I like what you wrote here, but I feel like you and OP are talking about different things. For you, such experience is a traning for situation when someone tries to knock down your status for real, so that you are ready to defend yourself. For OP, it is an experience that feels nice.
In the “playful fighting as a preparation for real fighting” situation, you are still trying to win. It’s just that you don’t mind losing, you may have a lot of fun losing (because that is what motivates you to continue the training despite the initial losses), and you may even know that you don’t have a realistic chance of winning (yet). But still, on some level, you are trying to win; hoping that one day in the future you will win for real.
Like, when I am play-wrestling with my 2 years old daughter, she will laugh when I grab her or push her on her back, but she is also fighting back. And when I pretend she defeated me, she pushes me on my back, and them jumps on me and laughs.
And this is the aspect I don’t see mentioned in the article. I guess there is a chance the author feels that this part is so obvious it’s not necessary to mention it explicitly; but it doesn’t seem to me that this is the case. For example, the disclaimer “I’m not longing for a clear status hierarchy” makes more sense in context where the author is otherwise proposing unilateral status displays, that in context where the author proposes that everyone should display status once in a while. I may be wrong here, of course.
EDIT: Okay, this comment suggests I am wrong here.
It is possible that play-submission among equals “feels nice” (to those to whom it does) because for our ancestors such play was useful training for situations of genuinely hostile status-attack.
(Though I wouldn’t bet on it; the above is the sort of evo-psych speculation that is easy to make and hard to verify or refute.)
I like what you wrote here, but I feel like you and OP are talking about different things. For you, such experience is a traning for situation when someone tries to knock down your status for real, so that you are ready to defend yourself. For OP, it is an experience that feels nice.
play feels nice doesn’t seem separate from play is probably useful.
In general, sure, but let’s look into details.
In the “playful fighting as a preparation for real fighting” situation, you are still trying to win. It’s just that you don’t mind losing, you may have a lot of fun losing (because that is what motivates you to continue the training despite the initial losses), and you may even know that you don’t have a realistic chance of winning (yet). But still, on some level, you are trying to win; hoping that one day in the future you will win for real.
Like, when I am play-wrestling with my 2 years old daughter, she will laugh when I grab her or push her on her back, but she is also fighting back. And when I pretend she defeated me, she pushes me on my back, and them jumps on me and laughs.
And this is the aspect I don’t see mentioned in the article. I guess there is a chance the author feels that this part is so obvious it’s not necessary to mention it explicitly; but it doesn’t seem to me that this is the case. For example, the disclaimer “I’m not longing for a clear status hierarchy” makes more sense in context where the author is otherwise proposing unilateral status displays, that in context where the author proposes that everyone should display status once in a while. I may be wrong here, of course.
EDIT: Okay, this comment suggests I am wrong here.
It is possible that play-submission among equals “feels nice” (to those to whom it does) because for our ancestors such play was useful training for situations of genuinely hostile status-attack.
(Though I wouldn’t bet on it; the above is the sort of evo-psych speculation that is easy to make and hard to verify or refute.)