Fellow teachers [at the NEH summer institute for Medieval Political Philosophy],
Here below is a description of some of the serious games, especially the best, by Pat Coby, with links to learn more, which I mentioned briefly in our last session. I think them a kind of learning likely to reach and then improve many students, not otherwise reached, let alone improved. And I wonder if such a “Medieval Political Philosophy” might be the wedge to put these worthy thinkers into our curricula and thus into those who will carry on our civilization.
Today we hear of many youngsters addicted to frantic, violent, debasing, and always irreal games, to the neglect of having a life, and, by availing themselves of anonymity, spending more time being someone else than themselves, sometimes worse than themselves. Shakespeare and all attracted to acting would understand the temptation; witness the mild example, Viola in Twelfth Night who takes a rest from being herself, or her twin brother who is delighted to be loved at (mistaken) sight by someone he never met before. The ring of Gyges always tempts lower. Promised anonymity, few do better than otherwise; donors marked “anonymous” are most often, as Tocquevelle would suspect, avoiding democratic envy.) And the internet seems also to provide another thing dear to our fragile young, group identity, but thin, faceless, and requiring little in virtue (unlike the Assabiya that Ibn Khaldun says founds a people) and not headed to founding families, without which all civilizations crumble.
Serious Games (as I call them) turn these attractions to the good of learning. By pretending to be Thomas More or James Madison, you might get to know something they knew, at least recognize they know more than you. By working together to provide a country with a Constitution you might enjoy fraternal amity, “we happy few,” and maybe find a worthy mate, “we happy two.” Lasting as many as six weeks, but capable of being compressed into an intense week, these serious games require and they readily elicit a degree of happy participation like no other courses. As Pat Coby says in his instructor’s manual: “you must tell your students not to neglect all their other courses.” And their good effects last. Students emerging from these courses are better students in every course after. At the annual “Recover Movement” meeting at Barnard College, one student testified for many: “for me they were a permanent inoculation against sophomore wisdom: ‘its not cool to participate’.” The engagement of all, especially in the lost art of public-speaking, stimulates more study in all, and among the best students, more reflection than in all but the best seminars. And for many students, the experience transcends all other courses in college. At George Wythe, a year later, our best senior said: “Being in the Henry game was something I will remember for the rest of my life.” If you are interested, I might find a way to send you the video of the final “masks-off” session, where student “Cromwell,” played by that best senior, apologized to student “More,” for having him beheaded. (Khalil, what you said about your success with your honors program was so heartening; and on your way to becoming president of something, as you and it deserve, perhaps you might institute such games for all freshmen there at Salvae Regina.)
Pat Coby’s games are the best because the event played is momentous, the issues significant but difficult, with truth dispersed among the views, and the statesmen great-souled. If the event is great and the game sends “history” in another direction, that shows the event mattered and why; if truth about a big question is spread out, then the speeches of the actors matter, as they don’t in the French Revolution game, only shouting “off with his head”; and to have been for a little while someone with a bigger heart and mind than yourself, might aim a youth in the right direction. Or at least, in the midst of life’s later perplexities, arm you to say to yourself “Where would More stand?” “What would Madison think?” And maybe groan, “Have I acted like Cromwell?” (Whether that’s natural right or conscience groaning? can be discussed later, and should be.)
Could there be a serious “medieval political philosophy” game, fixed on some event, in which, for their roles, students will be studying the kind of things we read together in Spokane (as students playing Pat Coby’s Reformation Parliament of Henry VIII read portions of Marsilius, More and Luther, and as they do for his game of the Constitutional Convention of 1787), reading Madison, Hamilton, and the others.
A “natural” would seem to be a debate of the three faiths, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, as in the Kuzari, with the students divided in three, each making the case for their religion as the most likely to secure and protect human happiness, making it to some grand Pope, Iman, Rabbi, Philosopher and Emperor, he or mayhap she, the master of all Europe and near Asia. (There is such a debate of Catholic and Lutheran faiths in Pat Coby’s Henry VIII game, but the immediate focus is legislation and all the changes that go with it, such as for example Tocqueville discerns in his Address on Pauperism.) Students in such a “three faiths debate” game would come away with one of the two fundamental prerequisites to any study of “Medieval Philosophy,” namely the three Biblical faiths, the other prerequisite being ancient philosophy. It seems to me a serious curricular question whether students can begin the study of Medieval Political Philosophy without considerable knowledge of these faiths and of ancient philosophy. And that is why at George Wythe, the Kuzari would fit at the end of Freshman Year in which Plato and Aristotle and the Bible are featured.
