Okay, first day of seven, and the entry is loooong. It's just a few thoughts about competition, and my own relationship with it. It's not a great piece of writing, but it's also not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. I think if I rewrite it one day, and cut approximately 400 words, I may have something.
Anyway, read what you can. I'll try to post something much shorter tomorrow. -z
--
My youth was thick was leftist ideology. I listened to a lot of political punk rock, read a lot of anarchocommunist books and magazines, and heard endless hours of left-wing commentary on Pacifica radio. I took it all to heart and it has had an immeasurable effect on how I've perceived the world.
I credit my leftist upbringing for helping me avoid the traps of racism, sexism and classism that affect so many Americans. But at the same time, the effects have not all been benign. One particular side effect of leftist thinking that has not served me very well is a disdain of competition. Leftism teaches us that competition is a thing to avoid, in favor of the--hypothetically--more desirable mode of cooperation. Cooperation, say the left-wing analysts, is the key to building a utopian society. If only we would all develop cooperative ethics to replace our competetive instincts, we could all live in harmonious prosperity, freeing ourselves once and for all of war, famine, pestilence and possibly even death.
The problem with this is that cooperation is an ethic, and competition is an instinct. It is exactly true that we would all, each and every one of us, have to adopt this ethic for utopia to emerge. To succeed, cooperative ethics require the ongoing participation of all, while competition needs only the short-term dedication of an individual. Furthermore, societies based on cooperative ethics are very easily usurped by ruthless and manipulative individuals. And such individuals are far from rare.
Despite the fact that we are all born competetive, and only become cooperative through social processes, there is still a firm minority that believes in this ethic, and practices it. In the United States, there is a lively subculture that applies cooperative principles to all of its projects. The somewhat recent development of the co-op style grocery store is an artifact of this subculture. I myself have participated in microwatt radio stations that strove to abide by cooperative principles, as well as independent periodicals, music groups and venues.
Through these endeavors, I have met a number of people who have claimed cooperative principles as the highest good. Consistently, I have been disappointed with the level of these people's dedication. Many of them have reminded me of priests unable to keep their vows, saying one thing from the pulpit, but doing the entire opposite in the rectory. Many of the most active anarchists, marxists and other left wingers that I have met have been at least as competetive as any of the Republicans or middle-of-the-road American consumerists that I have known. If anything, it seems to me that the cooperative ethic has had no better effect on leftists than to make their competetive behavior a little bit more weasly, a little bit more underhanded, a little bit less noble in its tone.
I was naive. I never accounted for the possibility of hypocrisy. Now, though it's too late, I know that hypocrisy is the rule not the exception. But worse, as I attempted to move through this leftist world, I sublimated my own competetive instincts into striving to be more committed to cooperative ethics. I perceived every double-cross against myself as a victory, proof that I was more of an anarchist because I did not stoop to take advantage of my leftist acquaintances.
But of course, competitiveness is everywhere. Outside of the leftist subculture competetiveness is more open. In the real world, everyone is competetive, and no one is ashamed of it. The competetiveness can be veiled for other reasons, though. After all, if you can play to win without anyone knowing about it, your chances of success automatically increas.
One of the most common forms of competetive behavior that we encounter in ordinary life is the time-honored practice of one-upmanship, which is currently defined by Wikipedia as "the systematic and conscious practice of making one's associates feel inferior and thereby gaining the status of being 'one-up' on them." The term was coined by British author Stephen Potter in his series of humorous books on the subject. I've read most of the books, by the way, and they are excellent.
If the concept of one-upmanship is not clear to you, let me give you a simple example from Potter's books. In one passage, Potter offers the advice that if someone should have a larger than average house, or even a mansion, it is good one-upmanship to refer to this house as a cottage. In the United States, maybe 'bungalow' or 'cabin' would work better. Continuously calling someone's oversized house a 'cabin' could, if done with the correct amount of subtlety, drive the homeowner just a little crazy.
If this example seems benign, remember that Potter wrote his books in the 1930s, for a British audience. Our modern America has no room for anything subtle at all. One-upmanship, I think, has advanced to the level that what we would consider a light needling, Potter might think of as an outrageous assault.
Direct insults, taunting, threats of violence, and so on are more common replacements for the one-upmanship of historic times. But the game are still played much the same way, make your associates feel inferior, and do it quick before they do it to you.
Up until this point in my life, I've reacted to most of the one-upmanship I've encountered with bitterness. I've never learned to return fire, only to become disgruntled that someone would take it upon themselves to make an invasion into my psychological territory. Of course, a reaction like that is completely ineffectual. To become upset at an act of one-upmanship is equivalent to surrender. The entire purpose of one-upmansip is to interrupt flow, to disrupt composure or to cause some other sort of turbulence in the atmosphere of a fellow's psyche.
To get upset is to lose the game. That's the whole point, and I've only recently realized this. What a fool I've been.
