Homo Ludens Huizinga Quotes

All play means something.

The eternal gulf between being and idea can only be bridged by the rainbow of imagination.

If a serious statement is defined as one that may be made in terms of waking life, poetry will never rise to the level of seriousness. It lies beyond seriousness, on that more primitive and original level where the child, the animal, the savage, and the seer belong, in the region of dream, enchantment, ecstasy, laughter. To understand poetry we must be capable of donning the child's soul like a magic cloak and of forsaking man's wisdom for the child's.

To fill in all the gaps in my knowledge beforehand was out of the question for me. I had to write now, or not at all. And I wanted to write.

Our point of departure must be the conception of an almost childlike play-sense expressing itself in various play-forms, some serious, some playful, but all rooted in ritual and productive of culture by allowing the innate human need of rhythm, harmony, change, alternation, contrast and climax, etc., to unfold in full richness.

You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play.

The outlaw, the revolutionary, the cabbalist or member of a secret society, indeed heretics of all kinds are of a highly associative if not sociable disposition, and a certain element of play is prominent in all their doings.

Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and win in the contest”. Thus

The word "school" has a curious history behind it. Meaning originally "leisure" it has now acquired precisely the opposite sense of systematic work and training, as civilization restricted the free disposal of the young man's time more and more and herded larger and larger classes of the young to a daily life of severe application from childhood onwards.

For many years the conviction has grown upon me that civilization arises and unfolds in and as play.

I had to write now, or not at all. And I wanted to write.

Play is battle and battle is play.

In play there is something “at play” which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action. All play means something. If we call the active principle that makes up the essence of play, “instinct”, we explain nothing; if we call it “mind” or “will” we say too much. However we may regard it, the very fact that play has a meaning implies a non-materialistic quality in the nature of the thing itself.

For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generatly it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall - sabha - where the Pandavas are to meet their prtners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual.

There is no more striking symptom of the decline of the play-factor than the disappearance of everything imaginative, fanciful, fantastic from men’s dress after the French Revolution. Long

real civilization cannot exist in the absence of a certain play-element, for civilization presupposes limitation and mastery of the self, the ability not to confuse its own tendencies with the ultimate and highest goal, but to understand that it is enclosed within certain bounds freely accepted.

The whole functioning of the mediaeval University was profoundly agonistic and ludic. The everlasting disputations which took the place of our learned discussions in periodicals, etc., the solemn ceremonial which is still such a marked feature of University life, the grouping of scholars into nationes, the divisions and subdivisions, the schisms, the unbridgeable gulfs—all these are phenomena belonging to the sphere of competition and play-rules. Erasmus

El club corresponde al juego como el sombrero a la cabeza

The Japanese samurai held the view that what was serious for the common man was but a game for the valiant. Noble

This levelling down and democratization of men’s fashions is far from unimportant. The whole transformation of mind and society since the French Revolution is expressed in it.

Los juegos de azar hay que considerarlos como estériles para la cultura. Ninguna riqueza aportan ni al espíritu ni a la vida. Pero otra cosa ocurre cuando la porfía exige destreza, habilidad, conocimientos, valor y fuerza.

For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generally it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall - sabha - where the Pandavas are to meet their prtners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual.

The supersession of the round dance, choral and figure dances by dancing à deux, whether this take the form of gyrating as in the waltz or polka or the slitherings and slidings and even acrobatics of contemporary dancing, is probably to be regarded as a symptom of declining culture. There

Here the bewildering antithesis of play and seriousness presents itself once more. We have gradually become convinced that civilization is rooted in noble play and that, if it is to unfold in full dignity and style, it cannot afford to neglect the play-element. The observance of play-rules is nowhere more imperative than in the relations between countries and States. Once they are broken, society falls into barbarism and chaos. On the other hand we cannot deny that modern warfare has lapsed into the old agonistic attitude of playing at war for the sake of prestige and glory. Now this is our difficulty: modern warfare has, on the face of it, lost all contact with play.

The view we take in the following pages is that culture arises in the form of play, that it is played from the very beginning. Even those activities which aim at the immediate satisfaction of vital needs--hunting, for instance--tend, in archaic society, to take on the play form. Social life is endued with supra-biological forms, in the shape of play, which enhance its value. It is through this playing that society expresses its interpretation of life and the world.

