January 9-11
Begin with an elemental distinction between games we play to win and games we play to keep playing: the object of one is to produce winners and losers; the object of the other, to keep everyone in play. In the one, we play by the rules; in the other, we play with the rules.
This is a weekend for a wild up and down ride on a track of ideas, on an intellectual roller coaster In this case the track follows a certain work of game theory, but "game" doesn't mean just "playing around." War in all its danger and finality is a game. Love and marriage, our relationship to nature, and the construction of life stories are also apt subjects for game theory.
Of course, games are also fun. Take a ride on mental white water, rafting through such whirlpools as the difference between boundaries and horizons, why myths don't have meaning yet give meaning, how war is the inevitable outcome of technology, that we use automobiles not to go somewhere but to arrive somewhere; whether the genius of religion is to defeat its opponents or to incorporate them. Or this one: why the silence of nature is the possibility of language.
Ideas can be difficult, but the challenge can be exciting. Not all of these mud pies will stick to the wall, but have you ever seen a kid happier than when playing in the mud? It would be helpful to read Jim's best selling book, Finite and Infinite Games, a Ballantine paperback. Dr. Carse is a gifted teacher and original thinker, and this will be an unusual and ambitious retreat - truly a rare opportunity to think deeply.
James Carse is Professor Emeritus of Religion at New York University, where he taught for 30 years and consistently received the university's Distinguished Teaching Award. He is an internationally acclaimed lecturer and also wrote Death and Existence, The Silence of God, Breakfast at the Victory: the Mysticism of Ordinary Experience, and The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple. He lives in Rowe and has become a dear friend, due to his brilliance, extreme kindness, sense of humor, and respect for all living beings. It's hard to get him to agree to do a workshop - this is only his third - but sometimes he can't contain his excitement with ideas, and he agrees to come.