Brazen rowdiness, too funny!
We play chess by the 'one foot' rule. You have to keep one foot on the floor at all times.
Spiritual Chess - A Short Story
by DT 13 Replies latest social humour
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DesirousOfChange
WTS comments on Chess
*** g94 1/22 p. 29 Watching the World ***
“There is a fuzzy line between war games considered problematic and those considered acceptable, such as chess with its castles and armies. The intent is violent.” One teenage player said: “It seems kind of weird to promote a game for pleasure that is associated with war. . . . When you think of the message this gives, it doesn’t seem right.”*** g83 9/8 p. 16 Are Violent Video Games Really Harmful? ***
But violent video games are especially so. “Your mind can wander in a game like chess.*** g73 3/22 pp. 13-14 Chess—What Kind of Game Is It? ***
This is the game’s military connotations, which are obvious. The opposing forces are called “the enemy.” These are “attacked” and “captured”; the purpose being to make the opposing king “surrender.” Thus Horowitz and Rothenberg say in their book The Complete Book of Chess under the subheading “Chess Is War”: “The functions assigned to [the chess pieces], the terms used in describing these functions, the ultimate aim, the justified brutality in gaining the objective all—add up to war, no less.”
It is generally accepted that chess can be traced to a game played in India around 600 C.E. called chaturanga, or the army game. The four elements of the Indian army—chariots, elephants, cavalry and infantry—were represented by the pieces that developed through the centuries into rooks, bishops, knights and pawns. Thus the New York Times, August 31, 1972, observed:
“Chess has been a game of war ever since it was originated 1,400 years ago. The chessboard has been an arena for battles between royal courts, between armies, between all sorts of conflicting ideologies. The most familiar opposition has been the one created in the Middle Age with one set of king, queen, knights, bishops, rooks and pawns against another.
“Other conflicts depicted have been between Christians against barbarians, Americans against British, cowboys against Indians and capitalists against Communists. . . . It is reported that one American designer is now creating a set illustrating the war in Vietnam.”
Probably most modern chess players do not think of themselves as maneuvering an army in battle. Yet are not the game’s connections with war obvious? The word for pawn is derived from a Medieval Latin word meaning “foot soldier.” A knight was a mounted man-at-arms of the European feudal period. Bishops took an active part in supporting their side’s military efforts. And rooks, or castles, places of protection, were important in medieval warfare.
Thus Reuben Fine, a chess player of international stature, wrote in his book The Psychology of the Chess Player: “Quite obviously, chess is a play-substitute for the art of war.” And Time magazine reported: “Chess originated as a war game. It is an adult, intellectualized equivalent of the maneuvers enacted by little boys with toy soldiers.”BTW -- I added the points in bold, not the original article.
Doc
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Oubliette
As long as you insist on having an invisible king, you may as well have an invisible opponent.
DT, well done. I enjoyed that!
It’s funny that, as an apostate, I probably spend more time reading your magazines than you do.
True dat too!
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