What a wedge, or toe, or even torso, such a game would be, in the curriculum, for the questions and the thinkers our Institute was devoted to. Already students love games. Here would be a serious one. And one that bonds all students to each other. The non-teachers who rule Academe and such up 70% of the payroll speak of “retention,” why not show it can also be furthered by raising standards.
Ah, but what event, or series of them, with strife and struggle, would go along with such a debate. Might a Crusade fit with such? Here some pivotal event, which could have gone another way, would be fitting. Perhaps one of the collections of “what if” counterfactual histories might suggest something. What if the Crusades had rolled back Islam? What if the Muslims had beaten the Franks? What if the ardor of Halevi and the diplomacy of Maimonides had refounded the Kingdom of Israel?
Thinking of the latter, perhaps something patterned on Pat Coby’s two games would be good; both are about thought becoming or changing fundamental law, instituting the Reformation in England in the one and in the other instituting a Federal Government for the States. So perhaps an instituting of a Christian state (with the contending speakers being Thomas and Marsilius, and others); or the instituting of a revived Jewish state (with Maimonides and the others contending); or the instituting of a Muslim state (with the mighty opposites of Averroes and Al-Ghazhali, and the others, contending) would be fitting.
Stephen [Berg], did I hear you nod to a sentiment in the room that you would be the best to undertake composing such a serious “Medieval Political Philosophy game”? Or did you just smile? In any case, whoever might be interested, Pat Coby has access to a short book with counsels on the gaming and judging part of composing such a game. For more on these games, and an invitation to one see below.
Prosper, Michael Platt
Mel, you expressed an interest in visiting a game being played; the nearest I know of would be UT-Austin, in the honors program Larry Carver directs. Or one of the games at Schreiner in Kerrville (where my talk of them over a lunch led the next fall to 16 sections for freshmen, and then a colleague writing an “Alamo Game”). But on the Recovering the Past website, I think some regional weekend exhibitions are listed.
LIST of those sent to:
To: sappelba@tulane.edu, barmstr3@gru.edu, sberg@bellarmine.edu, matthew.berry@bc.edu, brittwi@bc.edu, stevenbrust@erols.com, timothy_burns@baylor.edu, cebworth@umd.edu, aclayton@mclennan.edu, wjcoa@conncoll.edu, mkearnest@yahoo.com, egarver@csbsju.edu, khalil.habib@salve.edu, haggerty002@gannon.edu, klevent@central.edu, kreisel@bgu.ac.il, Kries Doug, tlockwood@quinnipiac.edu, joseph.macfarland@sjc.edu, edwardm@benedictine.edu, mathewsj@baycollege.edu, g.mcbrayer@moreheadstate.edu, niwro1@gmail.com, parens@udallas.edu, dramsey1@uwf.edu, estackle@lmu.edu, adam.thomas10@gmail.com, josephwysocki@bac.edu, syenor@boisestate.edu
Cc: Kries Doug, Joshua Parens, Macfarland, Joseph, CobyPatrick
Begin forwarded message:
From: Patrick Coby <pcoby@smith.edu>
Subject: Re: Serious Games … yours and any … medieval, political, philosophic?
Date: July 11, 2014 at 8:23:23 AM EDT
To: Michael Platt <drmichaelplatt1942@gmail.com>
Michael,
Nice to hear from you.
There is a game on the Second Crusade, but from what I hear, it is not very good. A much better game is the Council of Nicaea (a little early perhaps), and there is a published game on the trial of Galileo (a little late perhaps). Also in development is a game on the Florentine republic during the time of Machiavelli. I don’t know of anything else.
I’m attaching a copy of an email that will go out to entering Smith students in a few weeks. It provides a bit of description, and it includes links to a video of a game in play and to paragraph descriptions of the five games in use at Smith this fall.
I hope this helps.
On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 7:35 PM, Michael Platt <drmichaelplatt1942@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Pat,
This is late I know; here at this NEH month-long institute on Medieval Political Philosophy, we have our last session tomorrow and it is on teaching things we’ve studied here.
