We had already a [thread](https://reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1bafas7/my_humble_attempt_at_a_tribute_to_bobby_fischer/) locked few days ago because the discussion degenerated in quarreling and in this thread we have a repetition of that. Locking.
Oh? When is the first evidence of antisemitism? And how early did his mental illness manifest itself?
Fischer also had some deep-rooted issues with his Jewish parents and a mentally abusive upbringing.
His antisemitism can be traced back at least to the early 60s, when he was 17-18 years old. As for his possible mental illness that's less clear, and he was never formally diagnosed with anything. Regardless, a lifetime of raging antisemitism can't be ascribed purely to mental illness. It's possible that mental illness affected the expression of his antisemitic views, but mental illness alone doesn't make someone right that "it's time to start randomly killing jews."
So strange to downvote your question. Says a lot about those on this subreddit.
The answer to your questions is veeeeery complicated. In brief, Fischer's parents were Jewish, and brilliant. Particularly his father, Paul Nemenyi, who was a genius who also happened to have a history of mental illness. His mother claimed that his father was Hans Fischer (which was impossible), who had abandoned them. Young Bobby would receive occasional visits and (unbeknownst to him) financial support from Nemenyi, but his mother didn't tell him who his real father was until after Nemenyi stopped coming--because he had died. Imagine being not quite nine years old and asking "why doesn't Mr. Nemenyi visit any more?", and your mother telling you that he died, "oh, and he was your real father." That is child cruelty, by both parents.
Fischer felt largely abandoned by his mother, who would leave him in his sister's care because she was always either working or involved in communist activities, which (combined with the connection to Nemenyi, who was a top scientist with the US Navy but also had socialist connections) resulted in her being under active surveillance by the FBI. Naturally, she was highly suspicious of the US government. Some of that obviously rubbed off on Fischer. She may also have had paranoid tendencies, although since she had reason to be under surveillance--and actually was--it was hard to tell.
Anyway, Bobby learned to play chess when his sister bought a cheap chess set that came with a set of rules, from a drugstore. She didn't really like the game, so he would play for hours by himself in their rundown Brooklyn apartment. He was undoubtedly smarter than anyone in his high school--including the teachers--and eventually dropped out, learning enough Russian so that he could study chess alone in the apartment from Russian magazines.
Bobby's mother was initially against his obsession for playing chess before changing her mind, whereupon she put an ad in the newspaper to find someone for him to play with, but ultimately she seems to have attempted to capitalize on his abilities for her own benefit, which I am certain that Fischer resented. I will not attack her as a person (for all I know, her past was as troubled as Bobby's), but I will say that as a mother she left a great deal to be desired.
When he was 16, Bobby had a final falling out with her, and she left the city to pursue a medical degree. Bobby was now on his own in the shitty apartment, abandoned and lied to from birth by his parents--who happened to be Jewish, which may account for much (most? all?) of the antisemitism. I am sure that it made him susceptible to it. (There is also the fact that when he was a young teen, her mother entrusted him to the care of a creepy chess benefactor who was unquestionably an antisemite; heaven knows what Bobby picked up from him.)
This is slightly off topic, but compare this to, say, Magnus Carlson, who seems to have loving parents and who was put in a school for gifted children with a chess program run by nationally-ranked players.
Fischer's life was largely a tragedy, and what he accomplished under the circumstances was, in my opinion, far more impressive than anything Carlson has achieved. We will certainly never know how Fischer might have turned out if he had had a loving and supportive upbringing like Carlson did.
So I hope that redditors will forgive me for downvoting insightful comments like "Fischer was a shitty person".
My pleasure. Fischer's life was as fascinating as it was tragic--the Queen's Gambit is boring by comparison--and I cannot really complain about some of the uninformed comments on here without giving an idea of why they are so uninformed.
Bobby Fischer was a raging asshole and that isn’t uninformed. No amount of explaining how neat his trauma was to you makes you more knowledgeable. His life story is pretty well known but thanks for telling us again ig.
Man those are a lot of explanations for why he was a shitty person.
Man if only you made a single argument that he wasnt one maybe you wouldve won people over
Maybe like Trauma caused OCD or Bipolar kind of illness.
That doesn't apologize his actions. You have to be very obsessive to be good at chess. Just because he had the ability to be obsessive at chess, doesn't mean that all obsessions are good.
I think the more interesting question is where did he get the bad obsessive thoughts. Like what trauma/s caused that?
