage manifested itself at a time when public and private spheres of activity, and how to best regulate these spheres, became the central focus of governments across Europe. The rise of liberalistic ideals then could be seen in tandem with the rise of games, increasingly shuttled into 'private' corners of life, as the two are inextricably linked through their assertion of truth derived from 'private' activity.

Another point: when Daniel discusses how games became seen by gamers as an activity whose interaction was strictly held in the bounds of a "private garden, their summer cottage," we can find a direct parallel to that of Fin de siècle Austria, and the bourgeois retreat to country garden estates. Here I borrow from Carl Schorske and his essay 'The Transformation of the Garden' (found in his book, Fin de Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture).

Wherever European artists made the difficult attempt to grapple with an existing order, as they so often did in the nineteenth century, social realism emerged as a dominant literary mode. …Yet Austrian literature found other media to refract the problem of relating cultural values to a social structure in transition. The image of the garden was one such medium. Since ancient days, the garden has served Western man as a mirror of paradise to measure his temporal state. As it appears at crucial points in Austrian literature, it helps us to mark stages in the developing relationship of culture and social structure, utopia and reality. Within its narrow confines, the garden captures and reflects the changing outlook of Austria's cultivated middle class as the ancient Empire approached disintegration.

Schorske then goes on to explore the novel Der Nachsommer, written by Adalbert Stifter in 1857. In it, the hero-character, Henirich Drendorf, comes from a bourgeois family whose patriarch instills in his children the inner qualities of self-improvement through intellectual interests. Henrich desires to become a scientist, an occupation different from his father who was a merchant, and his quest to classify botanical species leads him to discover the Rosenhaus, a 'Paradise Regained', located in the countryside. It's owner, Freiherr von Risach, was a peasant-turned-nobleman by way of the Austrian civil service, and he built the Rosenhaus for "contemplation and practical activity on his own circumscribed domain, enriching his understanding and imparting, to those who would learn, his formula for a perfected and harmonious existence." Schorske goes into more depth, further on, about the true purpose of Risach's Rosenhaus:

Risach conducted his utopian estate on principles combining the practical prudence of Daniel Defoe with the classic sublimity of Johann Winckelmann. He integrated nature and culture into a single continuum. The Rosenhaus garden, central symbol of this integration, was designed not merely for aesthetic effect. Unlike the gardens of the country houses of city people, "where one cultivates unfruitful shrubs or at best bushes bearing only ornamental fruit," Risach's garden mingled flowers with vegetables to produce "feelings of domesticity and usefulness." Nature was perfected by science into art: purged of weeds and insects, the Rosenhaus garden bloomed "clean and clear." Risach's estate was thus no parturient paradise for a pleasure-seeking homo ludens. Nature naturante was curbed and perfected in accordance with God's intention that Adam fulfill a task in the Garden of Eden: "to dress and to keep it." Utility and beauty result from man's self-conscious and disciplined effort to activate nature's bounty.

But, as Henrich discovers, not all is well at the Rosenhaus. Risach, it turns out, has severe contempt for his servants, micromanaging them to the utmost degree and seeing in their uncouth ways an inseparable gap between his cultured demeanor and their uncultivated manners. Schorske notes that Stifter's novel demonstrates that, "the cost of progress in higher culture was deeper cleavage in the social structure," a sentiment echoed later when Schorske also remarks that, "Stifter showed that the social structure grew more radically stratified and less integrated as die Wissenden (translated as 'the knowing') progressed in the realization of their cultural ideal."

While it might seem that my digression into Schorske above was a detour away from Daniel's post, consider that games could be seen as a gamers retreat to a 'private garden, their summer cottage'. In an attempt to escape from the totality of a life ruled by capital, we can clearly link the vehement defense of the 'private sphere' of games by gamers to the intrusions of those from the outside. This would also explain why so many gamers turn away from notions of 'gamification', which could be directly seen as analogous to the gardens of the country houses of city people that produce 'unfruitful bushes' or, at best, 'ornamental fruit.' Only in a sphere made private, in contrast to the public, can gamers cultivate the sort of garden that blooms 'clean and clear.' Instead of corruption, gamers can find 'utility and beauty' that result from a gamers self-conscious and disciplined effort to activate a game's bounty. This is possible because games are arbiters of truth and, as a corollary, beauty.

