Mimilly, while not banning chess outright the society has many times warned about the negative things regarding the game, and we all know what good dubbies will make of that.
For example:
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AWAKE 1973 3/22 13-14 Chess-What Kind of Game Is It? *** Relation to War
This is the games 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 alladd 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 armychariots, elephants, cavalry and infantrywere 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 games 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 sides 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.
While some chess players may object to making such a comparison, others will readily acknowledge the similarity. In fact, in an article about one expert chess player, the New York Times noted: When Mr. Lyman looks at a chessboard, its squared outlines dissolve at times into the hills and valleys and secret paths of a woodland chase, or the scarred ground of an English battlefield.
When one considers the complex movements, as opposing chessboard armies vie with each other for position, one may wonder whether chess has been a factor in the development of military strategy. According to V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, it has. In his book War in Ancient India he examined this matter at length, and concluded: The principles of chess supplied ideas to the progressive development of the modes and constituents of the army.
The Need for Caution
Some chess players have recognized the harm that can result from playing the game. According to The Encyclopdia Britannica, the religious reformer John Huss, . . . when in prison, deplored his having played at chess, whereby he had lost time and run the risk of being subject to violent passions.
The extreme fascination of chess can result in its consuming large amounts of ones time and attention to the exclusion of more important matters, apparently a reason Huss regretted having played the game. Also, in playing it there is the danger of stirring up competition with one another, even developing hostility toward another, something the Bible warns Christians to avoid doing.
Then, too, grown-ups may not consider it proper for children to play with war toys, or at games of a military nature. Is it consistent, then, that they play a game noted to be, in the opinion of some, an intellectualized equivalent of the maneuvers enacted by little boys with toy soldiers? What effect does playing chess really have upon one? Is it a wholesome effect?
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Now, if you ask your local elder round for a game of chess after that magazine came out what do you think will be the reaction?