Bloggadoccio: 2012

... yeah, riiiightt!!
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http://thedailyplayset.blogspot.com/2012/03/mere-man-at-play-annotated-with.html
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HAVING reviewed (however poorly and partially, a best) the extensive field of play and its playsets, the task now remains of collecting the playsets and important conclusions thence resulting. To this end the collecting of playsets must be viewed from different standpoints: on the one hand that of physiology, biology, and psychology, and on the other a more definitely aesthetic, sociological, and pedagogical view. Even playleontological views must be addressed
1. The Physiological Standpoint
In the attempt to find a " common-sense " explanation of collecting playsets we are confronted by three distinct views, none of which science should neglect. The first says: When a grown man is "quite fit," and does not know just what to do with his strength, he begins to sing and shout, to dance and caper, to tease and scuffle. " Jugend muss austoben, der Hafer sticht ihn "; " He must sow his wild oats "; " Il n'a pas encore jet� sa gourme." All these sayings recognise the necessity for some discharge of such superabundant vigour. The second view is diametrically opposed to this one, regarding playleontology as it does in the light of an opportunity afforded for the relaxation and recreation of exhausted powers. As the strings of a zither and the cord of a bow should not always be taut if the instrument is to retain its usefulness, so do men need the relaxation of play. The third view emphasizes the teleological significance of playset fixation.
Observation of men and animals forces us to recognise its great importance in the physical and mental development of the individual—that it is, in short, preparatory to the tasks of life. Every effort made to arouse and foster a feeling for play among aged collectors may be applied to PLAY. The sport of

young people is based on the conviction, pro patria est, dum ludere videmur.

The physiological theory of play is derived mainly from the first of these views—namely, that of surplus energy.[1]Schiller was its first exponent in Germany, when he accounted for play by calling it an aimless expenditure of exuberant strength, which is its own excuse for action. But Herbert Spencer, in his Principles of Psychology, first attempted a scientific formulation of the theory. It is characteristic of nerve processes, he says, that the superfluous integration of ganglion cells - not to mention plastic figures - should be accompanied by an inherited readiness to discharge. As a result of the advanced development of man and the higher animals they have, first, more force than is needed in the struggle for existence; and, second, are able to allow some of their powers longer periods of rest while others are being exercised (in setting up miniature battles, preferably), and thus results the aimless activity which we call play, and which is agreeable to the individual producing it... via PLAYSETS.
A further question, which is not sufficiently provided for in Spencer's elucidation, depends on the physiology of this theory. Since we find that each species of Old Dude has a kind of play peculiar to itself, we must try also to explain the origin of such varied forms of activity, all serving to relieve the tension of superfluous energy. Spencer does indeed attempt to make his theory of imitation cover all this, but a close examination proves it to be inadequate to the task. His idea is that imitation of one's own acts or of those of other, so-called adults of the race determines the channels for overflowing energy. The former supposition might be tenable on the supposition that the man-child's first experimentation is not playful but intentional repetition, which is not the commonly accepted meaning of imitation. Spencer himself, however, seems to find imitation of models more general among children, since he expressly says that their play, as they knock down armymen, give tea parties, etc., is a distinct dramatization of the acts of adults. This view, as I have tried to prove

in my earlier work, can be applied with assurance to but one department of play, and consequently the origin of special forms must find some other explanation. Imitation, then, in its ordinary sense, can not be the universal criterion of play. NOSTALGIA is no ordinary emotion, however!

