(Steven Rockwell) wrote in message . com...
"Robert Musicant" wrote in message .net...
"Nick" wrote in message
m...
Mike Murray wrote in message
. ..
On 6 Sep 2003 01:02:04 -0700, (Steven Rockwell) wrote:
In a lot of ways, the person I would most associate Bobby Fischer with
is Ty Cobb.

Excellent analogy.

Or Richard Wagner?

Nick,
A much closer analogy. The personality disturbance, though not identical
from a formal diagnostic point of view, is quite similar.
Bob

The reason I picked Ty Cobb over Wagner is the media and how it feeds
Fischer's ego and how he feeds their insatiable need for that next story.
Wagner might be a closer fit psychologically, but he didn't have all the
media attention on his achievements in his lifetime like Cobb and Fischer,
nor could Wagner use the media to get his vile racism/persecution complexes
out.

It's not simple to compare the media culture in Germany during Richard Wagner's
life (1813-1883) with the media cultures in the United States during Ty Cobb's
life (1886-1961) and Bobby Fischer's life (1943-present). Yet Richard Wagner
did become quite a famous musician within his own lifetime.

If celebrity is the focus of comparison, then Bobby Fischer might be compared
in *some ways* to Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974), who was much more famous.

1) Both Lindbergh and Fischer reached their peaks of achievement in technical
fields (aviation and chess, respectively) at relatively young ages.

2) Both Lindbergh and Fischer soon became weary of the media's attentions and
and demands. Each man sought to protect his privacy by becoming reclusive.

3) Both Lindbergh and Fischer were known to be extremely obstinate, and their
quite 'difficult personalities' evidently contributed much to alienating
some of their friends or family members.

4) Evidently, both Lindbergh and Fischer have expressed admiration of Hitler.

"(Hitler was) undoubtedly a great man who has done much for the German
people....Hitler has accomplished results (good in addition to bad) which
could hardly have been accomplished without some fanaticism."
--Charles Lindbergh (23 January 1937: letter to Harry Davison)

5) Reportedly, both Lindbergh and Fischer have been quite racially conscious.

"I don't feel anti any race; and I don't see how anyone can intelligently
speak of racial superiority without referring that superiority to some
framework such as civilization...but I believe race is important, and that
differences in race are desirable. If you know a man's race, you already
know a lot about him."
--Charles Lindbergh (7 April 1967: letter to Bruce Larson)

Of course, there also are some significant differences between Charles
Lindbergh and Bobby Fischer.

'Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.'
--Benjamin Disraeli (Contarini Fleming)

--Nick

Nick wrote:

(Steven Rockwell) wrote in message . com...
"Robert Musicant" wrote in message .net...
"Nick" wrote in message
m...
Mike Murray wrote in message
. ..
On 6 Sep 2003 01:02:04 -0700, (Steven Rockwell) wrote:
In a lot of ways, the person I would most associate Bobby Fischer with
is Ty Cobb.

Excellent analogy.

Or Richard Wagner?

Nick,
A much closer analogy. The personality disturbance, though not identical
from a formal diagnostic point of view, is quite similar.
Bob

The reason I picked Ty Cobb over Wagner is the media and how it feeds
Fischer's ego and how he feeds their insatiable need for that next story.
Wagner might be a closer fit psychologically, but he didn't have all the
media attention on his achievements in his lifetime like Cobb and Fischer,
nor could Wagner use the media to get his vile racism/persecution complexes
out.

It's not simple to compare the media culture in Germany during Richard Wagner's
life (1813-1883) with the media cultures in the United States during Ty Cobb's
life (1886-1961) and Bobby Fischer's life (1943-present). Yet Richard Wagner
did become quite a famous musician within his own lifetime.

If celebrity is the focus of comparison, then Bobby Fischer might be compared
in *some ways* to Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974), who was much more famous.

1) Both Lindbergh and Fischer reached their peaks of achievement in technical
fields (aviation and chess, respectively) at relatively young ages.

2) Both Lindbergh and Fischer soon became weary of the media's attentions and
and demands. Each man sought to protect his privacy by becoming reclusive.

