Saturday I was helping out with one of our Squads for kids. This one kid (Taylor) was playing darts (magnetic darts, don't worry!) and he was really good. He's not the brightest kid on the block, so it was just really nice to see him being good at something and I was praising him a lot and stuff. Then he started playing against another kid (Jacob) who is a fascinating kid and very creative, but not very good at darts. They decided that it might be fun to put the dart board on ground and sort of drop the darts rather than throw them. Taylor was still good at this. Then Jacob started changing the rules - saying you got points for getting as far away from the bullseye as possible. And then he just kept adding rules. Basically whatever Jacob did got good points, and whatever Taylor did did not get points. And Jacob just kept adding new rules and after each "drop" he would say "Yes! I'm still in the lead!" And poor Taylor just kept trying and trying.
It was fascinating to watch, and (of course!) reminded me of international politics. Even when countries are good at their game, other (more powerful) countries will keep changing the rules on them to keep in the lead and to keep others down. So often when people think of justice, they think of how they can get their hands on whatever resource they're lacking (land, power, "points", money, etc.) rather than asking for a complete switch of game. Becoming the new exploiter of a new game is not justice, now is it?
1 comment:
Its always amazing to see how much international leaders have in common with kids playing games. Some people never grow up.
With kids it can be cute. When the president says "gimme gimme" or "finders keepers" it gets a little old.
Peter
www.lublink.ca
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