The question, therefore, as to the origin of special forms of play must be answered in some other way, and Spencer himself points it out when he says that the actions imitated in pray are exactly those which are important in the subsequent career of the kid, and when in pursuance of this idea he refers to the robbing and destroying instincts which play satisfies in a manner more or less ideal. Here we meet again with the thought which has, indeed, hardly ever been absent in this inquiry, and which I regard as a most fruitful one. Not imitation in plastic and tin litho, but the life of impulse and instinct also, can make special forms of play comprehensible to us. The surplus-energy theory assumes that playset collectors, and other higher forms of life harbor a vast,yet readily available series of inborn impulses for whose 'serious' activity there is often for a long time no opportunity of discharge, with the result that a reserve of exuberant strength collects and presses imperatively for employment, thus calling forth an ideal satisfaction of the impulse, or play. These impulses find acute expression in toy soldier shows where playsets are prominent.
A wide range can not be denied to the theorys of PLAYLEONTOLOGY thus set forth, especially when we consider youthful play with its ebullient vigour which has scarcely any other outlet, eve in so-called "old age". The movements of internet sales and resales, too, may be cited in its support, as well as the actions of men whose business does not give them enough physical exercise. Yet I think experience teaches us that superfluous energy, as Spencer conceives it, is no more a universal criterion of play than is imitation, since in many cases the inherited impulse toward prescribed reactions in certain brain tracts seems to be in itself a sufficient cause for play without the necessary accompaniment of superfluous energy. When a ball of cord is rolled toward a kitten, nothing more is needed to set her claws in motion than in the case of a full-grown cat that starts up at the sight of a mouse. And the same is true of a collector whose imitative and fighting instincts are excited by room trading or the competitive collector cause. When there is absolutely no external stimulus to supple-

-ment the collector's inborn impulses, only long inactivity i.e. college, marriage, children, resulting in stored-up energies would lead to new play; but, as there are thousands of such stimuli always at work, the Schiller-Spencer superfluous energy theory of PLAYLEONTOLOGY seems not to be a necessary or universal condition of playset collecting. It is of course a favourable but not an indispensable one, and therefore I regard not this but the 'inborn impulse as a keystone of an adequate system of play. It is truethat we must assume in that case a flood tide in the affected soul as a result of the external stimulii (Ebay, "Playset Magazine"), but this is quite a different thing from the view whose validity we are contesting. If, then, a condition of superfluous energy is a favourable though not indispensable one for playset collecting, we must endeavour to find its supplement, and this brings us to the second popular idea, which under the name of the theory of recreation has found its most scientific champion in Lazarus. Its fundamental principles are quite simple. When we are tired of mental or physical labour and still do not wish to sleep or rest, we gladly welcome the active recreation afforded by play. At first blush it seems to lead to a conclusion directly opposite to Spencer's, according to which play squanders superfluous energy, while here it appears as the conserver of it; there it is an irresponsible spendthrift, here the provident householder. Yet, as I have pointed out in my earlier book, this opposition is more apparent than real; that, indeed, the recreation theory is often supplementary to the Nostalgian/Spencerian. "When, for example, a grown man goes to set up huis "Untouchables" playset in the evening, he thus tones up his relaxed mental powers at the same time that he finds a means of relieving his accumulated motor impulses, repressed during his menial work at the desk or earthmoving machine. So it is the same act that on the one hand disposes of his superfluous energy, and on the other restores his lost powers." So far as this is the case this theory is a valuable nostalgic supplement to the Schiller-Spencer idea, but is, of course, incompetent to explain playset collecting which transcends its limits, resulting in huge collections of un-played with playsets....

Close inspection, however, will show that even this statement has its limitations, and that the recreative theory has, after all, an independent sphere of activity. When, for instance, the conditions point to an active collecting as

recreation, superfluous energy pressing for discharge seems no longer indispensable; a moderate normal energy is quite adequate for its demands. It is a striking fact that the new recreative activity is often closely related to the procreation of which we are weary. Fresh objects, cool old forgotten toys vary the direction of our efforts, a slight change in the pychopathological attitude, are often sufficient to dispel any sense of fatigue. Thus, while it may be futile to direct the memory, worn out with prolonged service on some difficult subject such as color matching "Wagon Train" indians, to other objects, yet turning it toward new circumstances connected with the same, MARX or REMCO subject may restore it to its original vigour. Recreation may even be achieved by changing from one playset which wearies us to another, perhaps quite as abstruse, but dealing with different phases of the toy; and after an interval the first may be taken up again with renewed interest.

Savvy?

