Ethics Review: The
Game of Chess
A full assessment of the symbolisms inherent in the game
of chess, as relates to ethics and, more broadly, culture and worldview, is
beyond the purview of even the most powerful minds. If I am certain of anything, it is that I am
not in that category, and the following discussion is at best only a starting
point. As with previous reviews on this
blog, I dive into contentious waters.
The goal is to catalyze deep thought through controversy; and yet I also
intend merit in the substance of my arguments.
Before proceeding, however, with the hard-hitting
critique down below, I’d like to sing the praises of chess. I am a member of the local club and play
avidly. My father loved the game and
instilled a deep appreciation from an early age. He and I would push old wooden pieces on a
warped board while listening to classical music, often the fugues of Bach, which
he enjoyed the most. Chess has been
found congenial with music, and is embraced by many as art. It provides versatile cerebral rewards, and affords
the opportunity to develop sports-related virtues, including patience, focus
and fortitude.
One virtue arising from chess, much lacking in our culture of one-upping and braggadocio, is humility. All chess players lose many games, except maybe
the very best in the world, and even they can’t beat the strongest computers,
not even once. Chess teaches us that failing
and stumbling are a normal part of life, something we can learn from to advance
our own personal growth. In this context,
losing is valuable and essential to victory. The song, Try Everything, from the movie Zootopia,
comes to mind …
Aside from the virtues it inspires, chess is simply
fascinating. In a recent New York Times
article, David Segal and Dylan Loeb McClain write that chess games are “thrilling,
cerebral contests that have elegance, aggression, subterfuge, brilliance and
suspense.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/business/chess-cheating-scandal-magnus-carlsen-hans-niemann.html
Needless to say, the following analysis does not detract
from the game’s beauty, depth or salutary significance; or its function to build and edify community and mind.
However, chess should be promoted and played with respect
for its limitations, as well as its potential for misuse.
Yes, virtues can arise from playing chess, as they can from any sport or game that is practiced with devotion.
Below, however, I am concerned with the symbolisms inherent in the game itself.
Four ethical worries are presented. These interrelate through the first, which
can serve as a conceptual nexus, namely, the affinity between chess and Machiavelli.
I. Chess is Machiavellian
Leaving aside the tangential virtues mentioned above, the
rules and framing of chess depict a certain form of governance and, by
extension, the nature of society.
Let’s look at the New York Times quote again, a slightly longer version:
These games are thrilling, cerebral contests that have
elegance, aggression, subterfuge, brilliance and suspense — “Game of Thrones”
boiled down to its regicidal essence.
"Game of Thrones” boiled down to its regicidal essence--such
is the core of chess, a way of thinking in which the power of the king is
advanced at all costs. I use the
patriarchal term “king” to match the terminology of the game, in which the king
piece has infinite value. Why infinite? Because if the king is captured, the player
loses. All other pieces, including the
queen, can and should be sacrificed to protect and lead the king to
domination.
The Machiavellian idea, maximize the power of the king,
is an example of a power theory. Power
theories stand in stark contrast to ethical theories. The latter concern themselves with right and
wrong, good versus evil, flourishing and freedom. Power theories, in contrast, valorize the attainment
of might, that is, the ability to control other people, groups, and the world.
Some examples of power theories are: strict cultural relativism (culture makes
right); social contract theory (the contract makes right); and legal positivism
(legal makes right). In all these cases,
those who are powerful enough to control culture, contract or law are
considered ultimate.
In regard to Plato’s classic question, Do the gods love that which is holy because it is holy? Or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?
power theories side with the latter.
They claim that those with power to control determine what is holy,
good, and right. In this sense, power
theories are an elaboration on a shared axiomatic assumption: might makes right.
Importantly, power theories can be one element of a healthy governance. All of us are concerned with getting or
maintaining power in some way or other.
However, when not tempered by ethics, power theories lead to chaos and
cruelty. Vladimir Putin's dictatorial control,
effectively a king, has allowed him to wantonly invade Ukraine, committing
numerous atrocities. In pursuit of his obsession to reestablish the old Russian Empire, he has taken all of us to the
brink of World War III.