In the few minutes I’ll have tomorrow to say something, I want to tell the group about these serious games, as below, and lead with your two games. I have listed sites to send the interested to.
If you have more about each game, or about the experience of the students, send it to me.
And then below is a question for you now.
Michael
What I call “serious games” are called “Reacting to the Past” at the movement’s website. Unfortunate misnomer, for in such games the “past” can happen differently this time and none of the strenuous fun of them is evident. First invented to replace the large passivity of Western Civilization courses, they ask students, around a dozen or a few more, to take roles and play them for six weeks or so, thus maybe two “games” in a term; but they can be played more compressedly, even in a week wholly devoted to one (as we’ve done at George Wythe). Let the testimony of one student I heard stand for many; they are a permanent inoculation against the sophomore wisdom “it’s not cool to participate.” After all, you are performing in front of your fellow students, and conspiring all the time against them, something this generation apparently loves to do. And for their roles students can do an immense amount of study. As Pat Coby says in one of his instructor’s manuals: “you must tell your students no to neglect all their other courses.” They fit our students love of games and they fit the enriched genre of “What If” in history advanced by Niall Ferguson.
The two best games are by Pat Coby (UD, BA and Phd; professor at Smith, books on Cromwell (Thomas), etc.
The Reformation Parliament of Henry VIII game
https://reacting.barnard.edu/curriculum/published-games/henry-viii
The Constitutional Convention of 1787.
https://reacting.barnard.edu/americas-founding-constitutional-convention
These are the best games because speeches, arguments, and moves can make big differences, and because the issues are momentous. In Texas at UT, students in the Henry game will emerge with things to things about in their evangelical history. All students in the Convention game will get to know their country’s foundation. And meanwhile, the statesmanship in both games, pressing difficult decisions where one good cannot be had without losing some of another, or perhaps excruciating ones, where all is lost except nobility as in tragedy, may moderate the pride, temper the certainties, and gentle the speech of the young to their elders.
Pat, here is my question: is there an extant game for which any of the medieval philosophers would be pertinent or even central sources, to be assigned to the students? (Of course I know that Marsilius goes with your Henry game.)
Or is there a great event or issue no one has done a game about or surrounding? Perhaps the struggle of Pope and Emperor? Crusades? Advance of Islam?
(Of c, I’ll be asking the 25 participants to think of one.)
So, whatever help you can give today (or by early tomorrow) will be a help.
Sorry, this is late to you.
Michael
Here is what we have been studying:
http://medievalpoliticalphilosophy.gonzaga.edu/daily-readings/
—
Patrick Coby
Professor of Government
Smith College
Seelye Hall 407
Northampton, MA 01063
413 585-3555
EARLER DRFT: Fellow teachers,
Here below is a description of some of the serious games, especially the best, by Pat Coby, with links to learn more, which I mentioned briefly in our last session.
Today we hear of many youngsters addicted to frantic, violent, debasing, and always irreal games, to the neglect of having lives, and, by availing themselves of anonymity, spending more time being someone else than themselves, often worse than themselves. Shakespeare and all attracted to acting would understand the temptation; witness the mild example, Viola in Twelfth Night who takes a rest from being herself, or her twin brother who finds he is loved at sight by someone he never met. It seems the ring of Gyges always tempts lower. (Promised anonymity, few do better than otherwise. Donors marked “anonymous” are probably, as Tocquevelle suspects, avoiding democratic envy.) And the internet seems also to provide another thing dear to the fragile young, group identity, but thin, faceless, and requiring little in virtue (unlike the Asabiya Ibn Khaldun speaks of as founding peoples) and not headed to founding families.
Serious Games (as I call them) turn these attractions to the good of learning. By pretending to be Thomas More or James Madison, you might get to know something they knew, and even come to know they know more than you. By working together to provide a country with a Constitution you might enjoy amity, “we happy few,” and maybe find a worthy mate, “we happy two”. Lasting as many as six weeks, but capable of being compressed into an intense week, these games require and they readily elicit a degree of participation like no other courses. As Pat Coby says in his “instructor’s manual”: “you must tell your students not to neglect all their other courses”. And they have a good effect that lasts. Student emerging from these courses are better students in every course after. At the annual “Recover” meeting at Barnard, one student testified for many: “for me they were a permanent inoculation against sophomore wisdom: ‘its not cool to participate’.” The engagement of all, especially in the lost art of public-speaking, stimulates more study in all, and among the best students, more reflection than in all but the best seminars. And for many students, the experience transcends all other courses in college. At George Wythe, a year later, our best senior said: “This was something I will remember for the rest of my life.” If you are interested, I might find a way to send you the video of the final “masks-off” session, where student “Cromwell,” played by that best senior, apologized to student “More,” for getting him beheaded. (Khalil, what you said about your success with your honors program was so heartening; and on your way to becoming president of something, as you and it deserve, you should institute these games for all freshmen there at Salvae Regina.)