Si se considera que lo serio es aquello que se expresa de manera consecuente en las palabras de la vida alerta, entonces la poesía nunca será algo serio. Se halla más allá de lo serio, en aquel recinto, más antiguo, donde habitan el niño, el animal, el salvaje y el vidente, en el campo del sueño, del encanto, de la embriaguez y de la risa. Para comprender la poesía hay que ser capaz de aniñarse el alma, de investirse el alma del niño como una camisa mágica y de preferir su sabiduría a la del adulto.

But in acknowledging play you acknowledge mind, for whatever else play is, it is not matter. Even in the animal world it bursts the bounds of the physically existent. From the point of view of a world wholly determined by the operation of blind forces, play would be altogether superfluous. Play only becomes possible, thinkable and understandable when an influx of mind breaks down the absolute determinism of the cosmos. The very existence of play continually confirms the supra-logical nature of the human situation. Animals play, so they must be more than merely mechanical things. We play and know that we play, so we must be more than merely rational beings, for play is irrational.

In few human activities is competition more ingrained than in music, and has been so ever since the battle between Marsyas and Apollo. Wagner has immortalized these vocal battles in his Meistersinger. As instances from periods following that of the Meistersinger themselves we may cite the contest between Handel and Scarlatti got up by Cardinal Ottoboni in the year 1709, the chosen weapons being harpsichord and organ. In 1717 Augustus the Strong, King of Saxony and Poland, wanted to organize a contest between J. S. Bach and a certain Marchand, but the latter failed to appear. In 1726 all London society was in an uproar because of the competition between the two Italian singers Faustina and Cuzzoni: there were fisticuffs and catcalls. Factions and cliques develop with astonishing ease in musical life. The 18th century is full of these musical coteries—Bononcini versus Handel, Gluck versus Piccini, the Parisian “Bouffons” versus the Opera. The musical squabble sometimes took on the character of a lasting and embittered feud, such as that between the Wagnerians and the Brahmsians.

To fill in all the gaps in my knowledge beforehand was out of the question for me. I had to write now, or not at all. And I wanted to write. Leyden, June 1938.

Dutch historian J. Huizinga argues in 'Homo Ludens' that a competition, in order to be interesting to the public, has to be perceived as fair. There is a widespread perception, however, that the judging of FS is biased and that the results of competitions are often fixed. [...] But the perception of bias and favoritism in the judging of skating persists; and it persists because, well, there is bias and favoritism in judging

Niet een vorschende wetenschap maar de scheppende taal heeft woord en begrip samen gebaard.

Wie betrapt er zich niet herhaaldelijk op, dat hij een levenloos voorwerp, bij voorbeeld een weerbarsig boordknoopje, luide en doodelijk enstig toespreekt in zuiver menselijke qualificaties, waarmee hij het een weerspannigen wit toekennen, het verwijten doet, het wegens zijn laakbaar verzet beleedigt?

De populaire spreekwijze drukt dit duidelijk uit in de woorden: het gaat niet om de knikkers, maar om het spel, in andere woorden: het finale element der handeling is in eerste instantie gelegen in den afloop als zoodanig, zonder directe betrekking op wat daarna volgt.

Play gives meaning to life, wrote the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga back in 1938. He christened us Homo ludens–‘playing man’. Everything we call ‘culture,’ said Huizinga, originates in play.

Johan Huizinga’s classic, Homo Ludens: “At the root of this sacred rite we recognize unmistakably the imperishable need of man to live in beauty. There is no satisfying this need save in play. . . .” Judging from the lines

Johan Huizinga’s classic, Homo Ludens: “At the root of this sacred rite we recognize unmistakably the imperishable need of man to live in beauty.

In onze overgelede, overontplooide en overbewuste cultuur heeft zich een vérgaande contaminatie van de geestelijke waarden spel en ernst voorgedaan. Meer dan ooit slaan zij voortdurend in elkander om. Het spel verliest zijn kwaliteit van onttrokkenheid, zelfstandigheid, onbevangenheid, en wil voor ernst gelden. Terzelfder tijd ziet men ernstige technische en economische occupaties in het gebied van spel getrokken. Op tal van wijzen kan men in de gewaand-ernstige vormen van politieke of culturele werkzaamheid spel-instincten zich zien botvieren. Onze hedendaagse cultuur weet wellicht minder goed dan archaïsche culturen, wanneer en waarin ze speelt.