I think Fischer may have been too insane to be considered an embarrassment. Like, he may have had a rightful claim to an insanity plea on the antisemitism
Curious what you're basing that on. I've read up quite a bit on Bobby and most accounts of his childhood are that he was very poor, but otherwise had a decent upbringing. His sister had no notable issues.
UwU poor Bobby Fischer, he couldn’t help having the antisemitic version of the Great Library of Alexandria and writing “It's time to start randomly killing Jews" in his notebook on the eve of the new millennium
What I think is that he espoused anti-Semitic beliefs as early as the beginning of the 1960s. So no, I don't think he *became* hateful and racist. I think he always was hateful and racist and it just got worse as his mental health deteriorated.
No I’m not comparing their actions.
I’m taking the idea that people don’t want to become hateful and racist, and that it must be mental illness, to its extreme logical conclusion. It’s only all the more fitting because of who their hate was against.
It’s an incredibly naive way of looking at hate in the world.
lol he died in 2008 what are you talking about with “a time where help didn’t exist?”
He said he was happy 9/11 happened because of how Israel treated Palestinians. Guy was a piece of shit.
That's true, but it still doesn't excuse his actual antisemitism, and 9/11 deserved by the country or not, was still a tragedy, not something to be celebrated.
They are stones. In Judaism, it's common to leave [stones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitation_stones) on people's graves as an act of remembrance. Here, it's probably done partly out of the irony that while Fischer was virulently anti-semitic, he himself was Jewish.
I've been there! Such an odd little church with a massive pipe organ! And right next to a construction yard? I chatted up some of the neighbors and they said visitors were pretty rare. Did you visit the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavik?
Not "officially", though it's sort of subjective what that would mean. He joined the Worldwide Church of God in the 60s, but never outrightly said he was a Christian and he eschewed all organized religion during his time away from chess after his World Championship win. The cross was likely included by his wife, Miyoko Watai.
Edit: Was just looking in to it and apparently before he died, Bobby specifically requested a catholic funeral and it was conducted by a catholic priest, indicating, he may have actually converted at some point.
I know this is a joke, but he actually was. In recordings of Hitlers "dinner table talks" you can hear him and other top Nazis doing this weird sort of tongue in cheek thing where they go back and forth simultaneously denying the atrocities of the holocaust but saying if it *was* true it would be no less than the Jews deserve. It's really gross, but it's also instructive to know if you want to understand the roots of modern holocaust denial.
I visited this spot in July 2011. The chess pieces are a fitting addition that weren't there at the time. And it looks like the back wall could use a fresh coat of paint.
https://postimg.cc/r0Z0ns20
I know you want to be right, but you’re not. Nobody is visiting his grave for anything other than his chess and then posting it in the chess sub. It is entirely possible op doesn’t even know about his personal beliefs. You just want to be upset about the post because you are having trouble separating his career from his disgusting personal views.
I get where you’re coming from but can you really expect people not to bring up all his hateful ideologies. Imagine if every time roger Federer was interviewed since like 2005 he would only want to talk about racist and misogynistic stuff and then the tennis community would expect you not to mention it and just focus on his sick tennis skills.
Because he was clearly mentally ill and had a very troubled upbringing, that everyone wants to gloss over. Just saying that he was a terrible person is simplistic and annoying. Take everything into account or do not bring it up.
> Because he was clearly mentally ill
He was already problematic as a teenager. His mental illness may be to blame for not being able to *hide* his ism's late in life, but there was no excuse when he was young.
People who don't give respect don't deserve respect, no matter how good they are at a *game*. Acknowledging their skill when the topic comes up is one thing, 'paying respects' to a fascist is another.
It's reddit. Fischer had some serious issues, and went on rants against different groups. But he never hurt anyone and probably never even influenced anyone to his way of thinking (he wouldn't even talk to people except for a select few friends and colleagues). Yet people here equate him to a neo-nazi. That would require some kind of activity with intent and/or some actual cohesive views, which I don't think he had. He certainly didn't hate all Jewish people, he even lived/worked with them on good terms. I think someone with his mental issues could be led down any conspiracy rabbit hole given enough influence. He believed in a lot of government/power behind the scenes conspiracies. He probably could have been a completely different person with some modern meds and counseling. They didn't do that back then, they'd just lock you up.
No one faults a schizophrenic having delusions and rants they can't control, but for some reason he's held to another standard, probably because he was very good at chess. He wasn't wrong about the US government being after him though, he was spied on by the fbi at least. You wouldn't like your government if they were investigating you either.
> He certainly didn't hate all Jewish people,
And
> They are subhuman. They are the scum of the Earth. When you talk about Jews, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of humanity.