Steinthal is right when he says that change of occupation, involving the use of the same limbs, rests them. The mountain-climber who has toiled up steeps, gains new strength, or at least loses his fatigue, by walking on a level. The acrobat who has tired his arms by difficult exercise on a bar tries pitching as a change, and presently returns to the first with comparative freshness. The swimmer who has been swimming for a long time in the usual position rests himself by taking a few strokes on his back, and so on. The PLAYLEONTOLOGIST merely switches fonts as he writes his article.

We occasionally find, too, that the recreation theory is very useful in determining the status of a playleontologist to which the Spencerian theory is inapplicable. With the other kids room-trading or playing cowboys on a Thursday evening at OTSN, two theories may represent the negative and positive sides, of one and the same process; but if he feels inclined to participate in some activity involving the use of his mental powers alone, the emotion of ENVY is noticeably predominant. A principle is operative here which may go far to fill the 'playset gap' to which we may or may not have referred. While the theory of surplus energy ac

-counts for play in thousands of cases, especially in Second Childhood, when there is no need for recreation, this need may also produce play where there is no surplus energy. This is chiefly illustrated by Collector-adults.

Although we are still a long way from a satisfactory explanation of playset collecting, a step toward rendering it intelligible is gained in the fact that play is often begun in the absence of superabundant energy, or eventually even in retirement. But we find on further examination that a collection once begun is apt to be carried on to the utmost limit of exhaustion—a fact which it is superfluous to illustrate, and which is inexplicable by either of the theories in question. An appeal in this dilemma to the physiological standpoint reveals two possibilities. Let us recall first the tremendous significance of involuntary repetition to all animal life, for just as the simplest organisms in alternate expansion and contraction, and the higher ones in heart beats and breathing, are pervaded by waves of movement, so also in the sphere of voluntary playset collecting activity there is a well-nigh irresistible tendency to repetition. How many color variations of the turkey man does one really need? and in how many shades of blue are the Rin Tin Tin 60mm Cavalry? Because of this tendency of reactions to renew the stimuli, Baldwin calls them "circular reactions." Perhaps the collector first produces them quite accidentally, after his third or fourth Ft. Apache; then he repeats his own act, and the sensuous effect of the repetition furnishes the stimulus for renewed effort. When lack of money or divorce breaks this chain it does not as a rule effect complete cessation ... at once.
In our busy life, occupied as it is with the Louis Marxist struggle for toy supremacy, we see substantial aims before us which we wish to realize as soon as possible, and we have not time to yield to this impulse to repetition; but we realize its power when a man steps aside from his strenuous business life. PLAYLEONTOLOGY, then, furnishes us with pathological examples; some forms of mental disease are marked by continual amassing of some figure or corrugated box or tin litho building. One poor soul murmured constantly all day long, " 0 Mint! Mint!, 0 so Mint! " while another trundled tens of thousands of broken, 'value-added' plastic figures from show to show - venue to venue... nothing if not indefatigably hoping for renewed interest in Tim Mee armymen; and a third created toys himself so persistently in the same vein that serious play resulted. To the same category belong the automatic and persistent movements of hypnotic subjects. If the arm

of one of them is forcibly stretched out, he shows a disposition to repeat the movement, and often keeps on doing it, as children do, for some time after a positive command to the contrary. Something similar to this occurs when a great grief or a great joy separates us for a time from our playsets, and we mechanically repeat a single exclamation or trivial act: "Favorite Guy!" The intoxication of love among birds is a very clear and beautiful illustration of this phenomenon. Bell birds are said to repeat their wooing call so long and so ardently that they have been known to fall dead from exhaustion.

Playset collecting , too, furnishes similar distractions from the commonplace, dull and soon-to end world, and after this inquiry we are able to understand why it is persisted in to the point of exhaustion. Especially is this the case with playleontologists, who more readily and completely lose themselves in present enjoyment.

