​A Taste for the Ludic:

Why Play Still Matters When the World is Falling Apart

​Jay McDaniel
​

“I heard from sources inside the White House that the president was unsettled by the fact that we—his so-called 'liberal' enemies—were having fun. Laughing. Playing on the merry-go-round. Not thinking about him at all. No fear, just joy.

He’d seen a picture of us in the local paper. He didn’t like seeing us smile. He wanted us anxious and solemn.  As if our laughter meant we were free—outside his orbit of control. In the moment on the merry-go-round, he was irrelevant.

I went back to work the next day, filing suits against his actions. My wife returned to the university, where she teaches sociology. She is prepared to hear that her department is being disbanded by government decree.

But that day, at the park, it was all fun. We weren’t thinking about the president. We were thinking about the joy of life. It helped us remember that it is life itself that pulls us forward. And that God—the one in whom we believe and place our trust —is a lure toward life, for everybody.”

— Anonymous

In an age when we have a ludicrous president supported by a ludicrous political party doing so much harm to so many, it can be difficult to make a case for the Ludic, the playful. The very word risks being confused with the grotesque spectacle of political life—its absurd cruelty, its theater of distraction, its glorification of pain.

But those of us who are pained by what is happening need something else. Not the ludicrous, but the healing Ludic. Or the soulful Ludic. Or the life-nourishing Ludic. I am shaped by the tradition of process theology with its notion of a tender God who loves each and all, and lures the world toward beauty. The God in whom I believe is not just about reward and punishment; this God is about the vitality of life. God has a taste for the Ludic.

This Ludic doesn’t sneer—it sings. It doesn’t mock the wounded—it dances with the broken-hearted. It builds something tender in the ruins. It is rooted in a joy for life, a spontaneous reverence for beauty, for aliveness itself. Resentment and retribution, violence and cruelty, have no place in it.

At its heart is a love of life that persists even when the sky is falling. In the face of destructive powers, it is delight not in denial, but in defiance of evil. It says: Even now, I will laugh. I will taste beauty. I will play.

Where do we see it. It is closer to the laughter of children who know more than they say. The sideways glance of the holy fool. The quiet joy of painting with no audience. It is not the Ludic of power, but of aliveness. It doesn't numb our pain; it gives us breath inside it. . It is medicine, especially for those who are in the midst of what the late Czech philosopher Jan Patočka called the “solidarity of the shaken.”

Medicine for the Shaken

The rise of cruelty and authoritarianism in America - I call it the Stalinization of America -  does indeed give rise to a solidarity of the shaken—those who, in anger and disbelief, can barely sleep. They—we—scroll through headlines at 2 a.m., trying to make sense of what has become of the country they thought they knew. Every headline feels like a rupture. Every silence, an accomplice.

We wake up wondering, What can I do, beyond being angry, beyond writing representatives, beyond ranting with like-minded friends? And those friends—gentle, worn, wise—offer the only medicine they have: Take time away from the news, if you can. Do something that is healing. Do something that brings you joy.

And yet, if we are overly shaped by moralistic forms of thinking, joy feels fragile. Even suspect. How can one laugh when the ground itself is cracking? What right does play have when truth is gagged and fear runs unchecked? But here is where the Ludic enters—not as escape, but as sacred refusal.

Slipping through the Armor of Authoritarianism

The Ludic—rooted in the Latin ludere, to play—is not the childish dismissal of pain. It is the sly cousin of grief and rage. It slips through the armor of authoritarianism. It dresses wounds with absurdity and sings lullabies in the face of surveillance. It is the wink, the dance, the puppet show, the glittered sign that reads, Make Joy a Felony, See What Happens. Where control demands uniformity, the Ludic brings color. Where fear insists on silence, it whistles in the dark. Where despair says there is no future, it draws flowers on prison walls.

Solidarity of the shaken is not just solemnity. It is shared trembling and shared laughter. It is standing in the street with a sign and building a sandbox in the mind. It is mourning and mocking power’s illusions with cleverness and clownery.

More than Politics

And here, too, is something quieter: In the life-nourishing Ludic there is also a place for the non-political. Not as retreat, but as reclamation. Not as indifference, but as insistence that being human is more than one’s position in the struggle. The Ludic paints flowers for no reason. Tells jokes that don’t make a point. Dances without protest. It plays not against something, but for something—for beauty, for breath, for the sheer delight of useless joy. In a world that monetizes every move and weaponizes every word, the Ludic dares to be gratuitous and non-transactional.

This is process theology, To play is to respond—to the moment, to the other, to the lure of beauty not yet realized. It is to say yes to novelty, to connection, to joy. The process-relational Ludic reminds us that becoming is never finished, and that delight itself may be part of the divine lure. We are in, says the process theologian Bruce Epperly, a holy adventure and our play is part of that adventure.

The Ludic opens space for us to reclaim a part of ourselves, too. We are more than what we resist. We are more than our affiliations. We are stil alive. In times of creeping totalitarianism, play is not indulgence. It is insurgency. And sometimes, it is sanctuary.