And is chess evil because the pieces don’t refer to anything outside the game?
Chess does a reasonable job of relating to reality in the sense I mean because the rules of the game and the person who wins are objective and (relatively) independent of any false beliefs about strategy the players might have. (If chess ever reaches the point that a player can get away with arguing that the laws of the game are arbitrary and that therefore he should be able to play some illegal move, that will be a sign that chess is becoming corrupted.)
Chess does a reasonable job of relating to reality in the sense I mean because the rules of the game and the person who wins are objective and (relatively) independent of any false beliefs about strategy the players might have. (If chess ever reaches the point that a player can get away with arguing that the laws of the game are arbitrary and that therefore he should be able to play some illegal move, that will be a sign that chess is becoming corrupted.)