Hypocrisy fights back
The great world chess champion Emanuel Lasker famously pronounced that hypocrisy and lies do not last long on the chessboard. Sadly, they seem to be flourishing in other walks of life.
Rachel Millward, deputy leader of the Green Party, has been widely criticised for opposing a new asylum shelter in Crowborough, East Sussex, near her local area (and allegedly luxurious home), while her party welcomes immigrants and their extended families to be placed in other neighbourhoods.
The Labour government are particularly strong on hypocrisy, a quality they appear to cultivate with the steady diligence of a gardener nurturing poisonous weeds. Any number of splendid examples spring readily to mind. Angela Rayner’s tax-dodging wheeze is perhaps the most shining case, so brazen in its execution that it might almost be admired , were it not emblematic of a deeper malaise.
Yet even this fades beside the global contenders in what might be called the Olympic Games of Hypocrisy. Here the laurels are easily awarded to Brazil’s “new road to COP”, the grandiose title given to the controversial four-lane highway, Avenida Liberdade, carved through Belém, the host city for COP30. Officially the purpose is to ease traffic for the summit—an event designed, ironically enough, to discuss the salvation of the planet. But the road’s passage through protected Amazon rainforest has incensed conservationists, local residents and indigenous communities alike. They see the project for what it is: another act of violence against a living landscape, another chapter in the long and dismal chronicle of deforestation and the destruction of wildlife.
Some officials, with the usual bureaucratic slipperiness, deny that the highway is directly tied to the summit. Others, more candidly, admit that COP30 provided precisely the justification needed to begin a project long whispered about but never quite initiated. However one dresses it up, the facts remain stark.
The highway project
Purpose: To improve traffic flow in Belém for the COP30 Climate Change summit, which was expected to attract over 50,000 attendees.
Location: A four-lane highway being built through protected areas of the Amazon rainforest.
Controversy:
- The highway cuts through tens of thousands of acres of rainforest, causing deforestation.
- It disrupts wildlife corridors and harms biodiversity.
- Local communities and indigenous groups have been displaced or had their livelihoods impacted.
Critics argue that building infrastructure through a rainforest to host a climate summit is contradictory and hypocritical.
In a previous column, I demonstrated the familiarity with chess of the German genius, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). He is the author of perhaps the most flattering remark ever made about chess when, in his 1773 play Götz von Berlichingen, he described chess as “the touchstone of the intellect” (“Probierstein des Gehirns”). Another Goethe masterwork is his Dichtung und Wahrheit (completed 1830) which I translate as “Fantasy and Reality” or, more literally, “Composition and Truth”.
Goethe has been rated as the person with the highest Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in recorded history. IQ is a concept that is often mistakenly assumed to have begun with a desire to limit peoples’ freedom by classifying their intellectual capacity. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In the early part of the 20th century, a Frenchman, Alfred Binet, observed that virtually all students were from the upper classes. Feeling this to be intrinsically unfair, he attempted to devise tests that would be “class free”, and that would enable any child to advance through the academic system on intellectual merit alone. As a work of deep social conscience and considerable intellectual rigour, he selected basic abilities, such as vocabulary knowledge, ability to manipulate numbers and short-term memory, testing massive sections of the population in each of these skills. Those who scored averagely for any age group were given a score of 100, others being given scores below or above 100, depending on how far they deviated from average. Thus a score of 70 was particularly low, a score of 130 especially high (in the “genius“ range).
Binet was well aware that his methods could not grasp the totality of a person’s mental endowments, but only in the last few decades has the IQ test begun to gather its own momentum. For a number of years it has been assumed that intelligence quotients are a reflection of an innate ability and are unchanging. Work by many researchers has shown that the IQ score can be seen much like a high-jump bar. Whatever score you achieve may be considered “the height you can jump at the moment”. With appropriate training your score can go, should you wish, either down or up!
Whatever the outcome of the IQ race, it is clear that Goethe comes out either at, or near, the top, and, as we have seen, Goethe was mightily exercised by the question of: What is truth? Strikingly, as one learns from Goethe’s recorded conversations with his companion and editor, Johann Peter Eckermann (Gespräche mit Eckermann, 1836), the great man was deeply suspicious of the media of his day, which he regarded as both superficial and biased. Goethe even advised against reading newspapers.
I am concerned that woke groupthink is hard at work, busily eroding the boundaries between fantasy and reality, and chess is not exempt. The signs are passim, and the Runes are clear. Thus, George Orwell’s insights are being revived more and more frequently. As he wrote, all too ominously, “in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.
Meanwhile, in his piece for TheArticle, “Communism as a Religion”, Laszlo Solymar resurrected an important statement by Bertrand Russell. The philosopher dismissed communism as a series of beliefs, “held as dogmas, going beyond, or contrary to, evidence and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian. Not intellectual.” Even the most cursory haruspication could deduce that the harpies of wokism are circling. Truth in manifest areas is under threat.
