You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Norms and Rules About Norms and Rules
While reading, I lost sight of whether it was about computer games or real life with all its social problems ... ;-))
One thing that occurs to me about norms: they can be helpful. They serve to reconcile things, standardise, simplify. But - they don't replace individuality and creativity, spontaneity and freedom.
The one must exist alongside the other - and with each other, among each other. And that only works if both "currents" manage to interact with each other without judgement.
I believe that games, life, and art tend to have microcosm/macrocosm relationships with each other. Sometimes breaking the norms/expectations leads to problems, sometimes it's exploring beyond the settled confines (an unorthodox new strategy in a game that leads to a new dynamic, an artwork that subverts expectations to achieve something compelling, civil disobedience of an unjust law that leads to reform).