On Sunday night I went to see “Alls Well That Ends Well,” at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Keeping with this theme, its easy to look at our class’ game of Diplomatic Risk as “well” because it ended “well,” at least for the blue, black and yellow teams. The means, however, is the part that we must evaluate. Each team went through a struggle as each tried to secure a win as designated by their interests.
Though my team won, I would argue that the means were not just. Initially, my group attempted to remain loyal to our assigned objective to spread peace. However, as we began to lose and realize that we would be out of the game completely if we did not change tactics, we decided to engage in military combat in order to promote peace. A real pacifist would not have agreed with such actions, yet it is a truth of politics that sometimes you must decide whether the ends or the means are more important to you and your cause. We, the blue team, decided that the a peaceful ending was more important to us than a peaceful means of getting there.
Much like actual politics, when not designated as a political leader, its easy to get pushed aside and ignored. I was not the head of state or the diplomat for my group, and though I was working hard to remain aware of my groups activities, motives and action, it was hard to remain interested when I had no official sway or power. I wish our class had played two games, so that each person could have been actively involved in the game. I felt ripped off by only being able to add comments or informally discuss things with my group and other groups.
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