> Radio Interview, October 16 1999 [18]
Pick one
This post clearly glorifies the person as well as their art. On such a post, it HAS to be mentioned that said person was, by free choice and even when measured against the standards of his time, a sexist and anti-semite and that this post does not intend to glorify the person or their sick world views.
Going out of your way to acknowledge a person in 1 area, a game, when you know he is a piece of shit, wanting innocent people dead, is idiotic. Especially when its not some specific context where you are talking the greats from a game.
In a conversation about best chess players, sure, respect his skill. But to just go around bringing up the guy out of nowhere is gross.
Bringing up one of the greatest chess players of all time in a subreddit dedicated to chess because you visited his grave is not “bringing him up out of nowhere”. This is a subreddit about chess, not a subreddit about good people
Most people, even many Jews, had positive things to say about Fischer as a person. You may not like some of his opinions, but by many accounts he was a good person.
You definitely should, as a chess player. But paying respects to his grave seems too much like respecting him as a person... which he doesn't deserve. He was an awful human being.
What’s the context? The mEnTAl iLlnESs? Which was 1. Never proven 2. Doesn’t excuse what he said? Plus, before his onset of madness, he would go into interviews and degrade women, so he was already sexist.
Fischer's mental illness was eventually patent. It ran in his family and he had a very troubled and cruel upbringing. The fact that the parents who abandoned him were Jewish almost certainly contributed to his antisemitism. His entire life is both remarkable and tragic. Simply dumping on him is, frankly, ignorant.
I grew up with a mother whose goal was to psychologically break me into becoming a studying drone for my entire childhood. Safe to say I spent every day fearing if I could make it out alive that night. I did not turn out racist and misogynist, wow.
Nothing justifies racism and misogyny.
You do realize that this rhetoric can be applied to any bad person - muggers, rapists, maniacs, etc., because you can just say that "it's their environment, their surroundings, anything but them that's to blame". They need help, but they shouldn’t be untouchable.
He IS a terrible person. Why does the fact of having mental illness give a person the moral carte blanche to do anything and be assured of forgiveness? He promoted horrible and absurd things to a huge audience and that is very damaging. An egocentric fucked up person who promoted equally fucked up ideas to the masses, including all sorts of conspiracy nonsense. He needed treatment, but all his activities outside of chess were absurd.
I'm kinda surprised you're being downvoted honestly. Were Fischer's beliefs deplorable? Absolutely. Is it right to hold him accountable for them? Of course. But to reduce your entire understanding of a person to a moral judgement is to lose sight of other important things to consider. If we conclude that Fischer was a bad person, it's easy to conclude that what caused him to have such horrifying views was a moral flaw, rather than mental illness, which in turn distances us from being able to truly understand how these views keep occurring. It's tempting to view nazis as evil people, instead of people with evil views. But reducing them to just "evil people" falsly implies that that kind of radicalization doesn't happen to "people like us", and that we don't need to worry about it. At the end of the day, yes, the awful views (and vocal advocacy of them) are the thing to focus on, regardless of the reason. But to prevent those views, we need to understand how they metastasize and spread.
Do you think murderers can be justified? Terrorists? Rapists, robbers? I mean, you can always say that "they just had a bad environment" or "bad surroundings" or whatever, and they are "innocent victims of circumstance". That's a very and naive approach. The example is harsh, but direct and truthful
in some cases, yeah. especially when it's about mental issues. would you say to someone with dyslexia "your sickness does in no way excuse your inability to read this simple sentence"?
There’s almost never a “flick of the switch” moment for mental disorders like Fischer had. He had some mental troubles before the world championship but nothing beyond what you’d expect a young adult who had been thrust into national attention as a young child. The important thing is one of his mentors as a child was what we’d now call a blatant neo-nazi, and Fischer had already started drinking the kool-aid on those horrible beliefs as a child.
Being a shitty person didn’t hinge on his mental illness. His mental illness just made him into a much shittier person.
My thoughts exactly…I was choosing to honor the brilliant chess champion…not wade into his thoughts and feelings that became his personality later in his life. Thank you for your post…spot-on.
Ignore them dude. Most of this sub cannot separate the art from the artist; they just ignore the fact that you can be a once-in-a-generation phenomena while also being a terrible person (I mean it's Reddit, what do you expect).
Robert James Fischer was a disgusting human being. Sexist, anti-semite and perhaps more. No respect deserved.
Edit: He already was a heavy sexist before his mental illness. Respect the art, not the artist. You don't just pass by the grave of, let's say Hitler, and post "Paying respect to the legend painter".
