It’s Just Chess
Got involved in a debate last night where I was accussed of dismissing the bill of attainder the USCF was contemplating passing by saying “It’s just chess.”
I didn’t say, that particular phrase, but it’s a convenient enough distillation of what I did say, that it started me thinking: What is it we were actually deciding as we sat there at our tables?
As the USCF gathers at its annual meeting, in Oak Brook, what does actually get decided? Certainly no life and death decisions get made. Nor do any decisions affecting the physical welfare of thousands, much less millions. “It’s the life or death of chess” one of my accusers stated.
That statement troubled me. As I walked away I pondered those words. That was a serious charge; was I guilty? Chess has survived more wars, famines, plagues and pestilences than all of us gathered in that room could possibly imagine. Chess has seen mighty empires rise and fall, has seen wars long and short as well as narrow and wide. It has thrived while watching significant portions of the population of continents die.
And it struck me as sheer arrogant folly to seriously think any decision we could possibly make would somehow cause it to be snuffed out. True, decisions we make could easily snuff out our USCF, or even FIDE. But chess? Be serious. If anything lasts another five centuries, chess will.
What other game can so delight the mind, and so stir the intellect of humanity? It’s just chess.