Seeing the World Through the Game of Go

This was posted over at the Dao of Strategy blog. An excerpt is below. the full article may be read here.

Games are eloquent... Sociologists and anthropologists have sought since the beginning of the century to extrapolate more or less successfully on the identity of various societies, on the basis of the games they play. In his work of synthesis on games, Roger Caillois states the following:

"Along with music, calligraphy and painting, the Chinese place the game of draughts and the game of chess among the four disciplines that a learned man must practice. They believe that these games train the intellect to take pleasure in the multiple answers, combinations and surprises which spring forth continuously from constantly new situations. Aggression is said to be calmed, while the soul learns serenity, harmony, and the joy of contemplating possibilities. Without any doubt, this is a mark of civilization [...]. Societies which are full of hustle and bustle, whether they be Australian, American or African, are societies which are also dominated by the mask and by possession, which is to say by mimicry and the ilinx: conversely, the Incas, the Assyrians, the Chinese and the Romans present ordered societies, with offices and careers, with codes and scales, with controlled and hierarchical privileges, where competition and chance, which is to say in this context, merit and birth, appear as the primary and complementary elements of social interplay."[2]