Fortunately, it's obvious to me now that one-upmanship is a challenge and that the correct response is a counter attack. It is necessary to hit back and to hit back hard. Even if the retaliation is not perfectly effective, the least effect is that it will let the opponent know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Now, I haven't had a lot of practice at this game, so I'm not exactly good at it. I overcompensate for my weakness by hitting back not once or twice but as many times as possible. To keep the war metaphors going, a single distance crack of rifle fire will attract a five-hour shelling from my side of the trench.
I usually feel a little guilty about this, but then I think that I'm not the type of person to initiate such confrontations. If I had been left alone, there would have been peace. The recipient of my wrath has only himself to blame. My only intent in my viscious responses to one-upmanship is to prevent any future attacks. Your choices are: be nice, keep your distance or take cover.
Most often, the results of my asymetrical counterstrikes are little better than simple surrender. I fire back and sometimes it's just embarrassing. All the same, I'm learning, and I'm trying, and honestly I really am slowly getting better at this competitivity business.
I think a breakthrough came the day I learned to not take failure as a cue to become despondent. Truly, no failure is ever final. Failure is only real when you lose heart. For the victory-oriented soul, failure is no worse than a warning signal. The best among us take failure as an opportunity to reassess their situation--as quickly as possible. The habitual winner, in the grip a failure situation, knows that he must focus more keenly than ever before upon the situation that confronts him. He must sift, rapidly, through the details of his conflict and find that can afford him leverage.
There are many techniques for turning our failures into the beginnings of greater success. I don't know all of them, but I have learned a few. One of them is reframing. If a person can see a situation from a new perspective, it's possible to find an innovative way to prevail. Another means to overcoming failure is to understand the opponent. Any human being is well supplied with doubts and insecurities, not to mention weaknessess and areas of true incompetence. As Napoleon Bonaparte showed us many times over, apply your greatest strength to your enemies greatest weakness and you'll likely get the best of him.
Competition is a complicated subject, and I'm getting a late start. On the other hand, competition is also as old as humanity itself and much has been written about it. I think if I read the right materials, and think deeply about the actual ins and outs of human competition, I may soon overcome the handicap that I have inherited from the well-meaning, but off-center cooperative ethicists that I looked up to in my youth.
###
10/8/2007 22:02:34
Anyway, read what you can. I'll try to post something much shorter tomorrow. -z
--
My youth was thick was leftist ideology. I listened to a lot of political punk rock, read a lot of anarchocommunist books and magazines, and heard endless hours of left-wing commentary on Pacifica radio. I took it all to heart and it has had an immeasurable effect on how I've perceived the world.
I credit my leftist upbringing for helping me avoid the traps of racism, sexism and classism that affect so many Americans. But at the same time, the effects have not all been benign. One particular side effect of leftist thinking that has not served me very well is a disdain of competition. Leftism teaches us that competition is a thing to avoid, in favor of the--hypothetically--more desirable mode of cooperation. Cooperation, say the left-wing analysts, is the key to building a utopian society. If only we would all develop cooperative ethics to replace our competetive instincts, we could all live in harmonious prosperity, freeing ourselves once and for all of war, famine, pestilence and possibly even death.
The problem with this is that cooperation is an ethic, and competition is an instinct. It is exactly true that we would all, each and every one of us, have to adopt this ethic for utopia to emerge. To succeed, cooperative ethics require the ongoing participation of all, while competition needs only the short-term dedication of an individual. Furthermore, societies based on cooperative ethics are very easily usurped by ruthless and manipulative individuals. And such individuals are far from rare.
Despite the fact that we are all born competetive, and only become cooperative through social processes, there is still a firm minority that believes in this ethic, and practices it. In the United States, there is a lively subculture that applies cooperative principles to all of its projects. The somewhat recent development of the co-op style grocery store is an artifact of this subculture. I myself have participated in microwatt radio stations that strove to abide by cooperative principles, as well as independent periodicals, music groups and venues.
Through these endeavors, I have met a number of people who have claimed cooperative principles as the highest good. Consistently, I have been disappointed with the level of these people's dedication. Many of them have reminded me of priests unable to keep their vows, saying one thing from the pulpit, but doing the entire opposite in the rectory. Many of the most active anarchists, marxists and other left wingers that I have met have been at least as competetive as any of the Republicans or middle-of-the-road American consumerists that I have known. If anything, it seems to me that the cooperative ethic has had no better effect on leftists than to make their competetive behavior a little bit more weasly, a little bit more underhanded, a little bit less noble in its tone.
I was naive. I never accounted for the possibility of hypocrisy. Now, though it's too late, I know that hypocrisy is the rule not the exception. But worse, as I attempted to move through this leftist world, I sublimated my own competetive instincts into striving to be more committed to cooperative ethics. I perceived every double-cross against myself as a victory, proof that I was more of an anarchist because I did not stoop to take advantage of my leftist acquaintances.
But of course, competitiveness is everywhere. Outside of the leftist subculture competetiveness is more open. In the real world, everyone is competetive, and no one is ashamed of it. The competetiveness can be veiled for other reasons, though. After all, if you can play to win without anyone knowing about it, your chances of success automatically increas.
