当前位置：正文
ps88 Why We Turn to Crosswords in Times of Crisis
On Dec. 18, 1941, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lester Markelps88, the Sunday editor of The New York Times, sent a memo to Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the paper’s publisher. In light of the bleak blackout hours to come, he argued, it was time to add a feature that The Times had resisted for nearly three decades: a crossword puzzle.
Markel was acting in part on the urging of Margaret Farrar, then the editor of Simon & Schuster’s puzzle books. “I don’t think I have to sell you on the increased demand for this kind of pastime in an increasingly worried world,” she told him. “You can’t think of your troubles while solving a crossword.”
The crossword has served this role — a solace for the anxious — throughout its history, particularly in times of crisis. Like any game, the crossword offers surmountable, lighthearted obstacles that provide a refuge from the outsize struggles of daily life. But the crossword also has a peculiar quality of straddling frivolity and seriousness. Its clues can cement the enduring status of their subjects, yet the crossword itself is ephemeral: solved, discarded and reborn the next day, in a state of constant reinvention.
As a distraction, a crossword might seem trivial — but the process of solving it has the distinct shape of intellectual labor, lending a refined sense of accomplishment to every solution. As a result, crosswords have always flourished in times of crisis — and may yet prove useful now.
Every crisis is, in part, a crisis of values. Confronting the horrors of wartime, or enduring a pandemic, or facing the uncertainties of political change, we might find ourselves abandoning the values that we held previously.
When we’re jolted into wondering about a world to come, games help us “make an alternate self,” per the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, clarifying our values and demonstrating “what you can do and what you should want.” When we are collectively forced to renegotiate the boundaries between work and play, games that look like both take center stage, demonstrating that the madness of solving a diversionary puzzle can serve as a salve for the madness of daily life. It’s not surprising that during the isolation and anxiety of the pandemic “more games were being played than at perhaps any time in human history,” according to the data journalist Oliver Roeder.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.ps88