A Re-evaluation of the Ludic as a (Pedagogical) Tool
"It is believed that ethical motivation can be replaced by rationalist examples, and it is not perceived that ethicality is already presupposed in this intention. Thus, for example, when one intends to instill love for one's neighbor in a child by describing to them, during breakfast, the work of the many people thanks to whom it is now possible to enjoy food. It may be somewhat sad that the child receives such perceptions of life only in a moral lesson. But this exposure will only impress a child who already knows sympathy and love for one's neighbor. And they will only experience these feelings in the community, never in a moral lesson." Walter Benjamin
The language of the ludic is an adult perception. For a child, there is no such thing as the ludic; what they perceive as playing is their reality, not a game. Only those who have stopped playing invent the distinction between reality and play, something a child has not yet done. This illusion, which reduces everything to a game of rules, becomes even worse when the idea that the ludic is the language of the child is used as an instrument for raising awareness of possible child abuse. Ultimately, the language of the ludic is exactly what the abuser uses to convince the child that the abuse is not actually abuse. When the ludic is instrumentalized as a means of educating children against violence, this condition is reinforced. To develop protection against violence, the best possibility is catharsis, because play is a catharsis that is much more profound than just a game; it is a ritual of significations. The adult who has fun is the one who has forgotten how cathartic play is. However, catharsis is feared by the alienated adult dedicated to the simplistic because it is uncontrollable. That's why adults choose the ludic as a solution, because this idea protects them; in this situation, they can hide by pretending to play, but without getting emotionally involved as they would when there is catharsis. If they choose catharsis, they risk showing their hypocrisy, because the falseness of the fun is simulation, but the child never simulates play because it is their only truth. Catharsis is hybrid, complex, and reverse. The ludic aims only to seek the positive, to try to determine a rule that supposedly can prevent abuse; however, childhood experience is not yet based on rules but on intuitions. In catharsis, the capacity worked on is that of self-recognition, while in this ludic, the gaze falls on what is strange in the other. When each person observes their own and not the other's, that is how it is truly resolved, because the ludic stimulates the false, but catharsis cultivates the true. It is like when you confuse compassion with kindness. Kindness is an act, but compassion is an expression. An action can be measured and controlled, but an expression always flows as a power that gives quality and balance to the action. Therefore, regarding compassion, it's not a Manichean dichotomy of giving or denying, but a commitment to always giving in the best way. The so-called ludic aspect lacks the power to demand the transformation of reality. However exciting and symbolic it may be, it doesn't philosophically reach the stature of catharsis. In this way, for the architecture of such a complex feat, the best space is the theater, and only pure theater with no alternative other than all of its complete structural and scenic spatial paraphernalia. Not with an extemporaneous solution as the stage for yet another stereotypical performance, but rather as the laboratory where the creative process unfolds and reinterprets the human experience itself. The theatrical creative process is not ludic, nor is it kind like superficial games; rather, it is compassionate and very cathartic, immersed in complexity, like life itself. Thus, let us not adjective the child's life with its reduction to the ludic; on the contrary, let us find them as the subject of their own substantivation, in catharsis.
Walter Benjamin, (2002). Reflections on the Child, the Toy and Education. São Paulo: Editora 34. p.16