So lets recap what's been discussed so far: games, with the birth of the modern period, achieve direct, actionable linkages to the production of truth, which also coincides with the rise of liberalistic practices of which capitalism is a part. As capital facilitates the mass production of games, themselves cultural artifacts, these forms of entertainment that were previously limited to the shared 'public' sphere become absorbed and encapsulated in 'private' spheres by the rise of a new type of cultural actor; the gamer. The gamer, in turn, sees in games a way to cultivate a utility and beauty, but only if the the uncultivated others, located in the 'public' sphere of activity, can be successfully distinguished from the die Wissenden (gamers). This is facilitated by a creation of the 'private' garden of games, of which gamers hold court and vehemently protect their domains from the intrusion of the public in various forms, be they claims of sexism, transphobia, or any number of other issues of which constitutes the concerns of the 'public' sphere.

What makes this defense of games so visceral for gamers is that their cultivation is a cultivation of truth. And if the public comes at these games, and by extension gamers, challenging the sort of truth these games produce, then the ultimate threat is not to the game but to the gamer who cultivates play of the game in his or her own private sphere. Games have become the extension of the grand compromise liberalism invokes on those who see themselves as bourgeois- gamers feel righteous indignation because the core issue is demarcating what they feel should be private from what others feel is a public issue. This wouldn't even be an issue, however, if games didn't hold such access to the production of truth.

Thoughts for Sale

Today I am releasing an ebook/pdf titled 'Thoughts from the Peasant Muse'.  It contains 23 essays, most of which originally appeared here on my blog.  I've decided to sell it through Gumroad, and for the price of $3 (or more if you feel generous) you will receive epub, pdf, and Amazon compatible versions of the ebook.  It contains 55,000+ words spread over 140 pages, and each essay has an explanatory preface that provides background information on what motivated me to write the piece.  The topics covered span book reviews, Russian history, digital culture, games, and even a episode review of Boardwalk Empire.  In short, there's something for everybody.

Why am I selling essays I've made available for free on my blog?  In part, I wanted to gather a compilation of my best pieces as something to hand my committee when I submit my portfolio.  I also wanted to see how difficult it would be to create my own ebook- and it turns out it wasn't that hard.  But the main reason I wanted to gather my thoughts, place them in a nice format, and sell them is that there are people who enjoy my work- giving them the option to purchase an ebook provides a way for them to directly support me.  I will never place ads on my blog, nor will I change the Creative Commons license from its current CC-BY form.  I highly encourage anyone to take my work, remix it, change it, do whatever, because I am a firm believer that making one's work freely available for others to use in their own pursuits is one of the greatest contributions that can be made to maintain and grow the cultural commons.

Yet it is an inescapable fact that writing for my blog does cost me time and money.  I, generally, enjoy eating and paying my rent.  My dogs enjoy eating as well.  So I'm offering the one meaningful thing I have to offer- my thoughts.

Now to be clear- every essay contained in this compilation can be freely accessed, here, at Peasant Muse.  My other essays that have been published at the likes of Play the Past, The New Inquiry, and The Media Res are also freely available.  Nothing is stopping you from gathering these posts and making your own compilation of my work.  But I would ask that if you enjoy reading what I write, please consider purchasing a copy of 'Thoughts from the Peasant Muse'.  It would mean a lot to me, and it would also help me pay my bills.  And eat.  And let my dogs eat.  My car also needs some work.  You get the idea.

So now that you know why I've put an ebook together, I thought it would be a good idea to explain *how* I put my ebook together.  (For all the images below, click to enlarge)

I used two programs, Pages '09 and Calibre, to construct the layout of the ebook/pdf and convert it into various formats.  Using this template provided by Apple for making ebooks in Pages, I was able to easily make chapters and have a table of contents automatically update as I added more material.  There were some issues with using Pages, however.  For one thing, the images I used as headers would shift to the left margin, even if I centered the image, when I converted the document into an epub file.  After much searching through the forums, I discovered a workaround.  After placing the image, (which as to be 'inline' and not 'floating', as epub doesn't support floating images) you have to create a center-justified 'chapter subheading' just under the picture for it to remain in place after conversion.

Other than that, the process of importing text and then setting up block quotes or hyperlinks was incredibly easy.  While the template provides an 'index' and other pages, I just made my index section another 'chapter'- and did the same thing for the 'About the Author' page.  After I had the layout set up as I liked, I used Pages to convert it into an epub file.

