To regard society as a species of culture is not to overthrow or even alter society, but only to eliminate its perceived necessity. Infinite players have rules; they just do not forget that rules are an expression of agreement and not a requirement for agreement.
Culture is not therefore mere disorder. Infinite players never understand their culture as the composite of all they they choose individually to do, but as the congruence of all that they choose to do with each other. Because there is no congruence without the decision to have one, all cultural congruence is under constant revision. No sooner did the Renaissance begin than it began to change. Indeed, the Renaissance was not something apart from its change; it was itself a certain persistent and congruent evolution.
For this reason, it can be said that where a society is defined by its boundaries, a culture is defined by its horizon.
A boundary is a phenomenon of opposition. It is the meeting place of hostile forces. Where nothing opposes there can be no boundary. One cannot move beyond a boundary without being resisted.
This is what patriotism--that is, the desire to protect the power in a society by way of increasing the power of a society--is inherently belligerent. Since there can be no prizes without a society, no society without opponents, patriots must create enemies before we can require protection from them. Patriots can flourish only where boundaries are well-defined, hostile, and dangerous. The spirit of patriotism is therefore characteristically associated with the military or other modes of international conflict.
Because patriotism is the desire to contain all other finite games within itself--that is, to embrace all horizons within a single boundary--it is inherently evil.
A horizon is a phenomenon of vision. One cannot look at the horizon; it is simply the point beyond which we cannot see. There is nothing in the horizon itself, however, that limits vision, for the horizon opens onto all that lies beyond itself. What limits vision is rather the incompleteness of that vision.
One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line; it has no place; it encloses no field; its location is always relative to the view. To move toward a horizon is simply to have a new horizon. One can therefore never be close to one's horizon, though one may certainly have a short range of vision, a narrow horizon.
We are never somewhere in relation to the horizon since the horizon moves with our vision. We can only be somewhere by turning away from the horizon, by replacing vision with opposition, by declaring the place on which we stand to be timeless--a sacred region, a holy land, a body of truth, a code of inviolable commandments. To be somewhere is to absolutize time, space, and number.
Every move an infinite player makes is toward the horizon. Every move made by a finite player is within a boundary. Every movement of an infinite game therefore presents a new vision, a new range of possibilities. The Renaissance, like all genuine cultural phenomena, was not an effort to promote one or another vision. It was an effort to find visions that promised still more vision.
Who lives horizonally is never somewhere, but always in passage.
Also, I don't know his definitions, so most of this doesn't make much sense. Even if I did, I don't think I find his view particularly persuasive or meaningful on this point.
Although anyone who wishes can be an infinite player, and although anyone can be strong, we are not to suppose that power cannot work irremediable damage on infinite play. Infinite play cannot prevent or eliminate evil. Though infinite players are strong, they are not powerful and do not attempt to become powerful.
Evil is the termination of infinite play. It is infinite play coming to an end in unheard silence.
Unheard silence does not necessarily mean the death of the player. Unheard silence is not the loss of the player's voice, but the loss of listeners for that voice. It is an evil when the drama of a life does not continue in others for reason of their deafness or ignorance.
There are silences that can be heard, even from the dead and from the severely oppressed. Much is recoverable from an apparently forgotten past. Sensitive and faithful historians can learn much of what has been lost, and much therefore that can be continued.
There are silences, however, that will never and can never be heard. There is much evil that remains beyond redemption. When Europeans first landed on the North American continent the native population spoke as many as ten thousand distinct languages, each with its own poetry and treasury of histories and myths, its own ways of living in harmony with the spontaneities of the natural environment. All but a very few of those tongues have been silenced, their cultures forever lost to those of us who stand ignorantly in their place.
Evil is not the termination of a finite game. Finite players, even those who play for their own lives, know the stakes of the games they freely choose to play.
Evil is not the attempt to eliminate the play of another according to published and accepted rules, but to eliminate the play of another regardless of the rules. Evil is not the acquisition of power, but the expression of power. It is the forced recognition of a title--and therein lies the contradiction of evil, for recognition cannot be forced. The Nazis did not compete with the Jews for a title, but demanded recognition of a title without competition. This could be achieved, however, only by silencing the Jews, only by hearing nothing from them. They were to die in silence, along with their culture, without anyone noticing, not even those who managed the institutions and instruments of death.
31.
Evil is never intended as evil. Indeed, the contradiction inherent in all evil is that it originates in the desire to eliminate evil. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
Evil arises in the honored belief that history can be tidied up, brought to a sensible conclusion. It is evil to act as though the past is bringing us to a specifiable end. It is evil to assume that the past will make sense only if we bring it to an issue we have clearly in view. It is evil for a nation to believe it is "the last, best hope on earth." It is evil to think history is to end with a return to Zion, or with the classless society, or with the Islamicization of all living infidels.
Your history does not belong to me. We live with each other in a common history.
Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. They therefore do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the very impulse of evil itself, and therefore a contradiction. They only attempt paradoxically to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere.
Evil is not the inclusion of finite games in an infinite game, but the restriction of all play to one or another finite game.
45.
