Huizinga’s notion of play often connected to four main elements as he traced it through its various spheres: the notion of the agonistic contest, the role of rules, and way it took place outside of everyday life. As he defines it:
a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary” life as being “not serious”, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means (13).
As the definition shows, “play” extends beyond games, including the grounds for the ritual of religion, the structure of law, the agonsitic structure of “warfare,” and the playful riddling at the root of philosophy. Of these parts, the break from “ordinary life” and the role of internal rules–a structure outside of the rules of everyday life–seem to be particularly significant.
To transition to Illuminati, I think one can see some of the tensions and manifestations of this definition. In particular, I want to focus on the role of cheating and deceit in the game.
Backyard Philosophy 