3) Both Lindbergh and Fischer were known to be extremely obstinate, and their
quite 'difficult personalities' evidently contributed much to alienating
some of their friends or family members.

4) Evidently, both Lindbergh and Fischer have expressed admiration of Hitler.

"(Hitler was) undoubtedly a great man who has done much for the German
people....Hitler has accomplished results (good in addition to bad) which
could hardly have been accomplished without some fanaticism."
--Charles Lindbergh (23 January 1937: letter to Harry Davison)

5) Reportedly, both Lindbergh and Fischer have been quite racially conscious.

snip

You not kidding here, Nicky boy. Both of the 'above' mentioned, surely
qualify the 'C' word. Being applied equitably to them both, I'd
comfortably surmise. Actually, on re-reading your 'input', I'd seriously
like to impose the appelation 'c' on 'Adolph' too.

Mick..

(Fifiela) wrote in message ...
Nick wrote:
Evidently, both Lindbergh and Fischer have expressed admiration of Hitler.

"(Hitler was) undoubtedly a great man who has done much for the German
people....Hitler has accomplished results (good in addition to bad) which
could hardly have been accomplished without some fanaticism."
--Charles Lindbergh (23 January 1937: letter to Harry Davison)

Many people in this time frame expessed admiration of Hitler, Musso, and
Stalin.

It would have been more accurate to write that "many people in this time
frame expressed admiration of Hitler, Mussolini, *or* Stalin", though some
people did express their admiration of all three dictators.

Hitler was Time mag "Man of the Year in 1937 (I could be off by one year.).

"Time" (2 January 1939) declared that Adolf Hitler was its "Man of the Year"
for 1938. ("Time" also declared that Ayatullah Khomeini of Iran was its
"Man of the Year" for 1979.)

What was publically known of the Hitler regime in 1937 was a rather std
militaristic Central European authortarian regime that made the trains run on
time and was pushing to readress the worst excesses of the Versaille treaty.
The Holocaust lay in the future.

In his 1937 book, "Great Contemporaries", Winston Churchill wrote that Hitler
was a dangerous man, yet perhaps someone who could still emerge as a civilised
national leader, with whom other statesmen could do normal business.

Nonetheless, Charles Lindbergh's statement (in private) that Adolf Hitler was
"undoubtedly a great man" seems at least mildly unusual even for a conservative
American patriot in 1937.

"History reveals men's deeds, men's outward characters, but not themselves."
--Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (The Pilgrims of the Rhine)

--Nick

(Liam Too) wrote in message . com...
Here's what Rene Chun wrote:
"Larry Evans says that Fischer's admiration for the Führer had less to
do with anti-Semitism than with insatiable ego. "We once went to see a
documentary on Hitler," Evans recalls. "When we came out of the theater,
Bobby said that he admired Hitler. I asked him why, and he said,
'Because he imposed his will on the world.'"

To be a world champion, you should be able to impose your will on
the world and Fischer did.

That hypothesis does not explain why Bobby Fischer chose Hitler
rather than, for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero.

"There are heroes without armies, who hear martial music in their souls."
--Herman Melville (Mardi)

--Nick

WHY NOT NAPOLEON?

By Larry Parr

Here's what Rene Chun wrote:
"Larry Evans says that Fischer's admiration for the Führer had less to
do with anti-Semitism than with insatiable ego. "We once went to see a
documentary on Hitler," Evans recalls. "When we came out of the theater,
Bobby said that he admired Hitler. I asked him why, and he said,
'Because he imposed his will on the world.'"

That hypothesis does not explain why Bobby Fischer chose Hitler rather than,
for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero. -- Nick

The reason Fischer didn't talk about Napoleon is that the movie he and Evans
just saw was about Hitler, not Napoleon.

