Psychological engagement -- excitement?

Playfully Changing the Prevailing Climate of Opinion: Climate change as focal metaphor of effective global governance (Part #6)

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The challenge of the times in official eyes (reinforced by the perspective of economists) is that of "energy" -- especially in the light of the depletion of oil resources and the controversies over nuclear power. But curiously the challenge of the times for most people is not energy but "excitement". Energy resources are notably depleted to sustain the pursuit of excitement in all its varied forms. Air travel and the use of private vehicles provide obvious illustrations; drug and alcohol use provide another.

Game players tend not to respond to the preoccupations central to politics. Young people respond in significant numbers to the successors of Dungeons and Dragons and other games (see John Borland and Brad King. Dungeons and Dreamers, 2003). Through the imaginative and mythological content of games, it might be argued that young people are training themselves for Armageddon -- after the enraptured have left [more] -- rather than for the implementation of the United Nations Agenda 21 and its Millennium Development Goals. Curiously they are activating, and connecting with, cultural symbols that otherwise would be largely considered meaningless in modern civilization.

This suggests that for the climate of opinion to change, excitement of some kind needs to be a focus; hence the call here for new kinds of game and play. But for this to have any effect on climate change, then such playing needs to "connect" psychologically with consumption patterns at the personal level and with policy processes at the collective level.

It might be said people are stuck in bad or impoverished "games" that are in many ways a reflection of the inappropriateness of consumption patterns and official policies:

• participation in many competitive sports has been transformed into a spectator process, emphasizing the visual dimension. Other processes, inadequately provided for, overflow in an unchannelled way into associated violence
• policy debates are themselves increasingly perceived as "games" (eg of "political football"), even "theatre", excessively emphasizing the visual dimension to the point that future planning is focused. To what extent should international organizations, engaged in the processes of global governance, be considered as institutionalized games?

From this perspective, planetary and psycho-social challenges need to be designed into games. But, the games available to people may be increasingly inadequate to the degree of excitement required to sustain their engagement in society. Why are some better nourished by "SUV games" than by "Agenda 21 games"? If official games were as exciting as they need to be to engage people, then surely more people would play them. There is therefore a basic distinction to be remembered between:

• games people ought to play, and
• games people actually choose to play

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