Chess and Machiavelli go hand-in-hand. The well-known idiom ‘to treat someone as nothing
but a pawn’ is an allusion to how chess is played. Sadly, treating others as mere pawns happens
a lot. History shows that such reductive calculations engender cruelty and ignorance.
Can chess players dive into the beauty and challenge of
the game, without being seduced by its brutal worldview?
The answer is an obvious and clear yes. Still, there are dangers. Some individuals overreact to such an enthralling, aesthetic game, equating it with life itself.
There is, as well, a sexist bias built into chess. Below, I also discuss how dictators can and have weaponized chess for propaganda purposes.
II. Chess normalizes bellicosity
Chess symbolizes violence. As befits a campaign of ruthless regicide,
there is no mercy or compassion in the rules. Nor is there, in the framing, a representation
of human rights or equal-justice-under-law.
Machiavelli’s The Prince, makes space for kindness
and mercy, as these often advance the leader’s power. Chess, though, has none of this
gentility. The game is saturated with
literally black-and-white war imagery.
There are two sides, each trying to topple the other’s king. The names and shapes of the pieces suggest medieval
warfare: knights, bishops, kings,
queens, pawns and rooks. The rook is
shaped like a castle turret. Its etymology hails to the Persian rok,
which refers to an armored war chariot.
Except for rarest of exceptions, play proceeds through
the “capture” or “elimination” of pieces on the board. The white or black pieces, taken as a whole, seem to represent a nation state or an army.
Armies are typically composed of thousands of soldiers, and so it is
easy to visualize the loss of a piece as a representation of many deaths. In a typical endgame, only several pieces are
left on the board, portraying a full-scale massacre.
Many competitive games and sports are unyielding, it is true. Tennis, for example. The difference is that chess blatantly incorporates
war violence. When a point is lost in tennis, there is no implication that someone has been slain, or a whole battalion
lost.
Chess players not only freely eliminate their opponent’s
pieces, but their own as well. It is expected that you intentionally
march your troops to their end. Even
shooter video games, where death is constant, such as Call of Duty, often
weave a narrative of loyalty and mission, one that serves a good end. In chess there is none of that. Every piece can and should be sacrificed in
service of an all-important king toward a victory that has no moral content. In the real world, this translates into a brutal
nihilism.
III. Chess insinuates egoism and, to some degree, its
evil twin egotism
The all-importance of the king bares similarities to forms
of egoism, narcissism, and solipsism. In general, these are all selfish 'isolated soul' worldviews.
Egoism is the philosophical theory that everyone should act
to maximize their own rational self-interest.
This theory is consonant with the symbolisms of chess, especially if the
player identifies with the king. Above, I said "march your troops." I could just as easily have said, 'march the king's troops.' If the
king falls, the player loses, another blur of the bounds between player and king.
Egoism, or rational selfishness, in addition to a nod to Machiavelli, also conduces to an unhealthy psychological state. This state has a similar name, inviting the
comparison of a dark twin: egotism. Egotism is fundamentally narcissistic,
thinking that you are superior to others. Why
are you superior? Just because.
Although being rationally selfish (egoism) and
psychologically selfish (egotism) are supposedly different, egoist philosophers,
following the path of Machiavelli, typically argue that humans are base, selfish animals. Egoists also tend to see
the world as one big pie, and that everyone is an isolated individual in
constant competition for the finite slices.
On this view, there will be, of necessity, winners and losers.
Chess fits this model well. It is not hard to envision chess as a
competition between selfish actors coldly calculating for dominance of 64 slices of a finite pie (8x8 chessboard).
Egoism, I want to stress, is just one philosophical perspective
among many. There are numerous others, a spectrum of theories in political science, psychology, sociology,
philosophy and other disciplines. Unlike egoism, many theories point out that life is interconnected
and multi-dimensional. It’s not a
zero-sum game as chess depicts.
Relational
psychologists underscore the fact that self-identity is molded by the
quality of one's relationships. The ‘self’ comprises
irreducible, holistic interactions. On this model, society advances through mutually beneficial relationships that normalize equality and respect.