One thing about the cover- using Pages, your cover will not stretch to fill the page.  It will instead create a smaller image (because it has to be 'inline' and not 'floating') that makes your cover look small on the various reading devices.  Solving this problem is easy though- it involves using Calibre, which was the other piece of software I utilized in making my ebook.

Calibre is a wonderful piece of open source software.  It can act as a library for all your various ebooks, and it also syncs with reading devices that are plugged in to your computer.  Once I had my Pages-to-epub conversion complete, I would import the epub file into Calibre.  One of the better features of Calibre is the ability to convert one type of file into another- although the results will vary if you're using a file type (like pdf) that isn't easily adjustable.  Taking my original epub file, I would have Calibre convert it into another epub file.  This sounds counterintuitive, but by doing this I could select my own cover image which allowed me to escape the 'small' cover image utilized by Pages.

Calibre also has the ability to convert epub files into Amazon friendly files, which includes the latest AWZ3 file-type along with the older MOBI standard.  You can also use Calibre as an ebook reader, and I would often send my working files over to Calibre to be converted and proofed for formatting errors.

For pdf conversions, I just used the default export tool found in Pages.  Since pdf files are really just images, you can put in much nicer formatting items like page numbers or lines across the page to separate sections of text.  (Epub/Amazon need to be able to adjust the text based on a users desired font size, hence the inability to incorporate nicer formatting styles)  You are also given more liberty to play with pictures and their placement into the text with a pdf file, but since I wanted some degree of continuity between the versions I decided to include only minor changes to the pdf version of my ebook.

Now some of you might not have Pages- in that case, I suggest using Sigil.  Sigil is another open source software tool used for creating ebooks.  It's a little more stripped down UI-wise, but if you are adept in HTML and/or CSS you can pull off much more interesting tricks with your ebook formatting using Sigil.

I should mention one other minor issue using Pages presented; my converted epub file, when displayed on iBook devices, contained hyphenated words.  The Amazon file did not, and the pdf didn't as well, but the epub file viewed on iBooks would create hyphenations when the word line exceeded the space provided on the screen.  From my own limited knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes, it would appear that Pages epub conversion tool inserts 'soft-hyphens' into the very code of the epub file.  I wasn't able to find a way to strip these 'soft-hyphens' out of the file through Calibre, so those who view my ebook on their iPhone or iPad will have to deal with hyphenated words.  It doesn't look elegant, but if it bothers people they can just load up the pdf version of the ebook and see nice, clean formatting.

I am almost certain that had I used Sigil to create the ebook text, the hyphenation issue wouldn't be a problem.  Live and learn, I guess.

Going through this process only affirmed to me how easy it is to make one's own ebook for all sorts of uses.  I know that when I get back to teaching students, I will give them the essays/handouts in this form because 1) it's easy and 2) giving students essential files in formats that they are more likely to use increases the chance that they will actually use them.

So that's about it.  If you have questions over anything I've gone over, drop me a line in the comments or through my email (jantley AT gmail DOT com).

Board Stiff with Formalism

Photo via Henrik Berger Jørgensen

There's nothing like being fashionably late to a party, or a debate about formalism and games.  Oh, wait- I mean, a debate about formalism and digital games.  Because if you've read all the posts and back-and-forth's, you probably noticed one thing; it almost entirely centers on the medium of digital games.  Which is not a bad thing, really.  It just happens to be a shame, because the topic is larger than the digital and should, rightfully, include the medium of board games.

First off, I want to be clear that I'm not going to discuss the grand old question 'are games art?'  Personally, I find that question to be inane and a complete waste of energy.  Others agree.  I'm totally certain that others disagree vehemently, but that's my stance and you won't convince me otherwise.

What I want to investigate here is an altogether deeper issue.  Why, in all this debate on the question of formalism, have board games been mostly ignored?  Because it seems to me that the board-based brethren get short shrift when it comes to the debates circulating around the larger topic of 'games'.  Raph Koster, who let loose a salvo in the formalist fracas with his 'A Letter to Leigh', does mention board games, but he also cloaks their presence, and by extension the absence of other 'non-games', under larger issues of player agency and 'gameness'.  While I don't agree with Koster's overall assessment, which I detail below, I do want to make clear that by bringing board games into the conversation Koster has done the debate a huge service.

