Chess and the Values of Western Civilization

From the New Yorker:

"The unlikely shift can be attributed almost entirely to the efforts of a deep-pocketed retired financial executive named Rex Sinquefield, best known, previously, for helping create the first S. & P. index funds, in 1973, and for leading what Bloomberg Businessweek has called “a crusade against the income tax.” Raised in a St. Louis orphanage, Sinquefield didn’t learn to play chess until the ancient age of thirteen, when his uncle Fred taught him. “The second time we played,” he told me, “I beat him. I always felt a little guilty.” He went on to play in high school and college, still in St. Louis. These days, he plays some twenty online games at a given time, he says, describing himself as a “decent club player” with “a healthy addiction.” After moving back to Missouri, more than a decade ago, he decided to start a chess club. He believes that the game represents “everything valued by Western civilization, and maybe Eastern civilization: intelligence, judgment, study, hard work, intuition, calmness under pressure—all of that is on the line with chess.”"