Social lottery tickets
The "Social lottery tickets" material can be used to support play situations in which the following questions can be discussed: How do we want to live together in the future? How do we want to organize ourselves and come to decisions?
The basic structure of the game is based on John Rawls' theory of justice. Rawls assumes that questions about a just future social order can only be decided under the veil of ignorance. He believes that uncertainty about our position in the future society helps us to ensure that social decisions are made fairly.
We can provide you with photocopies of templates for making the appropriate lots and a wide range of game instructions, which you can use to try out different applications depending on the group. We are also in the process of producing the material in a small print run so that you can obtain it ready-made without having to do any handicraft work. But that will take a little while yet.
This idea is easy to implement didactically. Basic questions about the design of society and the distribution of opportunities, goods, power and recognition can be worked on by the participants without knowing which lot, which characteristics, which abilities, which assets - in short: which position they will actually have in the newly designed society. Only when the society has been designed do the participants find out what role they are intended to play in this society via the social lottery tickets and can reflect on the process once again.
GENERAL BRIEF INSTRUCTIONS
STEP 1: A social utopia is designed. Basic questions to support this process can be How should opportunities be distributed in our future society? How do we distribute goods, power and recognition? Who has access to education? How do we deal with inheritance? (see game modes for basic questions)
STEP 2: The social lottery tickets (see COPY SHEET) are allocated.
STEP 3: The previously developed social utopia is analyzed using the social lots. What does our society look like from my assigned position?
Depending on which participants you want to play this game with, you can make the "drawing of lots" for the social roles easier or more difficult. We have prepared three options :
FAST OPTION 1: Participants draw pre-made "characters" that have already been put together in advance. There are lots with people from real life.
FAST OPTION 2: Participants draw lots from the same lottery pot and analyze the resulting utopia based on different positions in society.
COMPLEX OPTION: Participants draw lots from different pots and create random "characters".
GAME MODES FOR THE BASIC QUESTION OF THE SOCIAL UTOPIA
OPTION 1: The basic questions of the social utopia are Rawls' "original" questions.
OPTION 2: The basic questions of the social utopia are chosen at random.
OPTION 3: The basic questions of the social utopia are selected so that a specific area of society is discussed.
MAIN QUESTIONS ACCORDING TO RAWLS
John Rawls believes that the central questions that should guide us in shaping the future society are as follows:
- How should decisions be made (does the majority decide, do experts decide, do minorities have veto rights...) ?
- How do we deal with inequality (do we tolerate inequality at all or under what circumstances ...)?
- According to which key are offices or privileges distributed (according to origin, talent, lottery, chance, ...)?