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Is competition a spur to human progress?

There is an old myth that competition helps us move forward. The fact is that we have advanced to this stage not because we have had to compete—but mainly because we have had to cooperate.

We compete because we are too dumb to know any better.

Unable to outgrow competitiveness we have—in desperation—glo­rified and institutionalized it. We have made a virtue out of a crude wasteful behavior that goes back to our earliest primate origins.

Today more than ever competition is divisive and inefficient. In the age of nuclear overkill competition can be downright suicidal.

How and why is competition antifuture?

—Competition fosters an adversarial atmosphere that often leads to stress and a host of diseases—including fatal heart attacks.

In their pioneering book Type A Behavior and Your Heart Dr. Meyer Friedman and Dr. Ray M. Rosenman1—two cardiologists—note that ninety-eight percent of heart attack victims score high on the "Type A" rating scale. Type A behavior is described as competitive— driven—aggressive—achievement-oriented. Some typical Type A char­acteristics:

8 Scheduling more and more activities into less and less time.

• Becoming unduly irritated when driving behind a car you think is moving too slowly.

• Making a fetish of always being on time.

• Having difficulty sitting and doing nothing.

• Playing nearly every game to win—even when playing with children.

The cardiologists point out that much of the socialization in America fosters Type A patterns—for example the belief that you have to be No. 1.

It is not difficult to see how antisurvival competition is. What is the good of beating out others—being a winner—if the result is that you are driven to alcoholism or drugs—ulcers—back problems—or drop­ping dead of a heart attack at the age of forty-two?

—Highly competitive individuals are so mobilized to beat out rivals that they hardly have time to broaden their interests and skills. In a world of interdependent disciplines this overspecialization soon affects the quality of their performances.

Common examples are highly driven musicians—actors—dancers— athletes—business people—attorneys. They are all so obsessed with winning that they block out everything else. The result is the one-dimensional person with whole areas of personality and intellect conspicuously undeveloped.

Spend an afternoon with a high-powered attorney or corporate ex­ecutive or physician who makes say two hundred thousand dollars a year. You will be dazzled with this person's specialized competence. But shift to any other field and you will be dumbfounded by this person's barrenness.

A classical example is the tennis player John McEnroe. Here is a person so obsessed with winning that he is often driven to pathetic tantrums and abuse during matches.

How valuable is competition when it stunts our emotional and intel­lectual growth? What price winning?

—Highly competitive people rarely even enjoy what they do. For example youngsters who are pushed to excel in music often end up hating music. Students pressured to get good grades at school may never develop the joy of learning.



"How are your youngsters doing at school?"

"My son is straight A's. My daughter had three A's and two B's."

Why tell me their grades? I just wanted to know if they are enjoying their education and what they are learning.

"How was your tennis today?"

"Terrible. 1 lost two out of three sets."

Damn it. Did I ask you for the score? Did I ask you whether you won or lost? I just wanted to know if you enjoyed the tennis or had a good workout.

We have forged fiercely competitive environments that foster coun­terproductive motivations. Not the joy of playing or learning or growing or creating. But the drive to beat out others.

When people succumb to the pressures of competition and cheat to win or throw tantrums or get drunk we ostracize them.

—Competition is particularly inefficient because it leads to dupli­cation. Scores of research centers compete fiercely to develop a cure for a disease. Often they all go through the same expensive time-consuming research. How much more quickly cures would be found if they all collaborated.

Such wasteful duplication exists within and among organizations— corporations—government agencies—nations.

In politics several candidates with indistinguishably similar ideologies will compete for a specific office. If these people were genuinely in­terested in promoting their agenda—rather than themselves—they would designate one candidate to represent their ideology and the others would lend support.

It is chiefly because we compete and do not collaborate enough that many age-old problems are still with us—for example undernourishment and poverty. If we competed less and collaborated more we could insure abundance for all—we could all enjoy more leisure—we could more rapidly find ways to extend the human life span. When we say that "politics" stand in the way what we often mean is that competitiveness stands in the way.

Far from stimulating progress competition actually slows it down.


Date: 2015-02-28; view: 815


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