Life Is Not A Game

The recent eruption of violence in the Gaza strip is far from being a game. On both sides of the fence people die, get injured, and suffer shortage of water, food, and medications; houses get destroyed, property gets damaged, and much more.

There is a different aspect of this conflict that is very much not "gamish" in nature. Let's consult Wikipedia's definition of "game" in order to bring this aspect into focus (the emphasis is mine):

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interactivity.

Underlying the concept of a game is a set of rules by which all the players abide. This key characteristic is missing from the Gaza strip conflict; indeed, the two sides live by very different value systems. They either play the same "game" with different sets of rules, or engage in different "games" against each other. Either way you spin it, they don't agree on the rules.

In fact this is just one illustration of a more general problem. Different cultures foster different value systems, a divergence that is at the very core of many of the challenges today's global world is facing. Consider suicide bombing. Or blood feuds. Or female genital mutilation. Or... All these are legitimate in some cultures, but completely puzzling to others.

We may excel at games, but we struggle "playing" situations where the different sides live by different value systems.

Zzzzz...