| It’s
probably obvious even to those who are grossly out of touch
with current events on the world stage: things are a mess
out there, folks. Beleaguered by problems both foreign and
domestic, our governmental representatives look as if they
are having a difficult time working with all the other kids
on the playground. I'm not sure if I'd be able to handle things
any better if I were in that position, though, because once
I did have my chance to make a difference in the world, as
did a handful of my peers. For one day, we were given a world
to run--and it was up to us to solve all of its many issues.
The experience was participating in "The World Game."
Developed by American educator Buckminster Fuller during the
mid-20th century, it was conceived as a learning tool to help
understand and deal with what Fuller considered to be the
world's most pressing issues: hunger, illiteracy, lack of
adequate healthcare, and a pervasive sense of self over others.
An excellent and noble idea, but unfortunately, in this case
it was placed in the hands of a bunch of high school students.
The World Game rolled into my school--not just for the benefit
of students in our district, but for an entire selection of
students from across our conference. I was a sophomore at
the time, more or less still caring about academics, trying
to be a good student. So naturally, when the nets were cast
to catch some participants from our school, I got snagged.
I remember being pretty excited about it, but in retrospect
it might have just been a collective buzz from getting to
skip classes for almost an entire day. I might have been part
of a supposedly studious peer group, but that didn’t
mean we enjoyed slacking off any less than everyone else.
On the day of the event, we all gathered in the smaller of
the school’s two gyms, which also pretended to be an
auditorium. A better part of the gym floor had been covered
up with the biggest map of the world I’d ever seen,
although I suppose that I really shouldn’t have been
surprised--what’s in a name, after all. All the same,
a laminated map the size of a swimming pool might have been
bordering on “unexpectedly literal.” My friend
Ben--a master of dryly pointing out the obvious, even at our
tender age--sat down next to me in one of the battered seats
that lined the room.
“Yeah, so… that’s a big map. That’s
great. This ought to be fun.”
But the giant map would have unrealized ramifications. As
students from other schools began to fill in the seats, a
perky young woman--the game’s coordinator, complete
with an enthusiasm level saccharine enough to rot teeth --told
us that as we were waiting, we should all take off our shoes.
No shoes were allowed on the map, you see, because the surface
might be damaged by scuff marks. Nothing like working in socks
and bare feet to add realism to our efforts to save the world.
After everyone was situated and our footwear was duly shorn,
the rules were laid out: everyone was to be divided up into
countries, with the number of students designated to each
country representing a ratio of that country’s population.
For example, if our scale population of Germany had four diligent
students, then our model of Ireland would have a single student
as its representative, although that student would probably
be a one-man party. I’m kidding, of course--in an effort
to eliminate racial stereotypes, I’m sure that the “Irish”
citizen probably would have been an Asian student.
I was cast with one of the largest group of students, those
representing the nation of India. I’d not been through
a world history class yet in school, so I wasn’t really
sure what was in store for us--I knew that we were mostly
Hindu and that somewhere in our country, Indiana Jones had
rescued our children from the Temple of Doom. Thankfully,
the eager game coordinator was walking around the gym, providing
each country with informative packets about our respective
societies. I was handed a double sided page, which turned
out be filled with line after line of random symbols, like
someone had just discovered the “Wingdings” font
and had gotten really excited about it. I wasn’t the
only one, though--there was a confused murmur rippling through
my fellow Indians, as the info pages worked their way around.
“Now one of the problems that you’ll be facing
today,” the coordinator happily explained, “is
rampant illiteracy, particularly in nations like India. Those
of you that received papers with only symbols are illiterate,
and should now act accordingly.” Several of us exchanged
unenthusiastic looks, although it shouldn’t have been
a surprise. (In 1992, there wasn’t yet an abundant wealth
of simulated American computer programming and customer service
jobs being outsourced to our nation.)
After a rundown of the objectives of the game--summed up by
“solve problems through diplomacy, monetary management,
and trade ”-- was complete, we were turned loose upon
the glossy laminated map that was, for the rest of the day,
our world. Two upperclass men in our nation rapidly emerged
as leaders. One was a heavyset guy from another district whom
we’ll call “Chad” (because I can’t
remember his name) and the other was a cute gal from my own
school. I knew that as an underclassman, my viability in the
game would hinge solely on becoming someone’s political
henchman. Forced to make a decision between the two, I defied
every bit of conventional teenage boy logic, and chose to
follow the hefty guy that smelled like pizza over the attractive
girl.
Getting assignments in the new regime proved surprisingly
easy. Chad was proving himself to be a born delegator, and
you could easily get a job simply by standing in his field
of vision. Chad also liked to play fast and loose with the
rules of the game. When I was presented the task of filling
out diplomacy paperwork at the “UN Headquarters,”
I naively pointed out that I was supposed to be illiterate.
“Guess what,” Chad said. “You just learned
to read. Get moving.”
And so it was that I essentially became our ambassador to
the UN. I spent the rest of my day tromping around in my socks,
filling out papers and evaluations about other countries that
were somehow tied to the game’s scoring system. While
never a central figure in our government, I managed to ingratiate
myself as the go-to guy when it came to the bureaucracy of
the game. When two of our citizens snuck over to the nation
of Japan and stole three of their balloons (which were to
used to represent military force in the--highly discouraged--event
of a war), I was a key player. If not for my diligent filing
of fake paperwork, we might have been part of an international
incident that would’ve shaken the world stage. Fake
diplomatic praise authored by a fake Indian who wasn’t
even supposed to be able to write ended up being the grease
on many a squeaky wheel.
Sufficed to say, I think we may have missed the greater meaning
of the game. Sure, by the end of the day we were all congratulated
for solving most of the world’s issues (including getting
India a 98% literacy rate and wiping out hunger thanks to
millions in questionably obtained economic aid) -but what
did we really learn? We learned that if you really want to
get anything done on the world stage, you have to lie, cheat,
and manipulate every diplomatic channel in ways that aren’t
supposed to work. And it’s obvious that those methods
aren’t the real solution to the game, because if they
are, how is it again that our real world is such a mess? |
