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06996_Field_TCUM T561.txt
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1996-04-10
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910b
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16 lines
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