Chicken!

Chicken game was popularized by the movie Rebel without a Cause which starred the late James Dean. In the movie, spoiled Los Angeles teenagers drive stolen cars to a cliff and play a game called "chickie run." Two boys drive their cars off the edge of the cliff, jumping out at the last possible moment. The boy who jumps out first is "chicken" and loses. In the movie, the plot has one driver’s sleeve caught in the door handle and plunges with his car into the ocean.

The movie, and the game, got a lot of publicity when James Dean died in a car accident shortly before the film’s release. Dean killed himself and injured two passengers while driving on a public highway at an estimated speed of 100 mph. For obvious reasons, chicken was never very popular — except in Hollywood.

Bertrand Russell used the chicken game as a metaphor for the nuclear stalemate. In his book Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare, he describes the game and criticizes those who play the game on a geopolitical version of it. Incidentally, it is Russell’s version of ‘chicken’ that has become the standard rather than the off-the-cliff version of the movie.

Here is Russell’s chicken version: "Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the Governments of East and West have adopted the policy which Mr. Dulles calls "brinkmanship." This is a policy adapted from a sport which, I am told, is practiced by some youthful degenerates. This sport is called "Chicken!" It is played by choosing a long straight road with a white line down the middle and starting two very fast cars towards each other from opposite ends. Each car is expected to keep the wheels of one side on the white line. As they approach each other, mutual destruction becomes more and more imminent. If one of them swerves from the white line before the other, the other, as he passes, shouts "Chicken!" and the one who has swerved becomes an object of contempt....’ As played by irresponsible boys, this game is considered decadent and immoral, though only the lives of the players are risked. But when the game is played by eminent statesmen, who risk not only their own lives but those of many hundreds of millions of human beings, it is thought on both sides that the statesmen on one side are displaying a high degree of wisdom and courage, and only the statesmen on the other side are reprehensible. This, of course, is absurd. Both are to blame for playing such an incredibly dangerous game.

The game may be played without misfortune a few times, but sooner or later loss of face is felt more dreadful than nuclear annihilation. The moment will come when neither side can face the derisive cry of "Chicken!" from the other side. When that moment comes, the statesmen of both sides will plunge the world into destruction."

It may be that Russell was wrong to imply that Dulles’ "brinkmanship" was consciously adapted from the highway chicken but Herman Kahn in his book ‘On Thermonuclear War’ credits Russell as the source of the chicken analogy. Whoever was the author, we can only gasp at how precise the analogy is as we watch yet again another nuclear crisis — the Iran-US stand-off.

With many compatriots shaking their heads at the political scene it is tempting to say, ‘I told you so’. But I resist the temptation. The political circus was inevitable. Ironically it is the best argument for Charter change. We had to go through yet another wasteful election under the presidential bicameral system to internalize what reformers mean by the need to restructure our political system. The enemies of change kept pounding that we have elections first before a plebiscite and they won. The ill-conceived objective was to delude us with ‘credible’ elections. They want us to elect ‘credibly’ even more undesirables who would occupy elected positions they are neither fit for nor able to discharge competently. But any suggestion that we should restructure the system first before elections was thumbed down. The trouble was there were many who foresaw the consequences but chose not to avert it. The drama unfolding before us is the result of the fatal flaw of our presidential bicameral legislature system. It needs to be changed. In parliamentary federal system being proposed all elections would have been local. That means reduced constituencies.

Only in such a structure can we effectively educate voters what elections are for. I blame the do-gooders, not the celebrities or actors who want to be senators. Indeed, why not? They are right. With more than 50 million voting nationally two things matter: popularity and money. The defect is inherent in the system, not with the celebrities.

To those who said we have to change our values first, here is a parting thought. True, people change systems but systems also change people. It is not one or the other. Apropos change, Charles Darwin said "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

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