My journey back to Scotland had me furiously ripping articles out of today's Guardian, in a chain of play-ethical topics I just couldn't ignore. Forgive the cognitive leaps, they were irresistible...
Carnivals against banksterism
My first example is Katherine Ainger's op-ed on how the anticapitalist movement of ten years ago is gearing up for a comeback, timed to the coming G20 conference in London. It reminded me of some of my political aspirations in the Play Ethic book (which I'm re-reading with a macabre interest at the moment). I'd hoped that between the 'work ethic' espoused by orthodox, growth-oriented government and companies, and the 'protest ethic' coming from the streets and the South, a 'play ethic' could perhaps be a mediating argument - translating the idealism and utopianism of the latter into new institutions and policies for the former.
It didn't look like anything like that was happening in 2003-2004. But if the ethical and civic vigour of the social software movement in the UK and the US is anything to go by (with Obama's election, if not quite his government so far, the best example of their effectiveness), it looks like those connecting tissues are being formed now - tissues partly made up of the playing, gaming and enterprising nature of net-enabled activism. And not just technological networks, but societal networks too.
Ainger's piece also reminded me of my book's quotation of anarchist David Graeber, who I've mentioned in a recent post (scroll to bottom). Here's Ainger's relevant and fascinating words:
The solutions the "alter-global" networks have developed offer a way out that is based on whole systems thinking. Fundamental to this vision is an economy that meets the needs of everyone on a planet of finite resources.
Which is why the climate camp in the city, with its slogan "Because nature doesn't do bailouts", is one of the most interesting of all the movements coalescing in London next week. It's a potent mix of seasoned anti-globalisation activists who are skilled in creative direct action and a new generation that is energised and refreshingly undogmatic.
The camp has taken a key component of the globalisation movement - the temporary autonomous zones of street parties and convergence centres liberated in cities during summit protests - to a new level, creating a transformational space which prefigures the world they want, featuring everything from wind turbines and composted waste to decentralised decision-making and creative play.
There's no doubt that 'reclaiming the streets', in a playful, carnivalesque and collaborative spirit, is a powerful experience - both for participants and the onlookers it's intended to challenge.1 And if a play-ethical perspective isn't open to new forms of democratic creativity, it's isn't worth the invocation. As ever, one hopes that it's Ainger's idealism that characterises the protest. And that the usual marginals out for a bit of cathartic urban confrontation or destruction get reined in by her more "seasoned" activists.
Doing well by playing well: Lego
The other piece in today's Guardian that talks about play's power and potential is a lovingly written cover piece by Jon Henley on Lego - pegged to the information that the Danish company is doing especially well in the teeth of this recession, with its sales up 51% in the UK last year.
With the creative passions of the alter-globalisation protestors in mind, it's intriguing to read this account of this thoroughly Scandinavian company (who regularly top reputation indexes for corporations), and their seemingly universally beloved product.
Ainger might talk about 'whole systems thinking' (this kind, I guess). The "Lego System of Play" was introduced in 1955, and Henley relates lots of kindly tales about the founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen, compelling his son to repaint toy ducks because he'd put on only two layers than three, or citing the company slogan about quality control for children's toys Det beste er ikke for godt (Not even the best is good enough). And though it's true that Lego did catch some of the brand intoxication of the 90's - expanding into theme parks, movies, clothes, software, thinking they could be as sexy as Apple - they've since returned to their core business of making toys.
At the moment, Lego's next new frontiers are fusing virtual and physical game-play ("imagine if kids were telling their playmates, 'Hey, guess what - if you clip a set of shoulder pads onto this guy, he gets three times as many strength points online!' That's the holy grail"), and moving into the world of board-games (Lego Ludo, anyone?). There doesn't seem to be much to object to a company whose aim is to make a toy that gives such a sense of imaginative mastery to children (and as Henley writes, quite a few obsessed adults).
Even if you go online to find any alter-globalisation dirt on the company, there seems to be very little. I found this extensive response to a parent's worry in the company's forum pages, about the extent to which Lego were using sweat-labour in China to make their toys (very little, it seems). And in a toy business conference on safety I spoke at last year, the company's head Jorgen Vig Knudstorp was clearly the poster-boy for an industry which had been badly fouling its own nest, with lax safety and labour-standard practices in the far East.
It's not much of a "full disclosure" to say that I've spoken at Lego conferences, collaborated with their Serious Play consultancy, have met their CEO a few times now, and generally approve of them and their works. But if we're also thinking of a playful critique of current capitalism, it is interesting to consider how much Lego, even as a capitalist multinational, is a product of a certain Scandinavian sensibility. One in which a commercial enterprise regards the pro-development, pro-community values of its products as being its crucial competitive advantage - with these values reinforced by the company's strong base in its place of origin. (Usmir Haque's recent lectures on Constructive Capitalism are relevant here).
Yes, there are always questions to ask about any company who seeks to extract value from children (or their parents' wallets). Some of their lines still seem pretty badly gendered (there's slashing Bionicles for certain boys, and Belville horse farms for certain girls - though they have reestablished the unisex fire-stations of old. And Spongebob Squarepants' "Good Neighbours at Bikini Bottom" looks, frankly, covetable by children of all ages).
But I'd like to know from the net-rades in the coming G20 Climate Camp whether they have a positive vision of any company that might fit their "alter-globalising" criteria. (Not to dismiss their critique of existing institutions - but it would be interesting to know). Would Lego fit the bill?
Update: From a few Google searches, I have a troubled answer. It seems the climate campers have indeed used "creative play" to create a "transformational space" - in Legoland, Windsor (see pic at the top, and video below).
Originally I thought the protestors had constructed the whole thing. But having looked at it closely, Legoland has clearly already built a smoking nuclear power plant (with evident sponsorship from the not-very-well-behaved energy company E-On). The Climate Campers have climbed in wearing company shirts, attached a Lego-sized protest banner, and placed Lego-sized protestors on its polluting rim...
Now, an activism that makes you broadly smile can't be entirely off the mark. If it makes Lego think harder about their environmental associations, it was definitely worthwhile. And an example of the necessary tensions that need to exist between Ainger's playful radicals, and even the most ethically-playful organisations. We live in inescapably interesting times...
NOTES
1 And we shouldn't forget that they were having their effects. Some dates and places you'll never forget: 8.30am, Sept 11th, 2001, Glasgow. Buying my Financial Times and looking forward to reading its four-part series on "the anti-globalization" movement. "It is wide in its tactics and ambitions, violent and revolutionary on the edges, peaceful and reformist in the main. It rushes in often contradictory directions, anti-corporate and entrepreneurial, anarchistic and nostalgic, technophobe and futuristic, revolutionary and conservative all at the same time", wrote a clearly enamoured James Harding (now editor of The Times). And then, at 8.46am in New York, a screaming came across the sky...
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