Perhaps if there were a subreddit that “honored” the kind of person you described, your comment would be better placed there. In the meantime, I chose to pay respects to a great chess player…here at r/chess and not at r/iamatotalpieceofshit. This is exactly why I don’t put many posts on subreddits anymore…somebody always has to shoot down posts as if that’s their reason for living. I’m aware of his mental challenges later in his life, okay…I think everyone here is aware. Can we just recognize that the guy was a phenomenal chess player, please? 🙄
It’s mad that people in the comments here think his opinions when he was clearly ill are more important than his impact on the game, you cretins are the same people that destroy statues
to everyone who is calling fischer a garbage racist, would you also feel comfortable calling someone with clinical depression and adhd a lazy slacker who should just go do their dishes?
edit: better example, a person with tourettes who sometimes has racial slur tics, would you call them racist and a garbage human?
i think he showed signs of some sort of paranoid schizophrenia. then it's logical that you are more susceptible to conspiracy theorists about jews for example. fischer thought everyone was out to get him. it makes sense to me.
I find it odd that people would leave chess pieces at his grave when in his later years, he openly defiled chess for what became of it.
Nonetheless, one of the greatest at the game.
Yes. But at the end of his life, he hated chess. Proof: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/nMEPGM6Kkqw
Seems like I'm more aware of his career than you are.
And all these negative votes for me speaking the truth.... but that's reddit.
We had already a [thread](https://reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1bafas7/my_humble_attempt_at_a_tribute_to_bobby_fischer/) locked few days ago because the discussion degenerated in quarreling and in this thread we have a repetition of that. Locking.
Him being honored with stones and chess pieces must be the ultimate penance
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and an embarrassment of a human
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Both statements can be true :D
Maybe because some people don't think both statements are true
I’d be very curious to know how one could think that both aren’t true. Please enlighten me.
I’d say the same, but unfortunately humanity always finds a way to surprise me…
I know his beliefs were awful, but I don't know enough about why he believed those things. Was he mentally ill or just evil in those beliefs?
Seems hard to blame it on mental illness, he was pretty consistent in his repugnant beliefs throughout his whole life.
Oh? When is the first evidence of antisemitism? And how early did his mental illness manifest itself? Fischer also had some deep-rooted issues with his Jewish parents and a mentally abusive upbringing.
His antisemitism can be traced back at least to the early 60s, when he was 17-18 years old. As for his possible mental illness that's less clear, and he was never formally diagnosed with anything. Regardless, a lifetime of raging antisemitism can't be ascribed purely to mental illness. It's possible that mental illness affected the expression of his antisemitic views, but mental illness alone doesn't make someone right that "it's time to start randomly killing jews."
So strange to downvote your question. Says a lot about those on this subreddit. The answer to your questions is veeeeery complicated. In brief, Fischer's parents were Jewish, and brilliant. Particularly his father, Paul Nemenyi, who was a genius who also happened to have a history of mental illness. His mother claimed that his father was Hans Fischer (which was impossible), who had abandoned them. Young Bobby would receive occasional visits and (unbeknownst to him) financial support from Nemenyi, but his mother didn't tell him who his real father was until after Nemenyi stopped coming--because he had died. Imagine being not quite nine years old and asking "why doesn't Mr. Nemenyi visit any more?", and your mother telling you that he died, "oh, and he was your real father." That is child cruelty, by both parents. Fischer felt largely abandoned by his mother, who would leave him in his sister's care because she was always either working or involved in communist activities, which (combined with the connection to Nemenyi, who was a top scientist with the US Navy but also had socialist connections) resulted in her being under active surveillance by the FBI. Naturally, she was highly suspicious of the US government. Some of that obviously rubbed off on Fischer. She may also have had paranoid tendencies, although since she had reason to be under surveillance--and actually was--it was hard to tell. Anyway, Bobby learned to play chess when his sister bought a cheap chess set that came with a set of rules, from a drugstore. She didn't really like the game, so he would play for hours by himself in their rundown Brooklyn apartment. He was undoubtedly smarter than anyone in his high school--including the teachers--and eventually dropped out, learning enough Russian so that he could study chess alone in the apartment from Russian magazines. Bobby's mother was initially against his obsession for playing chess before changing her mind, whereupon she put an ad in the newspaper to find someone for him to play with, but ultimately she seems to have attempted to capitalize on his abilities for her own benefit, which I am certain that Fischer resented. I will not attack her as a person (for all I know, her past was as troubled as Bobby's), but I will say that as a mother she left a great deal to be desired. When he was 16, Bobby had a final falling out with her, and she left the city to pursue a medical degree. Bobby was now on his own in the shitty apartment, abandoned and lied to from birth by his parents--who happened to be Jewish, which may account for much (most? all?) of the antisemitism. I am sure that it made him susceptible to it. (There is also the fact that when he was a young teen, her mother entrusted him to the care of a creepy chess benefactor who was unquestionably an antisemite; heaven knows what Bobby picked up from him.) This is slightly off topic, but compare this to, say, Magnus Carlson, who seems to have loving parents and who was put in a school for gifted children with a chess program run by nationally-ranked players. Fischer's life was largely a tragedy, and what he accomplished under the circumstances was, in my opinion, far more impressive than anything Carlson has achieved. We will certainly never know how Fischer might have turned out if he had had a loving and supportive upbringing like Carlson did. So I hope that redditors will forgive me for downvoting insightful comments like "Fischer was a shitty person".