Pat Coby’s games are the best because the event played is momentous, the issues significant but difficult, with truth dispersed among the views, and the actors great-souled. Consequently, if the event is great and the game sends history in another direction, that shows that the event mattered and why; consequently, if truth about a big question is spread out, then the speeches of the actors matter, as they don’t in the French Revolution game, only shouting “off with his head.” And consequently, to have been for a while someone with a bigger heart and mind than yourself now, might send a youth in the right direction. Or at least, in life’s later perplexities to say to yourself “Where would More stand?” Have I acted like Cromwell? And “What would Madison think?”
Could there be a serious “medieval political philosophy” game, fixed on some event, in which, for their roles, students for their roles will be studying the kind of things we read together in Spokane (as students playing Pat Coby’s Reformation Parliament of Henry VIII read portions of Marsilius, More and Luther, and as they do for his game of the Constitutional Convention of 1787), reading Madison, Hamilton, and the others.
A “natural” would seem to be a debate of the three faiths, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, as in the Kuzari, with the students divided in three, each making the case for their religion as the most likely to secure and protect human happiness, making it to some grand Pope, Iman, Rabbi, Philosopher and Emperor, the master of all Europe and near Asia. (There is such a debate of Catholic and Lutheran faiths in Pat Coby’s Henry VIII game, but the immediate focus is legislation and all the transformations that go with it, such as for example Tocqueville discerns in his Address on Pauperism.) Students in such a game would come away with one of the two fundamental prerequisites to any study of “Medieval Philosophy,” namely the three Biblical faiths, the other being ancient philosophy. (It seems to me a serious curricular question whether students can begin the study of Medieval Political Philosophy without considerable knowledge of these faiths and of ancient philosophy. And that is why at George Wythe, the Kuzari would fit at the end of Freshman Year along with Plato and Aristotle and the Bible.)
What a wedge such a game would be, in the curriculum, for the questions and the thinkers our Institute was devoted to. Already students love games. Here would be a serious one. And one that bonds all students to each other. The non-teachers who rule Academe and who are 70% of the payroll speak of “retention,” why not show it can also be furthered by raising standards.
Ah, but what event, or series of them, with strife and struggle, would go along with such a debate. Might a Crusade fit with such? Here some pivotal event, which could have gone another way, would be fitting. Perhaps one of the collections of What If counterfactual histories might suggest something. What if the Crusades had rolled back Islam? What if the Muslims had beaten the Franks? What if the ardor of Halevi and the skillful diplomacy of the lofty Maimonides had refounded the Kingdom of Israel?
Thinking of the latter, why not something patterned on Pat Coby’s two games; both are about thought becoming or changing fundamental law, instituting the Reformation in England in the one and in the other instituting a Federal Government for the States. So perhaps an admittedly mythical instituting of a Christian state (with the contending speakers being Thomas and Marsilius, and others); the instituting of a revived Jewish state (with Maimonides and the others contending); and the instituting of a Muslim state (with the mighty opposites of Averoes and Al-Ghazhali, and the others, contending).
Stephen [Berg], did I hear you nod to a sentiment in the room that you would be the best to undertake composing such a serious “Medieval Political Philosophy game”? Or did you just smile? In any case, whoever might be interested, Pat Coby has access to a short book with counsels on the gaming and judging part of composing such a game.
Prosper, Michael Platt
Mel, you expressed an interest in visiting a game being played; the nearest I know of would be UT-Austin, the honors program Larry Carver directs. Or one of the games at Schreiner in Kerrville (where my talk of them over a lunch with the Provost led the next fall to 16 sections for freshmen, and then a colleague writing an “Alamo Game”). But on the Recovering the Past website, I think regional weekend exhibitions are listed.
Friends Of The Republic 