Book description
'Fizzes with intellectual curiosity. Kane writes engagingly and with a
humility difficult to find among idea-entrepreneurs' James Harkin,
Independent We all think we know what play is. Play is what we do as
children, what we do outside of work, what we do for no other reason
than for pleasure. But this is only half of the truth. The Play Ethic
explores the real meaning of play and shows how a more playful society
would revolutionize and liberate our daily lives. Using wide and varied
sources - from the Enlightenment to Eminem, Socrates to Chaos theory,
Kierkegaard to Karaoke - The Play Ethic shows how play is fundamental to
both society and to the individual, and how the work ethic that has
dominated the last three centuries is ill-equipped to deal with the
modern world. With verve, wit and intelligence, Pat Kane takes us on a
tour of the playful world arguing that without it business, the arts,
politics, education, even our family and spiritual lives are
fundamentally impoverished. The Play Ethic seeks to change the way you
look at your daily life, how you interact with others, how you view the
world. It is a guidebook to new, exciting - and unsettling - times.
Shocking, controversial, yet magnificently argued, The Play Ethic is a
book no one who works, or has ever worked, can afford to be without.
'Kane's Manifesto for a Different Way of Living is a brave attempt to
inject a little playfulness . . . into the dull grind of the working
stiff' Iain Finlayson, The Times
Pat Kane is a social commentator, journalist and broadcaster. He was
a founding and associate editor of the Sunday Herald in Glasgow
and is one half of the Scottish pop duo, Hue and Cry. He now runs
seminars, talks and a website reaching out to people living the Play
Ethic.