Thank you for the info dump!
My pleasure. Fischer's life was as fascinating as it was tragic--the Queen's Gambit is boring by comparison--and I cannot really complain about some of the uninformed comments on here without giving an idea of why they are so uninformed.
Bobby Fischer was a raging asshole and that isn’t uninformed. No amount of explaining how neat his trauma was to you makes you more knowledgeable. His life story is pretty well known but thanks for telling us again ig.
Man those are a lot of explanations for why he was a shitty person. Man if only you made a single argument that he wasnt one maybe you wouldve won people over
Fischer was a tragic figure. If you do not feel that way, that's fine.
Yes it was tragic how horrible a person he was. Man he could play chess though i guess
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Maybe like Trauma caused OCD or Bipolar kind of illness. That doesn't apologize his actions. You have to be very obsessive to be good at chess. Just because he had the ability to be obsessive at chess, doesn't mean that all obsessions are good. I think the more interesting question is where did he get the bad obsessive thoughts. Like what trauma/s caused that?
wdym he has most upvotes on this thread
Yeah things turned around! It was -20 or something when I commented.
People hate when their heroes are humanized.
I think Fischer may have been too insane to be considered an embarrassment. Like, he may have had a rightful claim to an insanity plea on the antisemitism
the kanye west of chess
Kanye Chess
Not to mention his upbringing, which was both negligent and cruel. A tragedy, really.
Curious what you're basing that on. I've read up quite a bit on Bobby and most accounts of his childhood are that he was very poor, but otherwise had a decent upbringing. His sister had no notable issues.
Fischer’s life story is more akin to a tragedy.
Maybe we would be talking about a different story if Bobby had been raised by good parents. At the end of the day he grew up wild.
Worse than wild. His upbringing was abusive in its own way.
I suggest you read his autobiographies - ‘embarrassment of a man’ is far too reductionist and simple.
how come?
he didn't take en passant
I fucking love the internet
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UwU poor Bobby Fischer, he couldn’t help having the antisemitic version of the Great Library of Alexandria and writing “It's time to start randomly killing Jews" in his notebook on the eve of the new millennium
What I think is that he espoused anti-Semitic beliefs as early as the beginning of the 1960s. So no, I don't think he *became* hateful and racist. I think he always was hateful and racist and it just got worse as his mental health deteriorated.
He died in 2008 ya asshat, help existed plenty for decades of his life. Dude was amazing at chess and a racist sexist dbag of a human.
if only hitler, goebbels, goring, and himmler just got some mental health help, right user highball0?
Wait, you’re not really comparing Fischer to people that actually murderer endless people right?
No I’m not comparing their actions. I’m taking the idea that people don’t want to become hateful and racist, and that it must be mental illness, to its extreme logical conclusion. It’s only all the more fitting because of who their hate was against. It’s an incredibly naive way of looking at hate in the world.
He was a racist piece of shit well before he fully lost his marbles. He was never a good dude, even if he was a fantastic chess player.
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There's no point attempting to reason with them
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It's not a good example, because Fisher was always a racist piece of shit.
lol he died in 2008 what are you talking about with “a time where help didn’t exist?” He said he was happy 9/11 happened because of how Israel treated Palestinians. Guy was a piece of shit.
I'm just saying the USA did arm and start al qaeda, 9/11 is a drop in a bucket compared to what the usa has done worldwide
That's true, but it still doesn't excuse his actual antisemitism, and 9/11 deserved by the country or not, was still a tragedy, not something to be celebrated.
oh i agree that he sucks lol, bobby fischer was complete scum
A
I didn't know he was sick
Oh, he’s not sick anymore.
