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.
No comments:
Post a Comment