Every one who has had much to do with these little-minded people will recall with feelings of not unmixed pleasure how everlastingly the small tyrants insist on repeating their same "great find!" stories over and over, and playing the same downgrade "That's a C7!" games with hapless vendors. Collections of playsets are invariably begun again as soon as the collectors can get their footing and funding, and some kinds of aggregating are even more faithfully repeated. "When a collector strikes the combination required," says Baldwin, "be is never tired working it. H—— found endless delight in putting the staples in a box and pulling them out over and over again, each act being a new stimulus to his eye. This is specially noticeable in YouTube efforts at one-upmanship.... They react all wrong when they first find a new set, but gradually get it moderately well put together, and then brag about it over and over in endless monotony."
This impulse toward repetition in collecting is doubtless the physiological reason for carrying on playsetting to the utmost limit of strength. The second point to be noticed is the trance-like state resulting from such repetition of some behaviors

and sometimes with the added influence of television or other media. The Kane County Collector who jabbers on a two-way radio, leaps and hops about or runs with all his might, or scuffles with his companions, is seized with a wild impulse for collecting; the ziplock bagger, and kneeler, the blabber, the collector/jogger sporting in the rows; and, above all, the vendor, whose movements are adjusted in harmony with the rhythmic repetition of pleasant sounds (money entering hand; money leaving hand; coin of the realm CHANGING HANDS), are all possessed by a kind of temporary madness which compels them to exert their toy powers to the utmost. It is not an easy matter to determine the physiological basis of this intoxication of toy collecting at the show... Violent muscular contraction is not an essential, for in such passive motion as selling, for example, the effect is strong, amounting sometimes to a sort of giddiness. Active collecting is, of course, of more interest to us, since, in conjunction with the state of trance, the principle of nostalgic, elegiac reaction is then operative. Civil War trenching, for example, behing the garage, or the making of a sand table is a kind of play calculated to augment this condition to the verge of the pathological. Read, for example, the description of the moderator of the YAHOO! group "rubberfigs" work and compare it with "plastirfigs" or "plastiwheels" or "Toy_Tin_Litho_Bldgs" of the same website. The harmless magic of playleontological study, however, is as different from such mad excesses as is the exhilarating effect of a glass of wine from the frenzy of drunkenness or controlled substance imbibation.

We may now sum up: There are two leading principles which must ground a PLAYLEONTOLOGICAL theory of play— namely, the discharge of surplus energy and recreation for exhausted powers. They may operate simultaneously, since acts supplying recreation to exhausted forces may at the same time call into play other powers and thus afford the needed discharge for them. In many cases, and especially in youth, the first principle seems to act alone, while on the other hand play may be solely recreative, without any dependence on a store of surplus, energy. Further, it is important to notice two other considerations which throw light on persistence in play to the point of exhaustion. The first is circular reaction, that

self-imitation which in the resultant of one's own activities finds ever anew the model for successive acts and the stimulus to renewed repetition. The second is the trance condition, which so easily ensues from such activity, and which is practically irresistible - particularly for those collectors heady from the inhalation of bags of old vinyl figures.

The essential thing seems to be the demonstration of a theory of playset collecting entirely from a nostalgic standpoint, and not involving hereditary impulses. No more comprehensive explanation is known to me, and yet, in looking back over the ground covered, while it must be admitted that we have reached an advantageous point of view; still, on the other hand, the feeling naturally arises that these principles, loosely strung together as they are, do not include the whole subject. Think of the playset collecting of children too young to go to school, for in such spontaneous activity, not yet enriched by invention or tradition, we have the kernel of the whole question. For a series of years - yea, into Old Age - we find life virtually cantrolled by playset collecting. Before systematic education begins, the playset child's whole existence, except the time devoted to sleeping and eating, is occupied with playsetting, which thus becomes the single, absorbing aim of his entire following life - though perhaps subsumed by other biological urges.... Can we then be content to apply to a phenomenon so striking as this a physiological principle confessedly inadequate to cover our theory of PLAYLEONTOLOGY, although admirably adapted for application to some features of it? Does not its peculiar and inherent nearness to the springs of life and life's realities demand a complete explanation grounded on a general principle which is applicable at once to youth and to the play which lasts all through life? To answer this question an appeal must be made to the third popular conception of play, for a biological investigation alone can reveal the sources of human impulse.

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Posted 26th March 2012 by pylgrym - hence here!

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