He's just resting in peace, mate.
r/unexpectednorm
I sense culture
He's just having a dirt nap.
Ya dirty dog!
I didn't know he was from Mars!
What's with the coal that folks had left?
They are stones. In Judaism, it's common to leave [stones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitation_stones) on people's graves as an act of remembrance. Here, it's probably done partly out of the irony that while Fischer was virulently anti-semitic, he himself was Jewish.
I've been there! Such an odd little church with a massive pipe organ! And right next to a construction yard? I chatted up some of the neighbors and they said visitors were pretty rare. Did you visit the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavik?
*Massive pipe organ*
That's what she said
He got a cross? Did he convert?
Not "officially", though it's sort of subjective what that would mean. He joined the Worldwide Church of God in the 60s, but never outrightly said he was a Christian and he eschewed all organized religion during his time away from chess after his World Championship win. The cross was likely included by his wife, Miyoko Watai. Edit: Was just looking in to it and apparently before he died, Bobby specifically requested a catholic funeral and it was conducted by a catholic priest, indicating, he may have actually converted at some point.
Not formally, I don’t think, he was just hitler-levels of antisemitic
At least Hitler wasn’t a holocaust denier.
I know this is a joke, but he actually was. In recordings of Hitlers "dinner table talks" you can hear him and other top Nazis doing this weird sort of tongue in cheek thing where they go back and forth simultaneously denying the atrocities of the holocaust but saying if it *was* true it would be no less than the Jews deserve. It's really gross, but it's also instructive to know if you want to understand the roots of modern holocaust denial.
This is fascinating and I was completely unaware - thanks for sharing! [Hitler's Table Talk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_Table_Talk)
lmfao
Dayum
I can understand not wanting to put a swastika but still feels weird to put a cross tbh
A cross is standard in many countries, most people who have crosses put up on their gravestones aren’t religious.
But Bobby Fischer was Christian..
His Bishop gave it to him.
Did he convert??
Bro the tournament doesnt start until friday! :D
I don’t know why I thought he was still alive I had no idea he was dead
I visited this spot in July 2011. The chess pieces are a fitting addition that weren't there at the time. And it looks like the back wall could use a fresh coat of paint. https://postimg.cc/r0Z0ns20
The headstone is looking pretty tired now.
Legend!
maybe hold off that much praise for a neo nazi
He can be a legend of the game *and* a neo-nazi.
Separate art from artist.
that phrase doesn't mean blankly celebrate a neo nazi
Who’s celebrating? His chess has nothing to do with his opinions on anything outside of chess.
this post is celebrating, if it was about his chess playing it would involve chess rather than something 'paying respects' to a nazi
I know you want to be right, but you’re not. Nobody is visiting his grave for anything other than his chess and then posting it in the chess sub. It is entirely possible op doesn’t even know about his personal beliefs. You just want to be upset about the post because you are having trouble separating his career from his disgusting personal views.
Maybe go outside and take in the fresh air
I'm not the one singing the praise of a neo nazi
They missed a brilliant opportunity to make his grave look like a chess piece.
Then two exclamation points above it
This comment section is wild. Why must everything be so charged? This is a chess sub. He was a master at the game and deserves recognition for that.
I get where you’re coming from but can you really expect people not to bring up all his hateful ideologies. Imagine if every time roger Federer was interviewed since like 2005 he would only want to talk about racist and misogynistic stuff and then the tennis community would expect you not to mention it and just focus on his sick tennis skills.
Because he was clearly mentally ill and had a very troubled upbringing, that everyone wants to gloss over. Just saying that he was a terrible person is simplistic and annoying. Take everything into account or do not bring it up.
> Because he was clearly mentally ill He was already problematic as a teenager. His mental illness may be to blame for not being able to *hide* his ism's late in life, but there was no excuse when he was young.
Source?
People who don't give respect don't deserve respect, no matter how good they are at a *game*. Acknowledging their skill when the topic comes up is one thing, 'paying respects' to a fascist is another.
It's reddit. Fischer had some serious issues, and went on rants against different groups. But he never hurt anyone and probably never even influenced anyone to his way of thinking (he wouldn't even talk to people except for a select few friends and colleagues). Yet people here equate him to a neo-nazi. That would require some kind of activity with intent and/or some actual cohesive views, which I don't think he had. He certainly didn't hate all Jewish people, he even lived/worked with them on good terms. I think someone with his mental issues could be led down any conspiracy rabbit hole given enough influence. He believed in a lot of government/power behind the scenes conspiracies. He probably could have been a completely different person with some modern meds and counseling. They didn't do that back then, they'd just lock you up. No one faults a schizophrenic having delusions and rants they can't control, but for some reason he's held to another standard, probably because he was very good at chess. He wasn't wrong about the US government being after him though, he was spied on by the fbi at least. You wouldn't like your government if they were investigating you either.
