Without a Deference to the Rules, There Can Be No Game
March 6, 2021
What is more important, having your favorite team win one specific game, or honoring the rules of the game and thereby allowing future games to take place? There are those who claim that you should fight, fight, fight, never conceding a loss for your team. Always there is some excuse why the game wasn’t fair. Always there is some excuse why the other side cheated. Never was there any intention of honoring the rules if it meant accepting a defeat. If the rules say your team lost, then you condemn the rules. If the referees decide against your team, then you demonize the referees, fighting and fighting to pressure them into overriding the rules and giving your team the win.
But who wants to play a game when neither side will ever concede defeat? In the end, the game stops, replaced by just the fighting, which escalates until one team literally destroys the other.
We have seen this again and again throughout history. A fixation solely on power. An abandonment of principles. It never ends well. Why must we continue to relearn the mistakes of the past? Why can we not accept the wisdom of the dead?