Zack Morris time out: Pop quiz- what makes a game a game?  Would you be amazed to know I'm playing a game right now?  It's called, 'Write a Blog Post' and I'm currently kicking the ass out of it.  I'm winning in every way, despite having no defined objectives (if I finish, did I really complete the game?  If I quit writing my blog post, have I not achieved some sort of win state?  Does it go on, ad infinitum?), and the only person playing is myself.  I just earned bonus points for writing this.  End Zack Morris time out.

Specifically, let me address one particular board game Koster brings up in his post- Brenda Romero's Train.  Koster categorizes this 'game' as one that "uses the fact of engaging with it at all to accomplish its effect," before asking if this type of 'game' is really just embracing 'narrative moves' over "game-like moves."  He questions the aesthetic, implying that it is "something that should probably only be done once, marveled at, and then moved past."  By suggesting that Train is a game where "the only moral move is not to play," Koster questions, at a very fundamental level, if the aesthetic of play in this type of game is not merely a twist, a sort of trick of narrative, thus making it not a game at all.

But is the only moral move not to play?  To me, this is very indicative of a 'formalist' critique.  This is something board games have to constantly deal with, probably more so than digital games, because many players categorize the board games they play according to very formalist schemas.  Caylus is a worker placement game, Twilight Struggle is an area control game, Agricola is part of the larger family of Euro games, and so forth.  It's easy to think of board games this way.  But that's not the whole story.  If you take a look at many reviews of games, they focus on more than mechanics- they ask deeper questions of story, of theme, of how the game actually plays.  These reviews, without explicitly stating it, ask, "How does this game give me a narrative to interact with?" - which, in my mind, is something deeper than a formalist critique.  It's a humanist critique.  How does this game make me react as a human?  Formalism is a product of the rational.  Humanism is a product of the metaphysical.

Returning to the question, "Is the only moral move (of Train) not to play?", my answer is: no.  It's not just no, it's a hell no.  Why?  Train is about providing the player a sense, terrible as it is, of the sort of grotesque, normalizing effects that focusing on transporting Jews to concentration camps presents to those attempting to maximize and make efficient such transportation.  Playing Train isn't supposed to be pretty, or even fun.  It's meant to be torturous, it's meant to make you ask and question the source of your own humanity. 

Did you take glee, ignorantly, of moving the most amount of people to the end of the line?  Probably.  And when you discovered the true purpose of the game- moving representative figures to their representative death- did you recoil and become sick at the idea?  The ethical answer is yes.  But would you have encountered this full range of quandary, of questioning your own humanity, if you simply refused to play the game out of moral concerns?  To be honest, the moral question brought up by Koster assumes you know what the game is about before you play it.  But that posits perfect knowledge, which *any* game must assume you don't possess at the first go-around.  So my answer is that if you want to know what this game is about, you absolutely have to play it.  And in doing so, in playing the game of Train as it was meant to be played, perhaps you can affirm a part of your soul and it's place among the larger population of humanity.  Does this deny player agency?  Does Train embody the qualities of gameness?  Is this just a trick of narrative?

Asking these sort of questions, to me, is sort of like the old adage: If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.  If you have to ask do these qualities make Train a game, you probably shouldn't play it.  I say this in no affront to Koster, but I do think asking these sort of questions is indicative of the formalist trap of evaluation.  Which is, to say, I think this falls along the same issues as asking if 'games are art'.  Should you only play Train once?  Perhaps.  Does that mean you can't watch others play it, see their reactions, and take that experience in conjunction with your own?  Brenda Romero designed the game, has seen it played many times- and I'm pretty sure her answer would be 'no'.  Because, in a metaphysical sense, watching others play Train can be just as powerful as playing it yourself, even if that game lessens its 'gameplay' effect after one session.

Now I'm fully aware that opening your argument with a game like Train is a bit like dropping a hydrogen bomb to solve an ant problem in your house.  It's a bit of overkill.  But I make this example as a way to demonstrate that similar metaphysical games, like so many Twine examples, can easily be sunk in this same formalist quicksand without considering, truly, their full effect on the player, or even those not playing but merely observing a Twine game being played.  If your evaluative criteria is that "You can't do better at Train", then you have blatantly favored the rational over the metaphysical.  Which is fine, to a point.  But it certainly isn't applicable to the nebulous category that we call 'games'.  Games are, by their very nature, a blending of the rational and the metaphysical.  Board games tend to draw this blending out in a way that video games do not, so easily, reveal.  Because with board games, you have to address the form they present at a basic level. But you absolutely have to go past that for any real critique.  You have to go past mechanics to consider the humanist perspective.