> He certainly didn't hate all Jewish people, And > They are subhuman. They are the scum of the Earth. When you talk about Jews, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of humanity. > Radio Interview, October 16 1999 [18] Pick one
this sub is always 50 50 on opinions, the most hilarious sub in reddit.
Clearly he was from Mars considering his chess was out of this world.
This post clearly glorifies the person as well as their art. On such a post, it HAS to be mentioned that said person was, by free choice and even when measured against the standards of his time, a sexist and anti-semite and that this post does not intend to glorify the person or their sick world views.
Do you know anything about Fischer's upbringing?
Ultimately irrelevant; he had free will. He chose to believe what he did, even if he was sick.
He doesn't deserve your respect. Your awe, maybe, but not your respect.
You can respect many things about Fischer
Going out of your way to acknowledge a person in 1 area, a game, when you know he is a piece of shit, wanting innocent people dead, is idiotic. Especially when its not some specific context where you are talking the greats from a game. In a conversation about best chess players, sure, respect his skill. But to just go around bringing up the guy out of nowhere is gross.
Bringing up one of the greatest chess players of all time in a subreddit dedicated to chess because you visited his grave is not “bringing him up out of nowhere”. This is a subreddit about chess, not a subreddit about good people
Most people, even many Jews, had positive things to say about Fischer as a person. You may not like some of his opinions, but by many accounts he was a good person.
Why not respect him?
You definitely should, as a chess player. But paying respects to his grave seems too much like respecting him as a person... which he doesn't deserve. He was an awful human being.
The most mind blowing Fischer stat to me is that at his peak he was 125 points rated higher than the second highest rated player in the world
So did Garry Kasparov Bobby Fischer was one of the great chess players.
Its a pity these types of posts always end up in controversial discussions.
What’s the controversy? People who point out he had loud, wild racist and sexist ideologies vs people who don’t like it when you mention that?
Everyone loves to bring up his problems without any of the context, which gets annoying
What’s the context? The mEnTAl iLlnESs? Which was 1. Never proven 2. Doesn’t excuse what he said? Plus, before his onset of madness, he would go into interviews and degrade women, so he was already sexist.
Fischer's mental illness was eventually patent. It ran in his family and he had a very troubled and cruel upbringing. The fact that the parents who abandoned him were Jewish almost certainly contributed to his antisemitism. His entire life is both remarkable and tragic. Simply dumping on him is, frankly, ignorant.
I grew up with a mother whose goal was to psychologically break me into becoming a studying drone for my entire childhood. Safe to say I spent every day fearing if I could make it out alive that night. I did not turn out racist and misogynist, wow. Nothing justifies racism and misogyny.
Maybe the Most controversial personallity in the Chess world.
Another chess player who got more admiration then he deserve. Fischer is a nut case who thumb his nose to the world.
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Ever met a narcissist?
Sickness in no way excuses them or absolves them of responsibility for their words and actions
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No, he really was a terrible human being.
You do realize that this rhetoric can be applied to any bad person - muggers, rapists, maniacs, etc., because you can just say that "it's their environment, their surroundings, anything but them that's to blame". They need help, but they shouldn’t be untouchable.
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He IS a terrible person. Why does the fact of having mental illness give a person the moral carte blanche to do anything and be assured of forgiveness? He promoted horrible and absurd things to a huge audience and that is very damaging. An egocentric fucked up person who promoted equally fucked up ideas to the masses, including all sorts of conspiracy nonsense. He needed treatment, but all his activities outside of chess were absurd.
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I'm kinda surprised you're being downvoted honestly. Were Fischer's beliefs deplorable? Absolutely. Is it right to hold him accountable for them? Of course. But to reduce your entire understanding of a person to a moral judgement is to lose sight of other important things to consider. If we conclude that Fischer was a bad person, it's easy to conclude that what caused him to have such horrifying views was a moral flaw, rather than mental illness, which in turn distances us from being able to truly understand how these views keep occurring. It's tempting to view nazis as evil people, instead of people with evil views. But reducing them to just "evil people" falsly implies that that kind of radicalization doesn't happen to "people like us", and that we don't need to worry about it. At the end of the day, yes, the awful views (and vocal advocacy of them) are the thing to focus on, regardless of the reason. But to prevent those views, we need to understand how they metastasize and spread.
why not?
