Terry Elliott

“Who must play, cannot play.”
― James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

“Therefore, for infinite players, politics is a form of theatricality. It is the performance of roles before an audience, according to a script whose last scene is known in advance by the performers. The United States did not, for example, lose its war in Southeast Asia so much as lose its audience for a war. No doubt much of the disillusion and bitterness of its warriors comes from the missing final scene—the hero's homecoming to parades or ceremonial burial—an anticipated scene that carries many into battle.”
― James P. Carse

“No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character... this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons.”
― James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility