It seems that anytime someone brings up an issue, many people are going beserk arguing about it. After a while, I am not sure if they still remember what they are fighting about.
– I like the color blue.
– What? Blue is no good. Red is best!
– What are you talking about? Green is the way to go!
– No way! Purple is it!
– Are you crazy? Orange is the only color!
Is this a human trait or is it a trait of chess players? 🙂
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Reminds me of a Zen talk I heard…
You talk about politics and world problems.. What is good? What is bad? Good and bad have no self-nature. But many people make good and bad and become attached to their good and bad. So good and bad is only their opinion. Americans’ opinions are made by American society and politics; Russians’ opinions are made by their society and politics. So if America says good, Russia says bad; if Russia says good, America says bad. Why? Their opinions are different. So good and bad are different. What is correct good? What is correct bad? Russians and Americans are attached to their opinions, so they fight. In each society, within each person, it is the same — belittling, fighting, quarreling. If you make your opinion, your situation, and your condition disappear, then your mind, my mind, everybody’s minds are the same. Then there is no American, no Russian, no Chinese, no Japanese, no Korean. Same eyes, same ears, same nose, same mouth, same body, same mind. So Zen is first making your opinion, your situation, and your condition disappear. Then you will get the correct opinion, correct situation, correct condition.
ZM Seung Sanh
Since this sounds like the kind or argument heard in schoolyards regardless of whether the participants know how to play chess, I will say this is nothing unique to chess players.
I would like to thank the Zen Master for his wisdom and add that in the end (or even in the beginning) there is no what on which to have an opinion, just as there is no mirror from which to wipe dust.
It’s a human trait, but you find it almost any “hobby” activity: chessplayers will argue over openings; military miniature enthusiasts over the proper color for a Civil War unit’s belt (I kid you not); RPG gamers over rules minutiae; &c. &c. It’s part of the fun of having a hobby, I guess. 🙂
We need to consider how we view anger and the traits we admire.
A century ago, the quintessential American hero was the strong, silent man, slow to anger, decisive when action was needed. Think Gary Cooper of the movies or any of the heroes of the Zane Gray novels.
But then came the mid century and anti-heroes like James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause” where anger and resentment became the defining, and admired trait.
Today’s heroes in politics, entertainment, sports and elsewhere are angry all the time. Many of them, at least. There’s been a change in our culture over the last century.
Other cultures changed, too. Consider how nuts the Muslims went when a Danish (!) paper carried a few cartoons, or the Pope made some statement in some obscure speech.
Didn’t used to be that way.
I’m afraid that the chess player climate reflects trends in the wider world.
I think everything above is true but I believe it runs much deeper than that. It is all tied to the idea in the mind of separation. It is part of the mind doing judgments of everything. All thoughts of the human mind are judgments and all judgements are duality or separation.
The solution is ONEness and LOVE which is oneness.
The human mind has made a fundamental mistake. It makes many mistakes all the time but there is a deep fundamental mistake. The mind believes there are people out there in an external world outside of the mind itself. But this is not really true. There is only the one mind and thus everything is oneness. When we come to understand that there is no one and there is nothing separate from oneself then the solution is obvious. There is no one to hate. there is no one to judge. there is no one but me. All the people are simply an idea in my mind. The entire universe is but an idea in my mind.
Thus the universe could be created out of nothing and it can end its life back into nothing. Simple because it is simply all an idea in my mind.
All the fighting come from my mind which believes that there is someone separate from me who is different. My mind can only think in separation and differences and in judgments and arguments.
The Love and the ONEness comes from an emotional place inside of me. for LOVE is more an emotion than an intellectual idea. Because the mind deals only in intellectual ideas and rationalizations it has NO Knowledge of what Love is. and it can therefore never choose love. Thus the mind always chooses Separation and Judgments which are the baby ideas of hatred and enemy.
The mind considers everyone an enemy. Certainly an enemy in the race for money.
The heart considers everyone his / her Brother and Sister.
It is impossible for LOVE to Judge.
It is impossible for the mind to LOVE.
We relish and worship the mind. But the mind can only give us hatred and separation.
If the World is but an idea in my mind. If you are but an idea in my mind. Then it must be that there is no evil. The mind must stop believing in evil and sin as a step to not judging which is the first step to love.
How do I love my enemy.
first I come to know he is one with me.
then I stop judging him. and not judging him as evil I find that I have forgiven him.
Jesus said Judge not least you be judged. He meant that all your judgments are judgements of oneself.
Jesus said to love your enemy. Thus the first step is forgiveness non judgement and the next step is love.
Here’s an issue that could be called “Freudian”—maybe it’s even in the book Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death by the controversial journalist Alexander Cockburn (which I haven’t read)?
In Math/Science, there is powerful social pressure to give credit where credit is due even when it bugs you or you don’t understand. This doesn’t mean everyone does it—witness Grigory Perelman‘s complaints along with declining the Fields medal (see last paragraph of the Wiki bio)—but the force is there. Even Stephen Wolfram gets slammed for not doing it enough to people’s liking, as noted initially here. Scientific and mathematical truth is an unavoidable agreed standard. Even Perelman trusted this standard when he said if the proof is correct then no other recognition is needed, though many including myself feel he actually hurt the accepted principle of giving credit.
But I’ve found this principle does not work so well in chess. The “Freudian” reason may be that in chess games, you only get your “credit” when you force your opponent to tip over the King. And there are fewer agreed standards of comportment and (event) organization. This may not be so “cheap-psychology” a reason for the extremes we saw in 2006! The effect also tends to get magnified in online newsgroups/forums such as Susan describes, where the lack of meeting-closeness makes it harder to follow arguments consideredly, and credit-seeking becomes campaigning.
Anyway, in games you can counteract this tendency by going over analysis with your opponent win-or-lose, as time allows, and being sure to credit ideas that “made ya think”!
wow… no one’s arguing about this! Touch wood.
Chess players like a good war of words. We like a good fight. I belive chess players argue more than average. Not me, of course, hehe 😉