Chess is not escaping the infection. International chess is undoubtedly a sport, a mind sport. In order to be recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the World Chess Federation, FIDÉ, is obliged to subscribe to regulation by WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. There is, though, just one irritating anomaly: cheating in chess, when it does occur, has nothing to do with drugs. No known drug has been shown to improve chess ability. Yet, routinely, utterly pointless drug tests are still being foisted on chess competitors in FIDÉ events. The main cheating problem in chess is, however, illicit access to computer analysis. On this topic WADA is, as one might expect, silent.
There was further controversy regarding the use of Russia’s flag in another mind sport. Polish official Jacek Pawlicki removed a Russian flag during the fourth round of the Women’s 10×10 World Draughts Championships final between Tamara Tansykkuzhina and Poland’s Natalia Sadowska. The removal of the flag was blamed for disrupting Tansykkuzhina’s concentration, leading to her making an error, which caused her to lose the game. The World Draughts Federation later apologised for the incident, but said it had been instructed to comply with the decision by WADA.
In my opinion, the flag subterfuge is hypocrisy, forced upon FIDÉ and chess players by a regime which ignores factual circumstances. Given the choice between fantasy and reality, fantasy wins every time.
I conclude with a cri de coeur on behalf of the inventor of Wizard Chess (see Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone), J.K. Rowling. She is now being widely excoriated for her belief that women are biologically, not surgically or hormonally, defined. If her view — which is surely shared by the great majority of humanity — had prevailed, the hormonally correct former male, Laurel Hubbard, should not have been permitted by the IOC to compete in the weightlifting section of the Tokyo Olympics, or indeed any other competition which would deprive a female athlete of her “berth” right.
When Lasker referred to the impossibility of survival of lies and hypocrisy on the chessboard, it was couched as a general statement, but in fact everyone knew the ad hominem identity of the intended target: his great rival Tarrasch.
Here is the fifth game of their world championship match in 1908. By the time it took place, Tarrasch was 46 and past his prime, while Lasker was at the peak of his powers. Lasker won decisively 8-3, but the match took chess to a new strategic level. In the game below Lasker improved on his play in the third game (which Tarrasch had won) and took a 3-1 lead. For the rest of the match Tarrasch avoided playing Black in the Ruy Lopez (or Spanish Game) — a huge concession by the Praeceptor Germaniae.
Emanuel Lasker vs. Siegbert Tarrasch
Lasker – Tarrasch World Championship Match, 1908, Munich, game 5
Notes by Emanuel Lasker (engine analysis is italicised)
- e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 Na5 9. Bc2 c5 10. d4 Qc7 11. Nbd2 Nc6 12. h3 O-O 13. Nf1 cxd4 14. cxd4 Nxd4 15. Nxd4 exd4
So far it’s exactly like the third game of the match when I continued 16. Ng3.
- Bg5
The idea being either to get rid of Black’s important King’s Bishop or to hamper its development. The position is now getting very complicated.
16… h6 17. Bh4 Qb6
This is much too passive a move and Black will almost immediately get into trouble.
- Qd3
The threat being 19. Bxf6, followed by e5. Black can’t parry this by 18… Be6 on account of 19. Bxf6 Bc4 20. Qxd4, hence the loosening of Black’s K-wing is practically forced.
18… g5
Perhaps not as forced as it may seem. The engine suggests 18… Re8 as an alternative, after which the counter suggested above is considerably less effective.
- Bg3 Be6 20. Rad1! Rfc8 21. Bb1
21… Nd7 The computer interjects that this move cedes a small but significant advantage to White. Instead, either 21… Bc4 or …Rc6 are proposed.
- e5 Nf8 23. Qf3
Threatening exd6 followed by Qf6.
23… d5 24. Qh5 Kg7 25. f4
Threatening f5.
25…f5
Like an ancient Roman hero Tarrasch throws himself on his own sword! Evidently he did not feel like offering some prolonged resistance by 25…Ng6.
- exf6+ Bxf6 27. fxg5 hxg5 28. Be5 d3+ 29. Kh1 Ng6 30. Qxg5 Bf7 31. Ng3 Bxe5 32. Rxe5 Rh8
…Qd8 would have been countered by 33 Re7.
- Bxd3 Ra7 34. Rde1 Kf8 35. Bxg6 Qxg6 36. Qe3 Rc7 37. Nf5 Qc6 38. Qg5 Black resigns 1-0
Ray’s 206th book, “ Chess in the Year of the King ”, written in collaboration with Adam Black, and his 207th, “ Napoleon and Goethe: The Touchstone of Genius ” (which discusses their relationship with chess) can be ordered from both Amazon and Blackwells. His 208th, the world record for chess books, written jointly with chess playing artist Barry Martin, Chess through the Looking Glass , is now also available from Amazon.
A Message from TheArticle
We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.
