General staffs are always magnificently prepared to fight the 
previous war.

     Games, then, are contrived and controlled situations, 
extensions of group awareness that permit a respite from 
customary patterns. They are a kind of talking to itself on the 
part of society as a whole. And talking to oneself is a 
recognized form of play that is indispensable to any growth of 
self-confidence. The British and Americans have enjoyed during 
recent times an enormous self-confidence born of the playful 
spirit of fun and games. When they sense the absence of this 
spirit in their rivals, it causes embarrassment. To take mere 
wordly things in dead earnest betokens a defect of awareness 
that is pitiable. From the first days of Christianity there grew a 
habit, in some quarters, of spiritual clowning, of “playing the 
fool in Christ,” as St. Paul put it. Paul also associated this