The radical left really tends to tie itself up in transmitting/teaching/explaining its ideology in a few static methods, and more peculiar (but potentially more engaging and thus useful) ‘pedagogical tools’ get overlooked.
However, there does seem to be a few exceptions in one particular area I’m a bit of a geek towards: board games. A slight bit of internet research turned up two items of interest:
The first one, and I suppose the granddaddy of these sorts of games, is Class Struggle the Board Game. Essentially, each player is assigned a ‘class’, be it workers, capital, or a minor class (students, peasents, et cetera), and goes around the board marshaling their forces and preparing for the revolution. Never having played it, I can’t say whether or not it’s actually fun, of course. Reminds me of the Noam Chomsky board game, and makes me want to sit down and start drafting a board design. The interesting thing is that it was actually published by Avalon Hill for a few years in the 80s!
The other one I turned up was actually a card-based derivative of Class Struggle the Board Game. Imaginatively (and also confusingly and lawsuit-invitingly) entitled Class Struggle, it is based on the versatile Dvorak game system (which is similar to 1000 Blank White Cards). I, of course, am itching to play this game – just listen to some of these cards:
- No Room at the Top (or in the Middle): Place this card on any Student, Self-Employed or Professional in play. This card is now a Worker.
- May ‘68: Students are allied with Workers.
- and my personal favourite, MA In Icelandic Literature: Professionals are allied with Workers.
The fun thing about this game-style is the players can easily add to the card stock, improving and growing the game. This, of course, is a fantastic way for people to expand and express their understanding of ideology and politics. Imagine a situation where players are trying to create a card for something like a party election – they are required to essentially create an operational definition of the event within the context of the game, essentially determining what the material effects of the event would be. Now, if this had been what they meant by edutainment when I was younger, it might have actually had some value.
