Chess and Sex in Le Devoir Du Violence

Abstract

Autobiography-Chess for me has always connoted the invincibility of the father. When I was little, my father taught me chess, and we played often. I've always believed that my father is something of a genius in spheres where logic holds swayhe is an organic chemist by profession-and his ability in chess and bridge only confirms that assumption. As a child, I was never able to my father at chess, even though he would give me the advantage of a knight or rook or sometimes even the queen. (I didn't like that because losing to an who had no queen was particularly humiliating.) My father is a kind and gentle man: he took no pride in beating his son. But this seemingly endless series of losses eventually filled me with disgust for the game. I haven't played chess in twenty years. My father is now sixty-seven, still a vigorous and active man. If we were to play a of chess now and I were to him, I would be more upset than if we had once more rehearsed the scene of my Oedipal failure. Battre quelqu'un aux echecs-In French as well as English, you can a game (where the direct object is inanimate) or you can beat an opponent (where the direct object is possessed of intelligence, even if it is the artificial intelligence of a computer). In both languages win can be used intransivitively, j'ai gagne, but not beat. You must an opponent, and in both languages the verb has associated meanings of physical violence. Games and play-Johan Huizinga writes, [P]lay is a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy and the consciousness that it is 'different' from 'ordinary life.' ' This definition doesn't account for self-directed play. Here there are no rules, as one is not against an opponent. What rules are involved in solitary sports such as swimming, running, or even taking a walk? It is no accident that masturbation is also called playing with yourself. Must play involve an an opponent?-for that is where the necessity of rules comes in. What are the rules of sex-or is that also not play? Games, however, conform nicely to Huizinga's definition of play. Here the rules are, indeed, absolutely binding.