During a pre-Christmas party, a neighbor challenged me to a game of Casino.
Casino is an innocuous game in which, by pairing and adding cards, we acquire more than our opponent. It’s fairly simple; it has nothing to do with Casino (as in Las Vegas) except for the fact that it uses cards. This isn’t a lesson on card strategy (by the way, I beat the sap out of my challenger), but a discussion of the very word “challenge.”
When I heard the word from James’ mouth, I got an adrenaline surge. Here he was, a neighbor with whom I played Casino 20 years ago, challenging me again. Something about the word excited me. So I took him on.
After the game I got to thinking more about the “C” word. If James had said simply, “Let’s play a game of casino,” I might have thought of an excuse to decline. But the connotations of the “C” word propelled me.
Here are some observations: “Challenge” has lost its specific meaning, but the word still evokes a strong reaction. Essentially, people enjoy a challenge, in the same way that I play one-on-one basketball against all three of my sons, one at a time, and make the rules: if I score first, the game is over; if one of them scores first, well, we keep going until one of us wins or until Art Iverson needs a blast of oxygen.
As I write this, I’m listening to a TV commercial about razor blades. The announcer says something like, “More men like you are taking the challenge.” The rules obviously are to stop using the other blade and switch to this brand. All right, so if a man switches and becomes converted, that’s profit for the manufacturer who, after all, needs to pay for the expensive ad. My point is that there needs to be a potential reward, a reason for accepting the challenge.
In my youth, there were relatively few brands of cigarettes. A commercial at the time asked (men) to “take the Camel challenge.” As I recall, the rules were that we were to “smoke nothing but Camels for 30 days, and at the end of that time, if you don’t agree that Camels are the best cigarette you’ve ever smoked, then . . .”
There was no reward except impaired lungs. And the benefits for the tobacco company were immense. It’s enormously profitable to hook millions of pack-a-day smokers on your own brand.
As a kid, I ascribed a far different meaning to the word “challenge.” “Challenge” was the word Msgr. Adrian Rabeyrolle employed to announce to us Immaculate Conception School third-graders that the fourth-graders had challenged us to sales of raffle tickets. We gladly took up the challenge. Besides, what business do those pseudo-sophisticated fourth-graders have trying to beat US?
Interestingly, my sister, then in fourth grade, told us that Padre had told HER class that MY class had issued the challenge. All four of my I.C. siblings later realized that the “C” word was invoked in every classroom, without the pupils’ knowledge or consent; it was as if the priest had contrived a tournament bracket, all on his own, which he had.
Still, there was something to gain. Most of us imagined victory simply in our zeal to sell the most tickets. Just the thrill of victory was reward enough.
But the challenge actually involved a prize of a sort. By selling the most tickets (and why not? We were a large class and also unbelievably adorable), we would be allowed to choose the site of the St. Patrick’s Day fair. Strange, but no matter what exotic spots we recommended, we always ended up in the stuffy auditorium.
Through the years, people—mostly those trying to sell something—have whipped “challenge” into a different, more frothy meaning. Before the term “pyramid scheme” came into vogue, a friend sent a letter to several of us, inviting us to a gathering, at which time he would explain how we could become wealthy just by investing $5,000. A half-million dollars, we were told, was guaranteed, if we all did the right thing.
I don’t think anyone in my circle took the bait. Five big ones was a lot of money to “invest” at the time, and most of us seemed familiar with such schemes, albeit on a much smaller scale.
A week later, after little response, the friend sent each of us a personal letter in which he said he had “been CHALLENGED to bring at least 20 men to the gathering.”
That’s when the guilt trip kicked in. One of my friends urged me to go. “Listen, Art, he said he’s been CHALLENGED to fill the room.”
Well, that made me feel warm and runny inside, but I didn’t budge. My question was and is: “What is the challenge?” The friend is issued a challenge from his bosses higher up on the pyramidal food chain, but we outsiders only get the pressure. Are we sure the user hasn’t ascribed the meaning “urge” to the word “challenge”?
Macho men who like to win at Casino or at one-on-one basketball must have a part in their brain that triggers salivary glands at the sound of “challenge.” We love to see whether our tug-of-war team can beat the fatsos from across town, or whether our kids’ GRE or SAT scores are higher than those of those snooty doctors’ kids.
But when there’s no foreseeable reward, as in “I dare you to take the Pepsi challenge,” there needn’t be any motivation to pick up the gauntlet. Risks and rewards need to be in proportion.
So as long as you’ve come to this, the final paragraph, I CHALLENGE you to finish the column before the new year. Happy Holidays!