The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia
A dying grasshopper and his disciples argue their way toward the claim that in utopia, with all work automated, game-playing would be the only thing left to do.
Suits defines a game as the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles, then builds an entire philosophy of the good life on that single sentence. Cast as a Socratic dialogue between a dying grasshopper and his disciples, it argues that in a utopia where all instrumental work had been automated away, game-playing would be the only thing left worth doing.
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Maria Popova
So argues philosopher Bernard Suits (November 25, 1925–February 05, 2007) in his uncommonly original and intellectually daring 1978 book The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (public library), exploring the elemental question of what makes a good life through a parable, that ancient form infinitely more effective than polemics
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