Brian-Sutton Smith's Seven Rhetorics of Play

Play as Progress: Play is a way of turning children into adults. Play is valuable because it educates and develops the cognitive capacities of human or animal youth. Examples: All forms of children's play and animal play Play as Fate: Human lives and play are controlled by fate in the form of destiny, gods, atoms, neurons, or luck, but not by free will. Examples: Gambling and games of chance Play as Power: Play is a form of conflict and a way to fortify the status of those who control the p...

 We Need Play to Learn the Rules of the Game for the Civil...

The Real Significance of Play.—This scheme is, doubtless, imperfect, as critics of Groos’s book have taken occasion to point out, but the idea which underlies it all is a most suggestive and illuminating one, when rightly understood. In his latest work on the play of man, which has recently appeared, Groos makes clear this point (253, p. 492), when he observes: ‘I presuppose everywhere the existence of innate impulses (Triebe), and assume that these have only led to play-exercise (Spiel...