Is Chess Alienating?

I think what you are saying is something very old stuff in philosophy. That the world is subjective. There is nothing really out there, (I am not implying in the physical sense), but in terms of meaning. 

If anything has any meaning, it is comes from us. I don't think you can argue the case to that extreme. That the objects have no power to create any meaning at all.

In a way it is true. Chess pieces are just wood. It is inert as you say. 

But sometime in history someone figured out that they could create an object that grabbed peoples attention, or certain types of people's attention. 

This attention-grabbing procedure is everywhere. From fashion, where clothes are designed to by designers to grab attention, to advertisers and politicians, who try to grab our attention, to artists and musicians, who learn how to create meaningful hooks.

So inasmuch as the object, or sign, or sound, or smell, or touch, has little meaning, shapen it can have a profound impact on us.

All religion understand this. They know how people can manipulate our attention for their own benefit, intentionally or unintentionally.

Chess might for some people meet certain needs.

The following talks about the seven vices, but with only a little alteration you can see how it can it relates to almost any obsession.

In Glittering Vices, Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung (pp. 38-39) theorizes, with Thomas Aquinas, that the capital vices represent our attempts to provide happiness for ourselves through possession of temporal goods.

"Why count these seven as the main sources and most fruitful of the vices? Aquinas's explanation is that they aim at the things that most attract human beings, the goods which we most long to possess (ST IaIIae 84.3-4). Because each good on the list above holds a close affinity to human fulfillment, we are tempted to substitute them for true fulfillment as the goal of our lives. The vices offer subtle and deceptive imitations of the fullness of the human good, what we often simply call 'happiness'" (pg. 38).

"The vices have such attractive power because they promise a good that seems like true human perfection and complete happiness [...] They promise us a shortcut and a recipe for self-made satisfaction. In their own twisted way the vices are our attempts to attain goods like love and friendship, provision and security, recognition and approval, comfort and pleasure, status and worth, all by ourselves" (pg. 38).

"When our character is distorted by vice, we seek these goods—and they are genuinely good things—in a misguided or even idolatrous manner: in the wrong way, at the wrong times and wrong places, too intensely, or at the expense of other things of greater value. That's what makes the vices evil. Our values are out of whack—or in Aquinas's Augustinian terms, our loves are 'disordered'. Our desire for and pursuit of these goods does not respect the right ordering of values" (pg. 39).

So one might seek something from chess; but often it is not enough to just play the game, it is also important that we play another human, simply defeating machines doesn't have the same satisfaction.

The necessesity for a human opponent is a key element. Perhaps with moving the pieces we believe we are overcoming something, or solving some perennial human problem.

Chess then can begin to be a substitute for real living. 

I think if you take it (everything) easy, you'll be Ok. If you don't take it easy, it ain't gonna be Ok - whether you play chess or not. Cheers! 

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov ....

And you ask if Chess can be alienating? This man is supposed to be subducted by aliens!

(sorry coudnt help posting this...)

batgirl are you alienated?

I can see an aspect of alienation in chess. People that don't understand it would be hesitant to approach a person sitting by himself at, say, a coffee shop, with a board and a book on the table. However, that's kind of a "loner" situation... There are many situations where a chess board causes people to gather, either to play or to discuss the game (Chess.com being one of them!)

Yes, but I was born that way. Chess has nothing to do with it.

I agree with Batgirl. I am a VERY outgoing, social person.  However, some days i can just get LOST in chess.  One night, after a bunch of beers and some of the green stuff, I said to myself, as I fell asleep seeing patterns and moves...."You know what, I think I could just get lost in chess...forever...and be happy"

Good night!

What do you think about meditating? About getting in touch with yourself? Since if you know yourself, you know everyone else...because in the end we are all the same, aren't we?

Um, no. We are not all the same. I'm blonde, beyond blonde. You, are not.

But those things are just the outside...like different designs of chess pieces...but at its heart ...all knights, kings, and pawns move in the same way?

Yes. Ever been to a party? Ever bring out a chess board at said party?

I used to bring a set and clock to keg parties in the mid-seventies (after the Fischer boom).  The first few hours I had some play, but after the tunes and people got loud, there wasn't much point in trying.