Value of conflict

We could learn from legend’s view on value of conflict
Saturday, June 28, 2008 3:00 AM
By SHELBY LYMAN

Although Emanuel Lasker is best-known as the chess champion who held the world title for 27 years, he was also a mathematician and philosopher.

He found in chess the inspiration for a philosophy of struggle, which he expounded in a small tome entitled Kampf.

For Lasker, struggle was a repetitive process in which protagonists, through cooperation and competition, clarified and resolved issues. The protagonists could be man versus man or man versus nature.

Although Lasker, a German Jew, enthusiastically sided with his homeland during World War I, he also found merit in the cause of its adversaries. In a limited sense, it seems, war for Lasker was a chess game writ large.

I am reminded of the sessions of speed chess I used to play with a skilled friend. During each 14-minute game, we would spare no effort to beat each other. Afterward, we would do a ritual post-mortem, during which we reviewed the moves, shared ideas and further explored the game’s possibilities.

This shared effort and combat produced an exhilaration that seems to support Lasker’s progressive notion of dialectical struggle.

In an age of globalization, in which overcoming differences and finding successful means of cooperation are likely to be necessary for survival, Lasker’s concept might have a new relevance in domestic and international politics.

Source: http://www.columbusdispatch.com/