Hans Ree's comment below in NEW IN CHESS (#2, 2003) seems to validate what GM
Evans told Chun:

Recently a Dutch TV documentary on Fischer was broadcast (February 2003, The
wandering King). It was done well and I couldn’t spot any factual mistakes,
which is quite unusual for TV documentaries on chess, or probably on anything.
How nice to see these old images of Fischer and the other greats. I was
particularly touched by a short scene at a Yugoslavian Tournament
(Candidates’ 1959? Bled 1961?) where Fischer was shaking hands with Tal, who
was splendidly young and energetic, the brilliant Magician of Riga, at the
start of the game. The makers of the documentary tried to find the origin of
Fischer’s current anger with the world and with Jewry in his youth. One of
the examples they came up with was his match against Reshevsky in 1961, which
was sponsored by Jacqueline Piatigorsky, wife of the well-known cellist Gregor
Piatigorsky....

I don’t believe an incident like this can really explain Fischer’s present
state of mind, but it serves to remind us that he was indeed often treated
badly. I think Fischer was completely right there. For someone who is used to
getting up late, 11 AM is an awful time to start a chess game. It was not in
his contract and the reason given "Mrs. Piatigorsky’s wish to attend both
the game and her husband’s concert" was trivial.

But according to Brady, the entire American chess establishment was against
Fischer at the time, with radio, television and newspapers almost universally
condemning him as a spoiled brat. After this it really seems
uncharacteristically flexible for Fischer to agree to playing in the
Piatigorsky’s Cup tournament of Santa Monica 1966.....

Sofia Polgar spoke about the time when Fischer often stayed with the Polgar
family in Budapest, and this touched on a strange riddle: how does he reconcile
his rabid anti-Semitism with his personal relations with the Jews?....

And in Budapest his friends were Lilienthal and the Polgar family. In the
TV-film Sofia told us how the relationship ended. It was not that Fischer,
having finally recognized that the Polgars were Jews, recoiled in horror, or
that the Polgar family became fed up with his ant-Semitism. The reason for the
break was a simul that Sofia gave at the American club in Budapest. Playing for
America, that was the really unforgivable sin.

With regard to the Fischer-Reshevsky match in 1961, most letters to Chess Life
supported Fischer even though the media portrayed him as a spoiled brat. Frank
Brady was canned as editor largely because he took Fischer's side in this
dispute. So did GM Evans, who annotated the games for Chess Life.

This may explain why Reshevsky and Benko played in the first Piatigorsky Cup
(1963) rather than Fischer and Evans (who was then U.S. champion).

(Nick) wrote in message . com...
(Liam Too) wrote in message . com...
Here's what Rene Chun wrote:
"Larry Evans says that Fischer's admiration for the Führer had less to
do with anti-Semitism than with insatiable ego. "We once went to see a
documentary on Hitler," Evans recalls. "When we came out of the theater,
Bobby said that he admired Hitler. I asked him why, and he said,
'Because he imposed his will on the world.'"

To be a world champion, you should be able to impose your will on
the world and Fischer did.

That hypothesis does not explain why Bobby Fischer chose Hitler
rather than, for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero.

"There are heroes without armies, who hear martial music in their souls."
--Herman Melville (Mardi)

--Nick

Nick,

They didn't see Napoleon, they went to see Hitler.

Lance Smith

"Stupidy abounds when mixing apples and tomatoes."--Lance Smith

(Liam Too) wrote in message
. com...
(Nick) wrote in message
. com...
(Liam Too) wrote in message
. com...
Here's what Rene Chun wrote:
"Larry Evans says that Fischer's admiration for the Führer had less to
do with anti-Semitism than with insatiable ego. "We once went to see a
documentary on Hitler," Evans recalls. "When we came out of the theater,
Bobby said that he admired Hitler. I asked him why, and he said,
'Because he imposed his will on the world.'"

To be a world champion, you should be able to impose your will on
the world and Fischer did.

That hypothesis does not explain why Bobby Fischer chose Hitler
rather than, for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero.

They didn't see Napoleon, they went to see Hitler.

I know that: my statement referred to a more *general* context than the
*particular* viewing of that documentary. Under some *other* circumstances in
his life, Bobby Fischer may have become aware of the existence of Napoleon.

