Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






Doesn't competition encourage the "best" in society to surface and in so doing promote general welfare?

This is a fallacy. What is generally considered the "best" or "number one" is often the mediocre. What has the greatest appeal to the greatest number of people is rarely "the best" that a society produces.

In creating a competitive environment we allow the people and the products with the greatest mass appeal to rise to the top. We mistake popularity for quality. We set up false standards that undervalue those qualities (such as creativity and originality) that most stimulate progress.

It is often the mediocre student who gets straight A's. The truly gifted creative student is usually bored with school and rarely gets good grades.

It is often the mediocre bureaucrat who rises to the top. People who are imaginative and have original ideas rarely become corporate heads.

It is often the mediocre film that wins the Academy Award. Often the mediocre TV program that wins Emmys. Films and TV programs that break new ground often cannot find distributors and rarely win recognition.

It is often the mediocre book that wins awards and lands on best­seller lists. Seminal or avant-garde books often cannot find publishers and if published rarely gain recognition right away.

In the field of futurism (long-range planning) the few books that land on best-seller lists are not—as one would expect—books that have anything new to present. Rather they are books that skillfully package ideas that have been around a dozen years or more.

It is often the mediocre who become presidents and prime ministers and cabinet members and senators and governors and mayors and judges. People with high intelligence and high ideals do not as a rule subject themselves to the crass machinations inherent in running for political office.

Take the United States for example: can you think of more than two or three U.S. presidents during the entire twentieth century who had above average intelligence?

Turn off the blinding spotlights and what you will find are some ordinary individuals. Driven and ambitious—but ordinary.

When people here say that in America any youngster can grow up to become president what they are really saying is that in America anyone can rise to—mediocrity.

I have no quarrel with mediocrity. Mediocrity is part of the process. The mediocre help implement advances brought on by progressive forces.

My quarrel is with the myth that competition stimulates progress. Competition promotes mediocrity.

The driving forces of human progress are creativity—originality— imagination—inventiveness. These are not attributes that usually win popularity contests or are touted as the "best."


Date: 2015-02-28; view: 785


<== previous page | next page ==>
Is competition a spur to human progress? | If we do not have competition how can we ever know who is best—reaiiy best?
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.005 sec.)