Play releases subjectivity by letting the person posit their own rules

Evidence

Play, like Kierkegaard’s irony, releases subjectivity. What is play indeed if not an activity of which man is the first origin, for which man himself sets the rules, and which has no consequences except according to the rules posited? As soon as a man apprehends himself as free and wishes to use his freedom, a freedom, by the way, which could just as well be his anguish, then his activity is play. The first principle of play is man himself; through it he escapes his natural nature; he himself sets the value and rules for his acts and consents to play only according to the rules which he himself has established and defined. As a result, there is in a sense “little reality” in the world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1356

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines play as self-posited rules and a release of freedom — contrast to seriousness.
• XREF: The freedom-as-anguish aside and self-posited rules connect to existentialist ethics and Beauvoir’s account of freedom; also echoes Kant’s autonomy of self-given law. — connects to: Games let people play with the forms of sociability itself; In social games players perform the very structure of society itself — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 379; Socially prescribed conduct can serve as scaffolding for self-realization rather than constraint — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 1027 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Games let people play with the forms of sociability itself #expands (0.85)
• In social games players perform the very structure of society itself #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 379
• Socially prescribed conduct can serve as scaffolding for self-realization rather than constraint #expands (0.78) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1027