Abstract
Following Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s death in October 2021, obituaries praised his research into the experience of “flow.” Flow—which is also the title of his bestselling 1990 book—refers to a mental state of full immersion that can be achieved when one pursues an activity purely for its own sake, for the reward that is intrinsic to the activity itself. On a practical level, flow involves cultivating activities that are neither too simple (giving rise to boredom) nor too difficult (creating anxiety), but which are located in the middle ground—the realm of “optimal experience.” Csikszentmihalyi found exemplars of flow in games and sport, including activities he engaged in himself, such as chess and rock-climbing, in which skill is balanced with challenge. What Csikszentmihalyi identified in these forms of play was a template for dealing with everyday reality in a way that will make us happier and more productive. The overall aim, for Csikszentmihalyi, is to lift ourselves out of passive-depressive pastimes, like watching TV, and infuse our entire life with a sense of purpose and accomplishment.
Csikszentmihalyi’s work has found a receptive audience in business. Here, the basic idea is that management can stimulate a state of flow among employees by providing them with clear goals, immediate feedback, a sense of autonomy, and reasonable challenge—in other words, by structuring work like a game. For its proponents, flow is a way for companies to support human flourishing while also yielding efficiency gains.
Braxton Soderman’s Against Flow seeks to temper our enthusiasm about flow. Soderman locates the concept of flow at the heart of neoliberal ideology, an ideology that privileges individualism over collective solidarity and economic growth over social progress. In flow, we’re encouraged to leave behind the humdrum world and enter into an ecstatic state of self-growth, personal transformation, and hard-won achievement. To this extent, the concept of flow shares its core principles with contemporary capitalism—namely, the idea that individuals are responsible for pursuing their goals and must hold themselves to account for their triumphs and failures. It’s not the structural inequalities holding you back; it’s your mindset. If you can find the flow, you’ll also find happiness and success.
The problem with flow, for Soderman, is that it prevents us from thinking critically about the state we’re in. As Soderman puts its: When we go with the flow, we do not pause to consider the reasons for our actions; we immerse ourselves in reality, releasing the blockages of indecision, evaluation, and worry. (p. 21)
In other words, we’re unable to critically reflect upon an activity—and the broader social context in which it’s located—if we become fully absorbed by it. Flow causes us to lose our critical distance, and so erodes our capacity for doubt and skepticism. Yet these are precisely the qualities we need to challenge the inequities of modern society.
The bulk of Against Flow examines flow experiences in prominent video games like Celeste, Psychonauts, and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. For Soderman, video games are especially suited for the study of flow. Unlike analogue games or sports, video games are explicitly designed to induce a state of flow, a state that can be managed and maintained by in-game progression systems (e.g. unlocking a new level of difficulty). This is what makes video games uniquely enjoyable and addictive. It’s also what makes them powerful mechanisms of social control. As Soderman argues, video games are complicit in sustaining the neoliberal order because they encourage us to behave in ways that align with the demands of contemporary capitalism.
Take Diner Dash, a time management video game in which the player juggles different tasks when serving customers at a restaurant. The main character, “Flo,” is most successful when she lives up to her name, taking orders and serving meals in a state of frenetic yet exhilarating flow. This can be achieved, of course, only when the player themselves enters the flow zone on their console or mobile device. For Soderman, a game like Diner Dash isn’t just a pleasurable time-killer. It’s also a training ground for the ideal subject of neoliberalism. Specifically, the game teaches the player how to cope with work intensification, encouraging them—in the game as in reality—to go with the flow and ignore the structural causes of exploitation and overwork. Diner Dash thus illustrates Soderman’s main argument that flow-inducing video games provide a way to manage alienation rather than overcome it.
But Soderman doesn’t want to swear us off video games entirely. In fact, he makes the case that video games can actually challenge the ideology of flow, if designed correctly. Soderman singles out the indie game Getting Over with Bennett Foddy, a brutally difficult platformer that involves the main character climbing his way up a mountain of garbage. For Soderman, Getting Over It problematizes flow—indeed, intensifies “feelings of antiflow” (p. 73)—by constantly stymying the player’s progress and reminding them of their flaws. It’s not meant to be an enjoyable experience, but an exasperating one. As Soderman puts it, “[t]he game reminds us that life is difficult, and frustrating events and worries interrupt our lives,” and so it allows for “moments of self-criticism to appear” (p. 73). In contrast to the flow state demanded by Diner Dash, Getting Over It puts us in another frame of mind entirely—one that questions the very idea of “playfulness” rather than surrendering oneself to it.
Toward the end of the book, Soderman sketches out what he calls “critical flow,” a mental state that’s induced by experimental counter-games such as Oikospiel Book I and The Beginner’s Guide. Barely playable, these games suspend the ludic experience to which we’ve become accustomed. They create critical flow by alternating between immersion and reflection, an effect that jolts the player out of a flow-induced trance state and forces them to think about. . .well, anything except for the next move in the game. For Soderman, critical flow holds radical potential. But it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what he has in mind. For example, what does he understand by “feminist flow,” “queer flow,” or “postcolonial flow” (p. 227)? His conclusions are vague, so it’s unclear how even the most experimental kind of video games are meant to stimulate critical reflection on contemporary capitalism and its discontents.
The strength of Soderman’s book is the connection he draws between Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow and ideology. Of course, being in a state of flow isn’t always problematic, and many of us are happy to be absorbed in an activity we enjoy. But when flow comes to be celebrated as the key to an autonomous and self-fulfilling life, it fosters neoliberal modes of behavior. The phenomenon of flow can become a critical sleeping pill, prescribed by video game companies who want us to consume their products and slipped in our drinks by corporate executives who want us to work harder.
Yet Soderman fails to address a deeper question: why do we need to redeem flow from positive psychology and redirect it toward more critical, explicitly political ends? If the stated aim of Against Flow is to perform “a criticism of flow in order to advocate for a larger critique of play” (p. 17), then it’s a mystery why Soderman ends the book with a call for “games and technologies that allow for different forms of flowing” (p. 277). Soderman offers some valuable insights into the ideology of flow, yet he stumbles when it comes to outlining possible alternatives.
As organization theorists, we’re interested in the resources this book provides for thinking critically about flow in corporate life. Certainly, Soderman opens up some useful avenues for studying organizational phenomena. By viewing flow as an ideology, we can shed new light on “playful capitalism” (p. 19), a discourse that convinces us that we’re playing when we’re actually working, as we see in workplace trends like serious play and digital gamification. It’s a discourse that, while alluring, distracts us from other, less ludic concerns such as precarious employment and pervasive inequality.