One of the most common forms of competetive behavior that we encounter in ordinary life is the time-honored practice of one-upmanship, which is currently defined by Wikipedia as "the systematic and conscious practice of making one's associates feel inferior and thereby gaining the status of being 'one-up' on them." The term was coined by British author Stephen Potter in his series of humorous books on the subject. I've read most of the books, by the way, and they are excellent.
If the concept of one-upmanship is not clear to you, let me give you a simple example from Potter's books. In one passage, Potter offers the advice that if someone should have a larger than average house, or even a mansion, it is good one-upmanship to refer to this house as a cottage. In the United States, maybe 'bungalow' or 'cabin' would work better. Continuously calling someone's oversized house a 'cabin' could, if done with the correct amount of subtlety, drive the homeowner just a little crazy.
If this example seems benign, remember that Potter wrote his books in the 1930s, for a British audience. Our modern America has no room for anything subtle at all. One-upmanship, I think, has advanced to the level that what we would consider a light needling, Potter might think of as an outrageous assault.
Direct insults, taunting, threats of violence, and so on are more common replacements for the one-upmanship of historic times. But the game are still played much the same way, make your associates feel inferior, and do it quick before they do it to you.
Up until this point in my life, I've reacted to most of the one-upmanship I've encountered with bitterness. I've never learned to return fire, only to become disgruntled that someone would take it upon themselves to make an invasion into my psychological territory. Of course, a reaction like that is completely ineffectual. To become upset at an act of one-upmanship is equivalent to surrender. The entire purpose of one-upmansip is to interrupt flow, to disrupt composure or to cause some other sort of turbulence in the atmosphere of a fellow's psyche.
To get upset is to lose the game. That's the whole point, and I've only recently realized this. What a fool I've been.
Fortunately, it's obvious to me now that one-upmanship is a challenge and that the correct response is a counter attack. It is necessary to hit back and to hit back hard. Even if the retaliation is not perfectly effective, the least effect is that it will let the opponent know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Now, I haven't had a lot of practice at this game, so I'm not exactly good at it. I overcompensate for my weakness by hitting back not once or twice but as many times as possible. To keep the war metaphors going, a single distance crack of rifle fire will attract a five-hour shelling from my side of the trench.
I usually feel a little guilty about this, but then I think that I'm not the type of person to initiate such confrontations. If I had been left alone, there would have been peace. The recipient of my wrath has only himself to blame. My only intent in my viscious responses to one-upmanship is to prevent any future attacks. Your choices are: be nice, keep your distance or take cover.
Most often, the results of my asymetrical counterstrikes are little better than simple surrender. I fire back and sometimes it's just embarrassing. All the same, I'm learning, and I'm trying, and honestly I really am slowly getting better at this competitivity business.
I think a breakthrough came the day I learned to not take failure as a cue to become despondent. Truly, no failure is ever final. Failure is only real when you lose heart. For the victory-oriented soul, failure is no worse than a warning signal. The best among us take failure as an opportunity to reassess their situation--as quickly as possible. The habitual winner, in the grip a failure situation, knows that he must focus more keenly than ever before upon the situation that confronts him. He must sift, rapidly, through the details of his conflict and find that can afford him leverage.
There are many techniques for turning our failures into the beginnings of greater success. I don't know all of them, but I have learned a few. One of them is reframing. If a person can see a situation from a new perspective, it's possible to find an innovative way to prevail. Another means to overcoming failure is to understand the opponent. Any human being is well supplied with doubts and insecurities, not to mention weaknessess and areas of true incompetence. As Napoleon Bonaparte showed us many times over, apply your greatest strength to your enemies greatest weakness and you'll likely get the best of him.
Competition is a complicated subject, and I'm getting a late start. On the other hand, competition is also as old as humanity itself and much has been written about it. I think if I read the right materials, and think deeply about the actual ins and outs of human competition, I may soon overcome the handicap that I have inherited from the well-meaning, but off-center cooperative ethicists that I looked up to in my youth.
###
10/8/2007 22:02:34
2 comments:
You've certainly opened a lot of interesting lines of thought to follow.
I understand what you're saying about feeling deluded as per your ideals, but isn't there also a kind of power that derives from simply sticking to your guns, regardless of the dominant trend? I believe quite strongly in leading by example, and also in the idea that simply DOING something is the only way to get it done. As long as I live my life the way I like, I feel like I'm doing the right thing. Deny others the right or power to even argue it with you! Make them adjust to you-- you're only at a disadvantage as long as you acknowledge it.
Like you said, "framing"... it's a powerful tool.
Thanks for the comment DaveX (once again...)
I still think cooperative systems have value. I just no longer believe in them as a complete answer to capitalist hegemony, or what have you. There was a time that I believed that cooperation might be a panacea. Now I realize that it's simply one tool among many.
It was a mistake for me to think that just because someone read Chomsky or wore an IWW pin meant that I could safely assume they'd abide by cooperative principles in their dealings with me.
You're correct to say that we should find a point of view and stick to it. In the moment of action, there's no use in being wishy washy.
But, now that those days are far in the past for me, I feel that it's good to re-evaluate, to make honest account of my mistakes and incorporate the lessons learned into my calculations for the days ahead.
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