the fantasy of fairness
Do you remember much of grade school? I remember a little bit, but what I do remember are all the games we used to play. Most of them revolved around epic battles involving either toy guns, sticks we pretended were guns, toy swords that eventually got turned into guns, and we would war on each other for hours stopping only to run in and get a drink. Now the pervading rule of playing "Army" or "Spies" is to know that when you've been "shot", to lay down for the adequate amount of time. I seem to remember a ten-count appeased most of the players. Now, if you didn't count or worse yet, didn't acknowledge that you'd been "hit" you were IMMEDIATELY called out for not playing fair. Being fair, especially when there were no adults around, was the only thing that kept the playing field level, that kept everyone in the matrix. If there was no fairness, the game ceased to be fun and the players would most likely dissipate, leaving smaller g