Re: Feutility Posted by Narada on June 09, 1998 at 23:34:57:
In Reply to: Re: Feutility posted by Ian Fowler on June 03, 1998 at 16:50:12:
"...To put the world in a cultural vaccum...
I myself am only Sixteen, if I see the desruction of culture now, what will it be like when I'm Thirty... "
I like your self confidence. Im remembering my impressions when I read the GBG at your age more than 20 years ago, and also "Damien", "Siddartha", "Steppenwolf", and others. Certainly I found support in them for my feeling that there must be more to life than school and then work. I know I never expected our tottering social system to be stumbling on for this long.
As far as I know, Hesse wrote Der Glass Perlenspiel in the early 40's, and wrote no more novels in the decade that he lived after that. What a shame he missed the 60's and all that came out of them, I think he would have been quite surprised.
What Im getting round to is saying that although Hesse speaks derogatively of a certain type of overly intellectual endeavor, he was a fine GBG player himself. He was perhaps disillusioned by what he saw as the poverty of recent cultural achievements compared to his heroes of the past, but he was not against the game itself.
My understanding has always been that what we call culture is primarilly the result of the great GBG that has been played for millenia by artist and scientists, and even politicians.
By giving us his beautiful metaphorical distillation, Hesse gave us insights into the games of the mind and the world. These were many and various as they must be in any good story, and the meaning was by no means limited to the level upon which he was indeed warning of the dangers of becoming lost in mere games.
"There is no real artisitic movement, Visionaries are forced to sellout in order to market their ideas... "
I know what you mean, but I'm not so sure there is no real artistic movement. I think rather that the global culture is so young and evolving so rapidly and so much is going on at once, that it is impossible to get an overview from within the process. In some ways and in some places there has rarely been such freedom of expression and exploration. What will come out of it all no-one knows. Perhaps the time for easily definable movements given labels by the media is passing.
Regarding "selling out", yes, ecomomic factors and marketing are at least as powerful as ever in influencing creativity. That reminds me that it always puzzled me that Hesse's GBG didn't deal with economic theories, mechanics, electronics, politics, etc: but then, he was setting up an artificial situation with certain limitations so as to be able to play a particular sort of game.
When all is included in the game then it can never be sterile. It is the very fountainhead of invention and creation.
See my "Infinite Game" submission below for more thoughts.
Happy playing