20160626 Ice Cream Sundae #39: About Brexit and games

Hi , While I’m happy to start a new course and go on holidays, I’m also feeling pretty heavyhearted writing this on my flight from London to Los Angeles. As I grabbed my phone to turn my alarm off this morning I saw a notification from The Economist application on the screen: “Britain votes to leave the EU.†I hadn’t been thinking about the referendum on voting day too much. I was busy working. I couldn’t vote anyway so there wasn’t much point in worrying about it. Whatever you might think of the European Union and its economic situation or policies I’m sad the UK voted to leave. I know there are many sound reasons to want to leave the EU though I’m particularly concerned that this first and foremost seems to be a victory for the extreme wings of politics, fear, racism and bigotry – not to mention a ploy used in an internal power struggle within the British Conservative party.  I’m a French and EU citizen and chose to move back to the UK only a few months ago so of course I had a clear and personal preference for the referendum outcome.   UK voters have expressed their desire to leave. So be it. In a way I’m kind of thinking good riddance, at least it’s done. It feels like a huge shame though. Particularly when the first person to show up and congratulate the British on their choice is Donald Trump. I couldn’t vote in this referendum but I’ll be voting in the US General Election and it won’t be for the Donald. He could still get elected though. I’ve heard friends and family say that I have nothing to worry about; that the UK is not about to throw all the French people out. They will have two years to negotiate their exit from the EU once they sign official documents, as stated in Article 50 of the EU Lisbon Treaty, if I understood the news I read correctly. Presumably that’ll happen once David Cameron steps down from power in the autumn though EU authorities are already saying it should happen as soon as possible. I’m an experienced and skilled worker. I’ll probably be ok to get a visa in London when the time comes, but it’s not a done deal. A lot can change in 2 years once a new political class has risen to power, likely led by Boris Johnson and  â€œBreaking Point†Nigel Farage. The anti-immigration rhetoric is strong. I could politely be asked to leave the country, and it’s entirely possible many more of the 3 million UK residents from other parts of the EU will be not so politely kicked out. Stranger things have happened. I’m concerned (not to say terrified) with the direction things are taking around the world, the rise of populism, blatant demagogy, fear mongering and racist anti-immigration discourse.   I’ve recently participated in a crowdfunding project for a card game called Secret Hitler. It mimics the situation in Germany that led to Hitler’s election as chancellor. The fascists in the game are secretly trying to move policies leading to Hitler’s election while the others are trying to figure out what’s going on and prevent the fascists from winning. At the beginning of the game none of the players know who the fascists are. I think it’s a good time to play that game, call it training. How do we prevent fascism though? How do we counter the kind of scary ideas floating around these days? I attended the launch of Neil Gaiman’s last book in London a few weeks ago, his first collection of non-fiction works: The View from the Cheap Seats. I may have mentioned it in a previous Sundae. He read the opening credo of the book to the audience, about ideas and what he believes. Here are the opening paragraphs (the rest in the link): â€œI believe that it is difficult to kill an idea, because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast.I believe that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike. That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend, insult, rage, mock, sing, dramatise and deny.I do not believe that burning, murdering, exploding people, smashing their heads with rocks (to let the bad ideas out), drowning them or even defeating them will work to contain ideas you do not like. Ideas spring up where you do not expect them, like weeds, and are as difficult to control.†

- Neil Gaiman

 It’s a fascinating and inspiring piece. All kinds of ideas propagate, whatever we do. It’s best to let them be spoken by those who wish, trying to stop them generally only makes them stronger or go hidden. I think the main thing I can do is to keep speaking, writing and acting to communicate the ideas I believe will bring a better tomorrow for everyone. I’ll keep writing this newsletter about quirky and interesting things that you hopefully learn and benefit from, sometimes smile at. I’ll keep recording and publishing conversations with interesting people on my podcast.Mainstream news and media are way too skewed towards talking about doom, gloom and despair. That shapes the opinions and the votes of many people. I like to believe there is space for more balance, to communicate a wider range from my little ice cream parlour here to a change of tone and focus for the mainstream news. I was going to write about tabletop roleplaying games this week given it’s a passion of mine and I published a fun conversation with my friends Julien, Sandra and Xavier from the French tabletop roleplaying podcast I regularly contribute to: Les Voix d’Altaride. I’ll write about it at a later date instead, though by all means please check out the episode – as usual there should be some for all interests, you don’t need to be a roleplaying game specialist to enjoy listening to it. When I spoke with John Wick, a writer and award-winning tabletop roleplaying game designer, he gave a great example that kind of segues back to the political topic: Model United Nations is a roleplaying game. Mock trials or mock parliaments are roleplaying games. One of the great things about roleplaying games is the ability to play, imagine and live a pretend situation you probably wouldn’t want to have happen in real life. That can of course mean playing wizards or knights in shiny armour defeating dragon, and it can also mean interpreting members of the European Parliament discussing the intricacies of trade agreements and immigration policies. A few weeks ago, I came across The World Peace Game and John Hunter, the teacher who invented it. It’s an education tool to allow children to think and solve all the problems in the world previous generations have created. I highly recommend listening to his TED talk, or to him speaking in this episode of the TED Radio Hour about Optimism. It might be time we teach and play this game or others like it in more schools and households.  Games can be used to make a positive difference in the world.   I’ll write more about roleplaying games some other time; I’ll leave it here for now. I mention it in my latest podcast episode and in the last newsletter; I’m going to take a summer break from the Ice Cream Sundae newsletter and the podcast. You’ll still receive something but it’ll be some kind of reduced service while I consider and think about the direction for the autumn. I’m also looking for people who listen to my podcast on a relatively regular basis and who are interested in participating in a recording the next season; please give me a shout I’d love to hear from you! That’s about it for now, enjoy the rest of your weekend! CheersWillem

Share

+1

Share