To regard society as a species of culture is not to overthrow or even alter society, but only to eliminate its perceived necessity. Infinite players have rules; they just do not forget that rules are an expression of agreement and not a requirement for agreement.
Culture is not therefore mere disorder. Infinite players never understand their culture as the composite of all they they choose individually to do, but as the congruence of all that they choose to do with each other. Because there is no congruence without the decision to have one, all cultural congruence is under constant revision. No sooner did the Renaissance begin than it began to change. Indeed, the Renaissance was not something apart from its change; it was itself a certain persistent and congruent evolution.
For this reason, it can be said that where a society is defined by its boundaries, a culture is defined by its horizon.
A boundary is a phenomenon of opposition. It is the meeting place of hostile forces. Where nothing opposes there can be no boundary. One cannot move beyond a boundary without being resisted.
This is what patriotism--that is, the desire to protect the power in a society by way of increasing the power of a society--is inherently belligerent. Since there can be no prizes without a society, no society without opponents, patriots must create enemies before we can require protection from them. Patriots can flourish only where boundaries are well-defined, hostile, and dangerous. The spirit of patriotism is therefore characteristically associated with the military or other modes of international conflict.
Because patriotism is the desire to contain all other finite games within itself--that is, to embrace all horizons within a single boundary--it is inherently evil.
A horizon is a phenomenon of vision. One cannot look at the horizon; it is simply the point beyond which we cannot see. There is nothing in the horizon itself, however, that limits vision, for the horizon opens onto all that lies beyond itself. What limits vision is rather the incompleteness of that vision.
One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line; it has no place; it encloses no field; its location is always relative to the view. To move toward a horizon is simply to have a new horizon. One can therefore never be close to one's horizon, though one may certainly have a short range of vision, a narrow horizon.
We are never somewhere in relation to the horizon since the horizon moves with our vision. We can only be somewhere by turning away from the horizon, by replacing vision with opposition, by declaring the place on which we stand to be timeless--a sacred region, a holy land, a body of truth, a code of inviolable commandments. To be somewhere is to absolutize time, space, and number.
Every move an infinite player makes is toward the horizon. Every move made by a finite player is within a boundary. Every movement of an infinite game therefore presents a new vision, a new range of possibilities. The Renaissance, like all genuine cultural phenomena, was not an effort to promote one or another vision. It was an effort to find visions that promised still more vision.
Who lives horizonally is never somewhere, but always in passage.
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Also, I don't know his definitions, so most of this doesn't make much sense. Even if I did, I don't think I find his view particularly persuasive or meaningful on this point.
Reply
Although anyone who wishes can be an infinite player, and although anyone can be strong, we are not to suppose that power cannot work irremediable damage on infinite play. Infinite play cannot prevent or eliminate evil. Though infinite players are strong, they are not powerful and do not attempt to become powerful.
Evil is the termination of infinite play. It is infinite play coming to an end in unheard silence.
Unheard silence does not necessarily mean the death of the player. Unheard silence is not the loss of the player's voice, but the loss of listeners for that voice. It is an evil when the drama of a life does not continue in others for reason of their deafness or ignorance.
There are silences that can be heard, even from the dead and from the severely oppressed. Much is recoverable from an apparently forgotten past. Sensitive and faithful historians can learn much of what has been lost, and much therefore that can be continued.
There are silences, however, that will never and can never be heard. There is much evil that remains beyond redemption. When Europeans first landed on the North American continent the native population spoke as many as ten thousand distinct languages, each with its own poetry and treasury of histories and myths, its own ways of living in harmony with the spontaneities of the natural environment. All but a very few of those tongues have been silenced, their cultures forever lost to those of us who stand ignorantly in their place.
Evil is not the termination of a finite game. Finite players, even those who play for their own lives, know the stakes of the games they freely choose to play.
Evil is not the attempt to eliminate the play of another according to published and accepted rules, but to eliminate the play of another regardless of the rules. Evil is not the acquisition of power, but the expression of power. It is the forced recognition of a title--and therein lies the contradiction of evil, for recognition cannot be forced. The Nazis did not compete with the Jews for a title, but demanded recognition of a title without competition. This could be achieved, however, only by silencing the Jews, only by hearing nothing from them. They were to die in silence, along with their culture, without anyone noticing, not even those who managed the institutions and instruments of death.
31.
Evil is never intended as evil. Indeed, the contradiction inherent in all evil is that it originates in the desire to eliminate evil. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
Evil arises in the honored belief that history can be tidied up, brought to a sensible conclusion. It is evil to act as though the past is bringing us to a specifiable end. It is evil to assume that the past will make sense only if we bring it to an issue we have clearly in view. It is evil for a nation to believe it is "the last, best hope on earth." It is evil to think history is to end with a return to Zion, or with the classless society, or with the Islamicization of all living infidels.
Your history does not belong to me. We live with each other in a common history.
Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. They therefore do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the very impulse of evil itself, and therefore a contradiction. They only attempt paradoxically to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere.
Evil is not the inclusion of finite games in an infinite game, but the restriction of all play to one or another finite game.
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