Popular Culture Review
26
Agon: contest of skill [chess, football, golf]
Alea: games of fate/ chance and requiring luck to win
[cards, roulette, dice]
Mime: adopting a different identity [charade]
ninx: contains the pursuit of vertigo or loss consciousness
[dancing, acrobatics, psychotropic drugs]
type
AGON
competition
A L E A
chance
MiMICRY
simulation
ILiNX
vertigo
cuiturat forms
found at the
margins of the
socfaf order
sports
lotteries
casinos
hippodromes
parhmutueis
mass
limits
institutional
forms
Integrated
Into social life
corruption
economic
competition
violence
competitive
examinations
trickery
will to power
speculation on
stock market
superstition
astroli>gy
fang shui
carnival
theatre
cinema
hero-worship
uniforms
alienation
ceremonial
etiquette
split
personality
mountain climb
skiing
tightrope walk
speed
professions
requiring
control of
vertigo
alcoholism
drugs
roger caittois 195$
The diagram above adapts Caillos’ synthesis to show the application
and limits of each grouping of play. The extrapolative diagram proposes that
play may degenerate into self-indulgence or else transforms into a new facet of
exploration.