Wonderland by Steven Johnson

Johnson argues that play has always been more important than people realize, and a great deal of our modern world was built thanks to the human appetite for surprise, novelty and beauty. Indeed, as he notes in example after example (from music to magic to games), it is often the simple pleasure of a new experience that initiates the drive towards vast oceans of progress. In the opening chapter, for example, he chronicles how new delights in fashion – such as the craze over the color purple produced by the secretion of snails (tunics of Roman Senators were woven with this color) – led to the development of new technologies … which also led to whole new industries (and eventually the industrial revolution itself). Not content to end his exploration there, Johnson further notes how our love for fashion influenced the development of cities (as well as suburbs and all those malls).

His chapter on Games begins with sermons of a Dominican Friar in the 13th century. When the printing press comes around, the friar’s work was only surpassed in popularity by the Bible (and indeed, it was the second book ever printed in English). What many found so compelling in this work was not only the political philosophy it contained, but also the fact the author embedded his ideas within a game to be played by the masses. The title of the book? The Book of the Manners of Men and the Officers of the Nobility.

Though there was a shorter title as well: The Game of Chess.

The King’s behavior on the board, the author argued, reflected the proper behavior a real world kings. They should be reserved and not move far beyond their royal locale. So too with knights; their job, in the game as in life, is to protect the various other players by going far out into the wild to defend the homeland. Ah, you may ask, how then are we to understand the Queen, the chess piece with perhaps the greatest powers and mobility? Was that how he envisioned the role of a Queen in real life? Alas, the answer is no. His early versions of the game had her with even less a role than the King. Also different: all the pawns – who represented the common folk – had specific titles, such as blacksmiths, farmers and so on.

What is so fascinating about Johnson’s treatment is his exploration of the political ramifications of the game’s impact. While honor is shown the King, the Friar dismantled a vision of social organization that “had been dominant for at least a thousand years: the body politic, the image of a society as a single organism, directed by the head of state” alone. His vision was different: independent actors, governed by contractual or civic obligations, such as the knight who would protect the farmer because the farmer provided food to all, capable of autonomous behavior of the King. Until the advent of chess, the metaphor was of one body; if the King – as the brain - decided to move, the pawns were the feet that fulfilled the desire. Now, the pawns, while still more disposable than the King, moved of their own volition and from their own desires. Johnson argues that the Renaissance guild system and the wave of legal codes that endowed merchants and artisans with newfound freedoms followed from this vision. (He also draws a line to the fact chess becomes the default game of choice for AI to prove its abilities some 500 years later).

Other games are explored as well, including the creation of dice in ancient times, a predecessor of Monopoly called the Landlord’s Game, which was animated by an anti-Capitalist motivation in stark contrast to what the game eventually becomes, and the moralizing board Game of Life which chose to discard dice as the means to play, preferring a spinner instead because it – unlike dice – possessed no historical connection to illicit gambling games. (Regarding this last game, it’s interesting to note its original form was far darker than the modern iteration. Not only did it have a square labeled Suicide with a man hanging from a tree on it, but the board also “had an Intemperance space that led to Poverty, a Government Contract space that led to Wealth, and a Gambling space that led to Ruin”).