Het economische leven groeit niet uitsluitend op uit de nooddruft, maar ook, hoe paradoxaal het moge klinken, in de sfeer van mildheid, vriendschap, vertrouwen, eer, hoogmoed, en avontuur

De slotsom schijnt, dat schenken op krediet (wat wellicht juist heden nauwelijks als een contradictio in terminis gevoeld zal worden) even oud en veel eervoller is dan verkopen voor een directe tegenwaarde.

Alles wat adellijke conventie is, sociale afsluiting binnen eigen kring, beweegt zich, hoe gewichtig ook behandeld, voortdurend op de rand van het spel; een levende adel schrijft glimlachend zijn eigen satire, terwijl de burger benijdend toekijkt.

Zeker half-vrijwillige verdwazing, die wij op het gebied van allerlei politieke actie dagelijks kunnen waarnemen, als wij met open ogen willen zien, vindt haar verklaring en gedeeltelijke verontschuldiging in de onontkoombare spelkwaliteit, die aan alle cultuur verbonden is. Wij raken hier voortdurend de diepste vragen der beschavingskunde, vragen, tot wier nauwkeurige omschrijving (om van oplossing niet te spreken) etnologie, psychologie en kennisleer tezamen nauwelijks bij machte zouden blijken. Veel cultuur ontgaat slechts door spel te zijn de kwalificatie van hypocrisie. De gemeenschap redt zich, bergt zich en verlost zich in het spel.

Hoe verder de geweldige industriële en technische ontplooiing van stoommachine tot elektriciteit voortschrijdt, hoe meer zij de illusie schept, dat in haar de vooruitgang der beschaving gelegen is. Als gevolg daarvan kan de beschamende misvatting worden uitgewerkt en ingang vinden, als zouden de economische krachten en het economisch belang de gang der zered bepalen en beheersen. De overschatting van de economische factor in de maatschappij e in de menselijke geest was in zekere zin de natuurlijke vrucht van het rationalisme en utilisme, die het mysterie gedood en de mens van schuld en zonde verklaard hadden. Men had vergeten, hem tevens van dwaasheid en kortzichtigheid te bevrijden, en hij scheen bestemd en geschikt om de wereld naar het patroon van zijn eigen banaliteit zalig te maken.

De hoogste wijsheid is, een vraag te stellen, die niemand beantwoorden kan.

De grote makers van de voortijd hebben in wedijver of als opgave om hun leven te redden, de verbazende kunststukken vervaardigd en het nieuwe geschapen. De zucht naar het exorbitante is hier bijzonder manifest. De mens wil het wonder zien, wil het wonder volbrengen. En hij doet het, in kampspel, waarvan de mythus gewaagt: Tvastar, de maker, die Indra's donderbeitel smeedt, en met de drie Rbhu's wedijvert in kunstvaardigheid. Wieland de smid, wiens zwaard de drijvende vlokken wol klieft, bovenal Daedalus, - mythische oudoom van Leonardo -, wiens beelden lopen konden, die de draad door de windingen van de schelp trekt (een opgegeven kunststuk, een problema) door een mier als trekdier te gebruiken. Het onmogelijke mogelijk maken, dat is de technische occupatie. Tot verbazing der aanschouwers. De dichtende overlevering vervalt hier gaarne uit het exorbitante in het absurde, de techniek der verbeelding stond voor niets.

Huizinga zelf was Gombrich daarin voorgegaan toen hij in het laatste hoofdstuk van zijn cultuurkritische boek In de Schaduwen van morgen zonder aarzeling vaststelde: 'een cultuur kan hoog heten, al brengt zijn geen techniek of geen beeldhouwkunst voort, maar niet, als zij de barmhartigheid mist'. Nog eerder, oordelende over de 'sterielste onzin' van de Duitse onheilsprofeet Oswald Spengler in diens Untergang der Abendlandes, was Huizinga's grootste verwijt: 'Wat hem ontbreekt, is de liefde. [...] In zijn hele boek klinkt niets van medelijden, niets van eerbied of overgave, niets van de vrede des harten, noch van hoop.