Summary
Bernard Suits: Grasshopper Games, Life and Utopia
In the middle of the 20th century, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that games cannot be defined; there is no common thread that connects them all. "After all," said the sober Bernard Suits, "playing a game is a willing attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." The short book Suits wrote to demonstrate just that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is exquisite. In the cheerful voice of Aesop's Grasshopper, that "lazy but thoughtful practitioner of applied entomology", Suits proves that games can be meaningfully defined, and also claims that playing games is a key part of the ideal of human existence. Thus, games belong at the heart of every utopian vision.
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