Game Studies Study Buddies 23 – Csikszentmihalyi – Flow
May 29, 2020
A lively dive into Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow, its defining features, and how it became a self-help canon. They probe the book’s methods, examples, and claims of universality. The conversation examines political and ethical consequences, who gets excluded from flow, and how the idea migrated into game studies. Critical questions about hierarchy, survivorship, and moral blind spots keep the discussion sharp.
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Complexity As A Moral Metric
- Csikszentmihalyi values increasing individual complexity as a societal good and measures cultures by access to that complexity.
- This frames progress as individual autonomy and skill development.
Blaming Victims For Lacking Flow
- Csikszentmihalyi blames excessive self-consciousness for excluding people from flow, ignoring how race and policing force such self-awareness.
- Cameron argues this exclusion disproportionately affects racialized and marginalized people.
Hegelian Selfhood Framed As Growth
- Flow is portrayed as promoting a dialectic of differentiation and integration that supposedly grows the 'complex self'.
- Michael critiques this as an individualistic ladder-like vision of personal growth.