Koster says 'art games' and AAA are about control, that "they are…more about the author than the player."  But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss player agency the way Koster is comfortable doing, especially with regard to deeply personal games- like Dys4ia.  As a player of these of games, am I not affirming my place in the broader perspective of humanity when I play a deeply personal game?  Why is the narrative effect a hindrance in Twine games, but for other games- like Andean Abyss or Twilight Struggle- the narrative effect adds to their luster and allure?  When you step out of the strictly rational bounds of critique, when you go beyond the form of the game, you enter into a territory much less defined by exclusives or schematizations.  You enter into the being of the player themselves, their ability to take what is presented and draw their own lessons from the act of play.  I can think of no greater surrendering of control than to let someone bring his or her own interpretation to the fore.

Koster calls this process out "as rhetoric and not…dialectic," with the consequence being that Twine games (or really any deeply personal games) "move against the fundamental current of gameness."  But I think this makes the mistake of placing the game on a central pillar and reducing the role, the agency, of the player who approaches this pillar.  Koster says, "the unique power of games, to me, lies in the conversation between player and designer."  But I disagree- the unique power of games lies in the conversation between the player and themselves while interacting with a designers interpretation.  If we place the game on the pillar, as is the tendency of the formalist critique, then we are accepting the supremacy of the rational over the metaphysical.  If we place the player on the pillar, then we reaffirm the humanity in the game and accept the presence of the metaphysical in conjunction with the rational.  In the end, the pillar disappears under this ideal and we no longer are bound by rhetoric.  We become the dialectical.

Play is not something that begins when the game starts and ends when it is put away.  Play is the process of using a rhetorical device to engage in a dialectic with ourselves.  That's why I can't agree with Koster when he says, "games have had nothing to say for so long."  They have so much to say that it's easy to just link this outpouring strictly to mechanics and then reject what the game has to say by rejecting the mechanics linked to its outpouring.  When you imply that Twine games impose a narrative rather than have the player construct a narrative, that critique is easy to accept or recognize because the mechanics of Twine are rather straightforward.  But to look only at mechanics and not ask the deeper, metaphysical questions of what play in this medium produces as far as conversation between the player and themselves is to miss a very large part of why games exist at all.

Or, to put it another way, to frame a game experience as between a player and designer is to favor, exclusively, the mechanical over anything else.  But if we frame a game experience as between a player and themselves, we can elude the trap of formalism and go straight to the dialectical process play intrinsically produces.

But I've digressed far too much from my main question- why have board games been largely left out of this formalist debate?  Why are digital games entering this phase now?  I think, in part, digital games are coming to terms with the *way* in which they are played.  When people begin to critique the effectiveness of Bioshock as a first person shooter, what they are really critiquing is the necessity of using a standard game controller to interact with the digital medium.  Digital games have long been experiences mediated through various controllers, and this recent 'piercing of the veil' with regards to Bioshock should be seen as a turn away from the formalist obsession with mechanics, and the controllers that facilitate them, towards a bigger question of how does this formalist 'roadblock' hinder or not hinder the conversation the player is having with themselves while playing the game.

That's why board games can, and should, provide the digital game critiques with an exemplar of how to negotiate around various formalist roadblocks.  So many players of board games ask these sort of questions every time they play.  While many do, admittedly, frame this inquiry around a mechanical theme- does the card driven mechanic of Twilight Struggle enhance the gameplay experience?- the larger questions asked go to the heart of what it means to interpret the game experience as a player.  The various 'controllers' utilized in board games are hardly fixed in place, and the numerous mods or house rules scrawled on box tops are a testament to the wide degree of flexibility board games enjoy over their more rigid digital cousins.  Now I would be the first to admit the board game/digital game relationship is not a 1:1 experience, and there is only so far comparative analyses can go in these sort of endeavors.  But the links are there, waiting to be explored.

So while I find myself almost totally at odds with what Koster presented in his 'Open Letter', I nevertheless admire his insistence on bringing the question of board games back into this larger debate.