"Stupidy abounds when mixing apples and tomatoes."--Lance Smith

Illiteracy, as well as stupidity (or "stupidy"), not to mention distortions
of other writers' posts, tends to be evident when Lance Smith writes.

'Folly does not amuse, or even employ one's notice long.'
--John Cleland (Memoirs of a Coxcomb)

--Nick

(Parrthenon) wrote in message
...
WHY NOT NAPOLEON?
By Larry Parr

Lance Smith ("Liam Too") wrote:
Here's what Rene Chun wrote:
"Larry Evans says that Fischer's admiration for the Führer had less to
do with anti-Semitism than with insatiable ego. "We once went to see a
documentary on Hitler," Evans recalls. "When we came out of the theater,
Bobby said that he admired Hitler. I asked him why, and he said,
'Because he imposed his will on the world.'"

Nick Bourbaki wrote:
That hypothesis does not explain why Bobby Fischer chose Hitler
rather than, for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero.

The reason Fischer didn't talk about Napoleon is that the movie he and Evans
just saw was about Hitler, not Napoleon.

My statement referred to a more general context than the particular viewing
of that documentary. Please note that I wrote about "why Bobby Fischer chose
Hitler rather than, for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero", *not* about
why Fischer and Larry Evans did not discuss Napoleon on that specific occasion.

Under some other circumstances, Fischer also may have become aware of the life
of Napoleon. Or might Larry Parr regard Fischer as another "typical American
TV peasant" (Parr's term), who "cannot think beyond the idiot box" (Parr's
phrase), and accordingly who never could have heard of Napoleon?

'The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many;
for what is genius or courage without a heart?'
--Oliver Goldsmith (The Vicar of Wakefield)

--Nick

(Nick) wrote in message . com...

They didn't see Napoleon, they went to see Hitler.--Lance Smith

I know that: my statement referred to a more *general* context than the
*particular* viewing of that documentary. Under some *other* circumstances in
his life, Bobby Fischer may have become aware of the existence of Napoleon.

Irrelevant and nonsense. We were talking about Fischer's admiration of
Hitler. Napoleon is Napoleon, very simple and very straightforward.

"Stupidy abounds when mixing apples and tomatoes."--Lance Smith

Illiteracy, as well as stupidity (or "stupidy"), not to mention distortions
of other writers' posts, tends to be evident when Lance Smith writes.-- Nick

Can you present some accompanying and/or supporting facts to the above
accusations?

Stupidy is a friend of mine. He is a dork-like creature who is
actually a nerd. He is 99% intellignet, but the 1% in him is very
peculiar, very moronic when he shows it.

Lance Smith

(Nick) wrote in message . com...
(Parrthenon) wrote in message
...
WHY NOT NAPOLEON?
By Larry Parr

Lance Smith ("Liam Too") wrote:
Here's what Rene Chun wrote:
"Larry Evans says that Fischer's admiration for the Fuehrer had less to
do with anti-Semitism than with insatiable ego. "We once went to see a
documentary on Hitler," Evans recalls. "When we came out of the theater,
Bobby said that he admired Hitler. I asked him why, and he said,
'Because he imposed his will on the world.'"

Nick Bourbaki wrote:
That hypothesis does not explain why Bobby Fischer chose Hitler
rather than, for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero.

The reason Fischer didn't talk about Napoleon is that the movie he and
Evans just saw was about Hitler, not Napoleon.

My statement referred to a more general context than the particular viewing
of that documentary. Please note that I wrote about "why Bobby Fischer chose
Hitler rather than, for instance, Napoleon as his personal hero", *not* about
why Fischer and Larry Evans did not discuss Napoleon on that specific
occasion. Under some other circumstances, Fischer also may have become aware
of the life of Napoleon....

Which "documentary on Hitler" did Bobby Fischer and Larry Evans watch?
Was it Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 "Triumph des Willens" ("Triumph of the Will")?

"There is an inevitable keen cruelty in the loftier heroism."
--Herman Melville (Pierre)

--Nick