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What is Rhetoric?
We are analyzing cultural values and ideologies, but the schema is called Games as Cultural Rhetoric. What does that term mean? We take the word "rhetoric" from Brian Sutton-Smith's remarkable treatise The Ambiguity of Play, a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary investigation of the cultural ideologies surrounding play. Sutton-Smith writes, "The word rhetoric is used here in its modern sense, as being a persuasive discourse, or an implicit narrative, wittingly or unwittingly adopted by members of a particular affiliation to persuade others of the veracity or worthwhileness of their beliefs."[4] Rhetoric, in other words, is a method of discussion or expression that contains underlying values or beliefs, a method that attempts to persuade others that it is correct. Rhetoric can be heavy-handed and obvious or can be subtle and nearly invisible, and can take a multitude of forms. Rhetoric can manifest in the words and discourse of a philosophy (the "language" of Catholicism or Marxism), in clothes and insignia worn by members of a group (the fashion that identified members of the '60s counterculture movement), or in more general behavior (the spitting and gratuitous rudeness that were part of Punk). In each example, cultural rhetoric is a language of expression embodying and propagating particular values and beliefs. Applied to games, the organizing principle of cultural rhetoric reveals how games represent broad patterns of ideological value. The design of a game, in other words, is a representation of ideas and values of a particular time and place. For example, historical research on the children's games of African-American slaves has revealed that combative activities and player elimination were strikingly absent. The rules and play interactions of the games were a reflection of an oppressed culture's need for solidarity and collaboration. The games of Israeli Kibbutz children also demonstrate "a strong expression of cooperation and egalitarianism, with a preference for as few overprivileged or underprivileged participants as possible," reflecting the communal philosophies of the Kibbutz lifestyle.[5] In each of these examples, the formal and experiential structures of games echo and reinforce external cultural rhetorics. What is the relevance of cultural rhetoric to game design? Creating games is also creating culture, and therefore beliefs, ideologies, and values present within culture will always be a part of a game, intended or not. For example, what are the winning conditions of your game? Amass the most resources? Destroy the enemy's units? Arrive at a balance of powers? Each of these victory conditions implies a particular set of values, fleshed out through the game rules, materials, and experiences of play. Although cultural rhetoric will always be intrinsically present in a game, it also can be actively incorporated into a game design. For example, the Mad Magazine Game takes a typical board game winning condition (accumulating the most money) and turns it on its head: the actual way to win the Mad Magazine Game is to lose all of your money.This simple formal reversal has a strong impact on the cultural rhetoric of the game. Parodying a Monopoly-style winner-take-all game, the Mad Magazine Game calls attention to conventional ideologies of greed and economic power. Just like Mad Magazine itself, the game pokes fun at American institutions and values.
Whether a game's cultural rhetoric is unconsciously implicit (Monopoly's capitalistic ideology) or consciously playful (The Mad Magazine Game's satiric reversal), it involves the play of cultural values. As we discussed in Defining Culture, our concept of play as free movement within a more rigid structure can occur on a cultural level. Games put culture "at play," not just reflecting culture, but shifting between and among existing cultural structures—sometimes transforming them as a result. It is not entirely clear whether The Mad Magazine Game ultimately undermines or reinforces the capitalistic rhetoric it parodies. But the fact that it plays with such ideas at all reveals the presumptions of more rigid structures involving economics, competitive conflict, and even game design. By highlighting the rigid structures it puts "at play," a game can shed light on the operations of culture as a whole. [4]Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play, p. 8.[5]Nwokah and Ikekeonwu,"Nigerian and American Children's Games, " in The Study of Play, Vol 1 .Diversions and Divergences in Fields of Play. Margaret C. Duncan, Garry Chick, and Alan Aycock, eds. (New York: Ablex / Greenwood Publishing Company, 1998), p. 61.
