'The Alexandrian Condition': Suits on Boredom, Death, and Utopian Games. Issue 3 (2nd October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yorke, Christopher C.
• Is Part Of: Sport, ethics and philosophy. Volume 13:Issue 3/4(2019)
• Page Start: 363
• Page End: 371
• Publication Date: 2019-10-02
• Subjects: Bernard Suits -- philosophy of games -- utopia -- leisure studies -- existentialism; Sports -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Sports -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Periodicals; 796.01
• DOI: 10.1080/17511321.2019.1601128
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-1321

Abstract

ABSTRACT: I argue that the apparently exclusive choice between Suits' utopia of gameplay and death by suicide is a false dilemma, one which obscures a 'third way' of positive boredom. Further, I offer a deeper reading of the internal logic of Suits' utopian vision, identifying two different temporal phases of his utopia. At time U1, just after the founding of Suits' techno-Cockaygne, the Alexandrian condition affects 'freshmen' utopians by producing a state of existential meaninglessness and thereby conceivably motivating utopian suicide. At time U2, however, sufficient time will have passed for the surviving 'sophomore' utopians to adopt marvelous, meaning-generative utopian games as a tool for defeating the Alexandrian condition and thus realizing Suits 'ideal of existence' in a utopia of gameplay.