Buddy Wins

May 11th, 2008 Posted in Cadre, Cadre Functions, Culture

Early on we discovered a board game called Trouble that we all loved. Billy was 8 and Buddy was 4 then. My wife and I and the kids would sit on the floor around the decorated cardboard with three stacks of cards face down on it and a set of three dice which we would roll in turn. Everyone had a marker to move around the board and we each started the game with thirty little figurines of animals and flowers.

I do not remember all the rules but every once in a while we would turn a card over that said “Happiness, you win” or “Trouble, you lose.” No matter, we would all shout and wave our hands in the air, stamp our feet, and laugh. Our pet dog, Woof, would bark

The object of the game, naturally, was to win all the figurines but since there were four of us, three of us were sure to lose. That was the lesson: in a fair game of random chance odds are that you will lose, so enjoy the process and brace yourself for whatever end turns up.

Buddy was too young to be philosophical about losing. He could not see the value in the process for itself. For him winning was all and losing unacceptable. So invariably when he hit a losing streak he would become very angry and start to cry and punch everyone and throw the dice behind the sofa and kick the markers every which way and make such a rumpus that we had to stop the game then and there.

So eventually in order to maintain family unity we adopted a set of Buddy Rules which translated meant that no matter what the actual outcome of the game according to its established rules, other ad hoc rules and rationales and interpretations would be allowed to intervene to assure that Buddy wins. We figured that eventually Buddy would mature out and would be able to play the game, win or lose, like everyone else. And when he was around sx years old he did come around and we could play Trouble without trouble.

Reports of recent elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe remind me of Buddy Rules. The incumbent presidents, both intelligent, mature men, were ousted by an obviously aroused and democratically minded electorate who came out in large numbers to vote. The rules of the game decreed that following the election’s outcome the executive and the majority of legislative offices of the government had to be turned over to what had been the opposition. The rules decreed a shift in governing cadre. But at the last minute the party that had been in power called up Buddy Rules and twisted and stopped the on-going democratic process.

More generally, a group’s agent whose acts are supposed to reflect and represent the collective will, intention, and rules acts instead for self or for an external and separate other. There are four options for the cadre: act for the collective, act for self, act for third party, reject agency assignment and deny cadre status and responsibility.

The last time we visited this topic we considered the possibility of the group acting collectively without cadre. In our next post we will focus on the case, pro or con, of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Vote as though it counts, there is some chance that it just might.