Chess matters: honor

Tolkien sang a song in his school days that went something like, "Oftentimes defeat is splendid; in victory there can be shame; luck is good, the prize is pleasant, but the glory is in the game." That's nice to believe, especially if you have egalitarian ideals. We have a similar adage, "It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game." ... I'm just not buying it, especially if that means not keeping score. First of all, if the "game" (whichever game) is considered as a closed system, I think the glory is in the victory. Secondly, I don't think you can play the game well if you're highest motive is not to win.

Now I want to take it all back. And that's because of my caveat, "if the game is considered as a closed system." Of course, we can't consider any game as a closed system with it's own boundaries any more than we can consider any individual life as a self-contained, self-authenticating existence. If we could, then we'd legitimately surrender any ideal of honor within the game to the object of victory and the ends would justify the means. Of course, this wouldn't mean we could cheat, because breaking the rules of a game disqualifies. However, there are ways to play any game in which the rules are followed but the victory is still shameful. And this can only be because the game is found within a larger context - that of a life; and the life is found within a larger context - God's story. And in God's story, the only means to the glory of victory is to play with honor. The "rules" of this supreme struggle are too fundamental to reality (and therefore, partly invisible) to be encoded within a rulebook. God requires of us more than any legislation can itemize. [This is not to suggest we can't legislate morality in the civil realm. I'm merely saying we can't originate goodness by legislation, and goodness is the only means to victory in the Great Struggle].

No life is self-authenticating. No game verbalizes all the rules that insures a winner's glory in the extra-game context. Every life only has meaning within the larger "story" of God. His is the story of a struggle, which ends with a great victory. Each life is also a struggle which may or may not participate in the victory of God. And each struggle within our lives is a miniature of the struggle of our lives . This is precisely why "how you play the game" matters. The principles of goodness and honor by which we obtain victory in the Great Struggle can't help but seep into, or rather, make up the fabric of, every sub-struggle, whether it be the struggle of our very lives or the struggles within our lives - even the "insignificant" ones, like a chess game.

There are some practical implications of this. On the one hand, we have this idea that any "on-field" fighting (e.g., football) is automatically bad. But one must defend oneself. A man must not back down, even if the "rules" of the mini-game forbid self-defense as "unsportsmanlike" - it may be for one, but not for the other. On the other hand, any game requires you to be competitive, fierce even. But, because it's a game, and therefore within the larger context with meta-rules of honor that seep in, we are not to consider our opponent as an enemy. And we certainly must not despise or hate him. We don't want our boys to be like Mike Tyson. There's never a context in which it's ok to want to eat someone's child. Hatred will not win the Great Struggle. Hatred loses, even though it may help win lesser struggles ("Don't give in to hate, Luke. It's the path to the dark side")! We want our boys to be gentlemen. Not all is fair in love and war.

What about kindness? Sure, absolutely. But to knock your football opponent on his ___ is not unkind. That's part of the game. You can't get mad about being on the receiving end of it, though you might feel shame. But how you deal with the shame of defeat (or of getting "faced") partly determines whether you victorious in the Greater Struggle. If you are humble and congratulate your opponent's minor intra-game victory, and then get up and knock him on his ___, there's more glory in the larger story for you than if you do it out of bitterness and resentment of your own shame. Which is the stronger person? the more honorable? the passionless one who can win with integrity in his soul.

In God's story "honor" wins. And the chess board is a great place to practice this. It's hard to be a gentleman when you're opponent is trash-talking (and means it). There is a way to be a "winner" even if you lose, or rather, there is an honorable way to lose a game, or even a war, which puts you in good stead to win the Great Struggle. And right now, I'm really tempted to talk about the Southern gentlemen who fought in the War of Northern Aggression.