Creative Agendas, Aesthetic Purism, and 'the' Social Mode

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

In other words, does the nested boxes model work if we recognize that things flow from the boxes inside to the ones that surround them and vice versa?

Yup, that does it for me. I've tried to emphasize the flow in everything I've written; sometimes I call it "reverberating" because that's what it literally feels like.

As for your "messy heap," Chris, I think that's going to be a matter of disciplinary preferences. I don't see a messy heap when I participate in role-playing, or observe it in any way. I see the Big Model. But I can accept that you don't, and I suppose if we're agreed on what's in the mess we're looking at, then that's a plus on its own.

Best,
Ron

[Walt Freitag]

Okay, I can't claim to have very good comprehension of what's been discussed in this thread so far. I'm going to try to follow what seems to be the crux question and see where it leads.

The Big Model has a big Social Contract box, and a (less) big Exploration box that nests inside it. That nesting expresses two simple ideas:

1. That some things in the Social Contract box are not included in the Exploration box.

2. That everything in the Exploration box is also an expression (or instantiation, if you will) of the stuff in the Social Contract box.

The question is whether that nesting is an accurate and adequate description of the relationship between these two components of the Model. (And, by analogy, whether the other layers of nesting in the model are similarly valid.) So let's look at the two assertions expressed by the nesting of Exploration within Social Contract.

The first assertion seems noncontroversial to me. An argument over who pays for the pizza, or a tradition of not touching one another's lucky dice, are Social Contract aspects that are not elements of Exploration (or near-equivalently, are not part of the Shared Imagined Space.)

But, one might point out, an argument about pizza can affect the process of Exploration -- for instance, in an extreme case, it might cause Exploration to cease due to the group breaking up. Does that make the nesting of Exploration inside Social Contract invalid? No, no more than observing that hawks and tigers can affect (eat) rabbits invalidates nesting the concept "rabbits" inside the concept "animals." The fact that Social Contract issues that are not part of the Exploration box can affect things that are inside the Exploration box is part of the reason Social Contract is in the model at all. Yeah, the stuff in the Social Contract box outside of the Exploration box is important, that's why the model includes it.

What is being proposed appears comparable to arguing that because one aspect of rabbit existence is the possibility of being eaten by hawks or tigers, the "rabbits" category cannot be expressed without including the "animals" category containing hawks and tigers in it, and that therefore the "rabbits" box and the "animals" box must mutually encompass one another. (And eating plants is also an important part of rabbit existence, so let's churn the "plants" box into this commingled concept as well...) That seems to be an argument against ever categorizing anything. Which leads straight to "There is no System, there are no Techniques, there is only The One" and the end of all analysis.

The second assertion is arguably more open to debate. Refuting it is simple: point out some part or aspect or instance of Exploration that is not a Social Contract matter. I don't believe that's possible, given the Big Model's definition of Exploration and its close association with the shared imagined space.

However, a hyothetical alternate or extended model that included boxes for individual "private imagined space" and "private mental/emotional experience" for each participant, on the same hierarchy levels as Exploration and Social Contract respectively, could permit the description of private feelings or thoughts, arising from (shared or private) imagined space, that are outside of Social Contract. That would be a different model, perhaps one using the individual participants' motives, goals, and internal experience of play, rather than the neutral observer of play, as the primary lens.

- Walt

[M. J. Young]

I find one thing interesting here.

For those who wonder whether we're ever going forward, I think this is an example of going forward. Just as when Scarlet Jester introduced the concept of Exploration which ultimately gave the model a new framework, so too this idea fits somewhere, and is important, but I don't yet see where or how.

It's the idea that the role playing game experience reverberates back into the social level in that it impacts the participants in ways that reach beyond anything related to the game. It is the idea that role playing games change people and their relationships.

Of course, the same could be said for books, movies, baseball games, church services, and a wealth of other expressions of human thought and interaction. Perhaps it is something underexamined overall, or perhaps it is just something about which I'm less informed. I recognize that what happens within the game inherently happens within the social layer; but I think that it is at least underexpressed that these effects can reach outside the boxes.

That's the point. It is the case that the use of certain techniques can reverberate in such a way that John's character is killed, and John won't chip in for pizza because he's too upset about his character. Who pays for pizza is completely outside the exploration box, and therefore completely outside the shared imaginary space, the creative agendum, the techniques--and yet it is impacted by it.

I'm not saying that's not in the model. I am saying that I've not seen discussion of the model that recognizes this aspect of effects beyond the bounds of the boxes.

--M. J. Young

[Eric J-D]

I wrote:

Would it help things at all if we understood the various boxes as being bounded by semi-permeable membranes rather than impermeable ones? This is how I have tended to think of them. In other words, does the nested boxes model work if we recognize that things flow from the boxes inside to the ones that surround them and vice versa?

and Ron replied:

Yup, that does it for me. I've tried to emphasize the flow in everything I've written; sometimes I call it "reverberating" because that's what it literally feels like.

Thanks for the affirmation, Ron.  I had a strong hunch that I wasn't off the mark, but it's nice to have it confirmed by you.  

Now, M.J. seems to think this understanding represents some forward movement into new territory.  I don't know if that's so, but I do think that the issues being raised here are worth some serious attention and development.

Having said that, though, let me say that I am not sure I agree with Chris and John that the model should do more to detail the "vast sea of undescribed space" of the social.  This seems to me to be asking the model to do too much.  The reason that the social space of the Big Model is vast and undetailed at present is because social space is simply too complex to be adequately detailed.  In addition to all of the things that we regularly acknowledge as being in there (who buys the pizza, who has the hots for whom, whose dice never get touched, etc.) there is also a host of other stuff like the various roles each participant normally assumes within the group (I mean things like who gets to be the king of the one-liners, who is looked to for rules clarifications, etc. and not whether I am playing a thief, or a mage, etc.), different levels of ego-security among the participants, differences in the nature of the friendships among the members outside of gameplay, differences of ideology, socio-economic differences and all the attendant issues raised by this, to say nothing of daily ephemera like who had a bad day at work, who found out that she was going to be promoted, who just discovered that his father has cancer, etc. etc.

My sketchy description of the complexity of the social space doesn't begin to do justice to the enormity of the information contained within it.  Now, not all of this comes into play at every moment of gameplay, but some of it does.  The difficulty arises in trying to distinguish what elements from the social space enter and affect the other parts of the Big Model.  Contra John, I think that the model needs to leave this space undetailed in order to recognize its almost overwhelming complexity.  There are some elements of that space that we can agree are routinely in operation and affect play, but there is also much there that is simply "dark matter."

But detailing the space of the social is not the only goal that Chris has in mind.  As I read his post, he is also interested in how the model might be  adjusted so that it can better address how the detail within the nested boxes (Exploration, Techniques, and so forth) "affects social dynamics" (i.e the big box of the social that encompasses Exploration and the rest).  If detailing what is inside the space of the social seems extremely difficult to me, this seems even more so.  Play seems so dynamic and context specific that I have real doubts that any model could adequately address this desire.

I hope I have made some sense here (it's 3:15 in the morning for me, so I am willing to entertain the possibility that I haven't), and I hope I haven't come across as unduly pessimistic about what Chris is proposing.  Like him, I too have a very strong interest in the social dynamics of play but I don't see at present how to proceed down this path without encountering major obstacles.  

Cheers,

Eric