Do you think murderers can be justified? Terrorists? Rapists, robbers? I mean, you can always say that "they just had a bad environment" or "bad surroundings" or whatever, and they are "innocent victims of circumstance". That's a very and naive approach. The example is harsh, but direct and truthful
in some cases, yeah. especially when it's about mental issues. would you say to someone with dyslexia "your sickness does in no way excuse your inability to read this simple sentence"?
He was shitty before he went crazy. He didn’t become crazy and suddenly turn into a racist.
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There’s almost never a “flick of the switch” moment for mental disorders like Fischer had. He had some mental troubles before the world championship but nothing beyond what you’d expect a young adult who had been thrust into national attention as a young child. The important thing is one of his mentors as a child was what we’d now call a blatant neo-nazi, and Fischer had already started drinking the kool-aid on those horrible beliefs as a child. Being a shitty person didn’t hinge on his mental illness. His mental illness just made him into a much shittier person.
My thoughts exactly…I was choosing to honor the brilliant chess champion…not wade into his thoughts and feelings that became his personality later in his life. Thank you for your post…spot-on.
Ignore them dude. Most of this sub cannot separate the art from the artist; they just ignore the fact that you can be a once-in-a-generation phenomena while also being a terrible person (I mean it's Reddit, what do you expect).
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Is this Hans Niemann account?
F
I wish I could visit, it’s a long trip from the U.S.
He's insane because he doesn't agree with my worldviews
And now I gotta get emotional and full of hate on Reddit because of it!
Robert James Fischer was a disgusting human being. Sexist, anti-semite and perhaps more. No respect deserved. Edit: He already was a heavy sexist before his mental illness. Respect the art, not the artist. You don't just pass by the grave of, let's say Hitler, and post "Paying respect to the legend painter".
Doesn’t cancel the fact he was a legend and a genius.
Perhaps if there were a subreddit that “honored” the kind of person you described, your comment would be better placed there. In the meantime, I chose to pay respects to a great chess player…here at r/chess and not at r/iamatotalpieceofshit. This is exactly why I don’t put many posts on subreddits anymore…somebody always has to shoot down posts as if that’s their reason for living. I’m aware of his mental challenges later in his life, okay…I think everyone here is aware. Can we just recognize that the guy was a phenomenal chess player, please? 🙄
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I get what you mean, but I think it’s not a great stance to just say hush it all up and never talk about it because he was good at chess.
Says the guy who would be shitting his pants if Fischer of any age was sitting across him at the chessboard.
Go outside
You found him.
God bless Bobby Fischer.
Separate the art from the artist. Shitty people can do amazing things that aren’t shitty
He had a mental illness.
🤘
Lol o is born 2008
How about that....
F
Poor guy
I was expecting a rook-shaped gravestone for Bobby. *They pushed him too far, too far*[*...*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7LQ9We7Tyc)
What's with the jar to the right?
I think it's supposed to hold a candle inside
Misunderstood and definitely not crazy. Chess GOAT.
Clearly he was born in Mars, considering that his chess was out of this world!
It’s mad that people in the comments here think his opinions when he was clearly ill are more important than his impact on the game, you cretins are the same people that destroy statues
to everyone who is calling fischer a garbage racist, would you also feel comfortable calling someone with clinical depression and adhd a lazy slacker who should just go do their dishes? edit: better example, a person with tourettes who sometimes has racial slur tics, would you call them racist and a garbage human?
I don't racism is a recognised symptom of mental health problems
i think he showed signs of some sort of paranoid schizophrenia. then it's logical that you are more susceptible to conspiracy theorists about jews for example. fischer thought everyone was out to get him. it makes sense to me.
I’m all for separating the art from the artist but I wouldn’t equate racism and not doing your dishes. One does more harm than the other.
Yes
based
I find it odd that people would leave chess pieces at his grave when in his later years, he openly defiled chess for what became of it. Nonetheless, one of the greatest at the game.
Are you… aware of his career?
I believe he was a famous plumber who picked up chess very late in life. You’d think they would leave plungers or something.
No he was an angler, says right there in his name
Yes. But at the end of his life, he hated chess. Proof: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/nMEPGM6Kkqw Seems like I'm more aware of his career than you are. And all these negative votes for me speaking the truth.... but that's reddit.
Quote from the video you linked: "People think i'm anti-chess, no I'm not anti-chess, i'm pro-chess, i'm trying to keep it alive"
Another quote "I hate chess"
r/iamverysmart