The question now arises whether this is properly called a fight when
the player can not influence the outcome, but must submit absolutely to
the incalculable hazards of fortune. What right has he to congratulate
himself on a victory for which he is in no way responsible? To this
it may be answered that in addition to this subjective, psychological
condition there is an active contest; for an illusion exists in
connection with every game of chance that in some way the outcome is
dependent on the capacity of the player, and a little reflection will
show that this is characteristic of human nature. How else arises our
naïve sense of worth or of shame? Are we not vain of physical beauty,
of inherited advantages, and of riches which we have not earned? Does
not the consciousness of deformity, stupidity, weakness, awkwardness,
or even a lowly origin impart a feeling of shame and a sense of
responsibility for our own shortcomings? We feel as if we had had a
voice in the fashioning of our bodies and souls and a choice of our
position in life—in short, as the vulgar saying has it, as if we had
not been careful enough in the choice of our parents. Just in the same
way we are proud of our luck in play. Luck is genius, and he whom
it smiles upon is a hero.[442] This failure to discriminate between
fortunate circumstance and personal merit is shown in a striking manner
in popular poetry. Its heroes are often armed with magic weapons or
directly assisted by higher powers who lend them supernatural strength
or work ruin to their enemies. Such advantage is thus given them that
the reflecting person has some difficulty in regarding their exploits
as especially praiseworthy, yet the average hearer is undisturbed by
such considerations. For instance, consider the invulnerability of
Achilles and Siegfried’s Tarnkappe, which gave him in the fight with
Brunhild “the strength of twelve men.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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