Chess, however, is a loom for linear win-lose logic. The complementary picture of the world is narrow: a quantifiable pie hostage to individualistic power grabs.
IV. Patriarchy
Historically most chess players by far have been
male. The game simulates aggressive
combat that lauds the player who ‘knocks out’ the other’s king. At the same time, the rules of chess don’t even acknowledge
traditional feminine values, such as kindness, caring, and mutuality. This one-side-ism fits an ancient pattern: lionize male traits and ignore the work that
women have done throughout history.
That said, we live in a time where the traditional
two-gender system is starting to yield. Restrained by
oppressive gender roles for thousands of years, women and girls are beginning
to gain more freedoms and now play more chess. To the extent that the male-dominated chess
world--its organizations, communities and players--welcome women into the game,
chess can soar as a vehicle for helping them to break out of traditional restrictions.
On the other hand, chess has more trouble helping male
players break out of traditional masculine roles. The game makes no space for ‘emotional work’ -- work that requires
perceptive, real-time, quick decisions that involve empathy, psychology and
diplomacy. Nor does it make space for 'emotional intelligence' or 'emotional competence,' skills that concern validation and healthy management of a range of emotions.
In Summary
In a way, the game of chess is in the same boat as the
much-analyzed Barbie doll. Although it
is ‘just a game’ or ‘just a doll,’ they both convey cultural messages, and so
invite criticism (see the Barbie movie for more on that front).
Chess is drawing bigger and bigger audiences, which is
wonderful. But the ‘stories’ told through
the moves of a chess games, which have been likened to music or poetry in their
logical, beautiful steps, can be over-idolized. When this happens, the game achieves a
talismanic status, as when Bobby Fischer declared, “Chess is life.”
Chess, however, is not life. The game offers wonderful benefits, but it is
not a mandala. It is not a decipherment
in a nutshell for how we should understand the world; or how we should live or
treat other people or the environment or, for that matter, how we should see
ourselves.
Unfortunately, some dictators have found that chess
makes for a useful tool in their propaganda kit [1]. They do see life as chess: a competition between powerful selfish males
who use violence and war to achieve their ends; who treat everyone else as an
expendable object to maximize their own power. Joseph Stalin promoted chess as a national game. He also intentionally
starved 5 million Soviet citizens to death. This slow mass torture didn’t matter to Stalin. The millions of people whose bodies withered, eating their own organs bit by bit, were pawns in his political equation.
In light of the real-life horrors committed by egotistic dictators,
who see the world as one big chessboard, it is vital that responsible players
of the game help to prevent the misuse of chess as a tool for propaganda. A strategy of governance based on the Machiavellian symbols in chess is an
evil strategy. I already mentioned
Putin, a dictator who could bring about World War III. Here is Einstein on what will happen if that
occurs:
I do not know with what weapons World War III will
be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
One way to keep chess in perspective is to branch out. An example is the cooperative game of Dungeons
& Dragons. D&D players adventure
together in a fantasy world of their own mutual creation. Opportunities for self-expression and ethical dilemma branch as wildly as Hydra necks. One can, for instance, roleplay
as a bard half-orc and write original poems and songs.
As the adventure continues, the characters evolve together,
helping each other to flourish.
One way to put human rights into the game of chess would
be to rename the king and the queen. Non-gendered names for these two pieces would remove a blatant bias.
Also, get rid of the war imagery. Make the pieces
represent animals or insects or molecules or clouds or something. There's no need to give fascist or communist dictators easier access to chess as a propaganda tool by showcasing Machiavelli. Chess is a canvas for beautiful logical combinations, which are completely separate from its crude, fallacious foray into political science.
If you think the above suggestions are overly intrusive, keep in mind that
major chess organizations and players, including Magnus Carlsen, are pressing
for radical changes in how the game is played, such as randomizing the opening position (“960
chess”).
The future of chess is revolution. The changes to come should include ethical
improvements in the symbolisms. Like the appearance of the Barbie doll, appearances in chess can affect how we see the world, and need to be updated as humanity progresses, struggling toward a better, more democratic future.
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Footnote
(1) https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0s71f0cw#article_main