Individual Identity and feelings of superiority

In The Reason for God, Timothy Keller argues that if we get our identity from, for example, our ethnicity or our social class, then we will inevitably feel superior to those of other races or classes. Even if we pride ourselves on being an open-minded tolerant person, then this is bound to lead to us looking down on those we perceive as narrow-minded and bigoted.

And it occurred to me that playing board games with asymmetric roles could help people appreciate their individual identity without leading to feelings of superiority. Here's what I mean.

Andean Abyss is a four-player game set in Columbia. Each player controls a different faction (Government, FARC, AUC, Cartels - go check Wikipedia if you need to brush up on your Columbian history.) Each faction has its own set of rules and its own victory conditions. When I played as the Government, I valued my own particular abilities, such as having so much money that the resources marker literally went off the scale, and I regarded the other factions as my enemies. Well, apart from that one turn when I joined forces with the AUC to wipe almost every FARC guerrilla and base off the map. My identity was locked in to being the Government and the other players were my deadly foes.

But at another level I appreciated the way that the four different factions were finely balanced and none were superior to the others. Far from it. All four were needed for an engrossing game. (Warning: do not attempt this game if you need to be in bed before midnight.) Hence my overall experience was appreciation of having one particular identity and appreciation of the existence of other different but equally valid factions.

Bringing this into the real world, it seems to me that I can take pride in belonging to the best county in the world (Yorkshire, if you were wondering) and at the same time appreciate that other people take equal pride in belonging to their own county or state or province or island or tribe. It's an example of what Orwell called Doublethink - something which human beings do all the time - in which I have no problem in believing a) my cultural identity is better than any other and b) everyone's cultural identity is equally important and no single one is best.

By a roundabout route my thoughts have brought me back to the same point Timothy Keller was trying to make: that the only way to have a self-identity which doesn't lead to a sense of superiority is to see our significance as being who we are under God.

Part of the fun of gaming is pitting yourself against opponents. Sometimes one can become immersed in a theme to the extent of glorying in their suffering. ("Ha! Take that, you communist swine!") But it would be awful if that in-game fun turned into dislike of the other players. The thing that stops the pride in my identity leading to a disparagement of others is that I know there is a bigger picture. Andean Abyss is just a game. There is a life beyond.

I remain proud to be a born and bred Yorkshireman. But I (somewhat reluctantly) recognise that in God's eyes, all lands and all peoples are equally loved and valued. There is so much about my identity (gender, race, education, height) which makes me happy to be me. (Weight? - don't ask.) I can't imagine  anything better than being who I am. But at the same time I realise my true identity and self-worth is due to being a child of God. And in that sense I am no better (and no worse) than any other living person.

Elegant Design

I've just posted the first of what might (repeat might) be a series of youtube videos. In it I try to enthuse about the elegance of design of board games (as illustrated by Cartagena) and of the universe (as illustrated by the universe).

In this post I am attempting to make the same point in more carefully considered sentences. But feel free to stop reading now and watch the video instead.

Something I appreciate about board games (or at least the good ones) is elegance of design. Simple rules which hang together to produce rich and satisfying gameplay. I picked Cartagena as my example because the rules boil down to two simple actions. Either play a card to move a pirate forward to the symbol on the card. Or move a pirate backwards to meet one/two other pirates and draw one/two cards.

From this there emerges an interesting game. The only way to move forward is by playing cards and the only way to draw cards is to move backwards. So when do you push on ahead, and when do you keep falling back to collect the necessary resources for a later advance? And you soon discover that you must keep a watchful eye open for a chain of covered symbols, allowing you (or your rival pirate) to make a dramatic leap forward.

I hadn't heard of this game until it was pointed out to me on a 'bring and buy' stall. I bought it on a fellow gamer's recommendation and so far have not regretted my purchase.

But more to the point: Elegant rules don't just write themselves. They are the work of a designer. In this case a chap called Leo Colovini (whose name I mispronounce on the video. Sorry, Leo.) A quick check on Board Game Geek reveals that he has designed many games, of which I have played just one other - Meridian - which as I recall also had relatively simple rules and the same kind of intellectual challenge.

Over the last few years I have encountered enough really good and well-designed games to have developed a taste for particular designers and even begin to recognise their individual 'style'. I have learned to admire the creativity of someone who can invent a set of rules for moving bits of wood and card around on a table in order to produce a pleasurable and engrossing experience.

Then I turn to the design of the universe and find I have to multiply that admiration a thousandfold.

The universe works by a set of rules about the interaction of subatomic particles in the environment of a four dimensional space-time continuum - or eleven dimensional or whatever the latest count of dimensions is thought to be. Yet these rules work so elegantly together that they produce the universe. Not just elements and stars and planets. Not just amino acids and blood vessels and aardvarks. Not just human beings and emotions and abstract concepts. But imaginative brains which are able to design and implement their own creations. And so there has come into existence the concept of blogging in which pixels on a screen can be interpreted as words and can stimulate particular thoughts in the minds of those who see them. (That's you, dear reader.) And there has come into existence stirring music. And whodunits. And smartphones. And Strictly Come Dancing. And Go Ape. And the pleasure of being allowed to lick the bowl when one's wife has made a chocolate cake. And not to forget the delightful discovery of satisfying gameplay from elegant board game rules.

And the thing is that every bit of this (and everything else in the universe which I don't have time to list) emerges from the beautifully designed set of rules which we call 'the laws of physics'. Impressed as I am by the hugeness, the intricacy and the variety of God's creation, I can't help but be even more impressed that all this complexity and depth arises from a relatively simple and (verging on) comprehensible set of rules.

I stand in awe of God's ability as a designer.