Culture of competition"? (marriage, humans, nature, society)

[Phoenix2017]

One thing I have observed about life in general is (and something that seems to be rather seldom talked about openly) is that ultimately and the way that society is currently organized, there is this "culture of competition", where everyone is forced to compete against everyone else, for virtually everything. Children compete with each other academically and for grades and social standing, at school. Young men compete with other young men for the romantic affections of young women and later on, for marriage. Co-workers compete with each other in the workplace for promotions, jobs, recognition, compensation, and performance, etc. This constant competition puts society into a definitive endless cycle of "winners" and "losers", and "have's" and "have not's".

How did this come to be, exactly? And how come there is no viable way to opt out of it, should one have that wish? (For example, suppose that someone specifically did not *want* to have to compete against others, to begin with?) Why not throw the whole "competion model", out the window completely?

[ukrkoz]

Go for it. No one really keeps you from doing THAT, right? If you really think about it, it's YOUR decision, to compete or not. As truly, what you describing has no real value in life and is a bunch of lies, paddled onto people by those in true power. And chandala accepted is as modus operandi.
But acceptance is a personal choice and decision. Do yours. E.g., I do not compete. I simply do good job at what I'm doing. If this takes others clients and moves them into my hands, it's not competition. It's their choice to pursue better service. Or, not to. And I by far am not a hermit and do not live in a cave covered in raw hide. I simply do not idolize what you describe and do not pursue it. I do good job and am fairly rewarded for it. Surprisingly to myself, I became so much of a specialist that my value to employer far exceeds their desire to push me into "competition". So they let me be me.
Come to think, my both sons are same way, and they do well. I think, OP, you over cast your personal opinion onto MOST of people.

[texdav]

The world is like that and its what creates most of the things in life modern societies enjoy and third world countries want. If not the world would much like those who do not and people literally starve to death. The world doesn't go round because of people who say I am going to produce just enough for me. If you look there has always been winners and losers and the winner make it possible now days for the losers to not starve to death; which once was quite common and still is in uncompetitive parts of the world. China now has more than a bowl of rice each by adopting it.

[ocnjgirl]

Originally Posted by Knight2009

One thing I have observed about life in general is (and something that seems to be rather seldom talked about openly) is that ultimately and the way that society is currently organized, there is this "culture of competition", where everyone is forced to compete against everyone else, for virtually everything. Children compete with each other academically and for grades and social standing, at school. Young men compete with other young men for the romantic affections of young women and later on, for marriage. Co-workers compete with each other in the workplace for promotions, jobs, recognition, compensation, and performance, etc. This constant competition puts society into a definitive endless cycle of "winners" and "losers", and "have's" and "have not's".

How did this come to be, exactly? And how come there is no viable way to opt out of it, should one have that wish? (For example, suppose that someone specifically did not *want* to have to compete against others, to begin with?) Why not throw the whole "competion model", out the window completely?

It's been this way since the beginning of time. Cavemen who were more able to beat competitors survived and had his genes passed on, and weaker ones did not. When the world has limited resources whether it be land, food, water or things like jobs, really good colleges, or a mate, you're going to have competition. When resources are plentiful, people are more generous. Ask a child for a piece of his candy when he has only 1 or 2 pieces and you're likely to be declined, ask him after Halloween when he has a pile of it in front of him, and he will more likely share. I would argue this is not "culture" but human nature and biology.

[Djuna]

Because that is the nature of most humans and animals. Differential selection, essentially survival of the fitted, is deeply ingrained through evolution. At least these days competition is somewhat optional and we don't die if we don't compete for scarce resources.

[Phil75230]

All prosperous (and most non-prosperous) societies are competitive to one degree or another. Still, I do agree that competition exists in realms in which it does not need to exist. Even worse, sometimes competition actually hinders goal achievement. The exerpt from a J. Wes Ulm article is a perfect example

Originally Posted by from [url

http://www.democracyjournal.org/16/6740.php?page=all[/url]
This is not to say that all competition is bad, but rather that not all flavors of “competitiveness” are equal. A competitive atmosphere can be constructive and productive, driving individual performers to improve and collaborate, to learn and boost creativity, and ultimately to engender innovation and institutional betterment. The extraordinary discoveries of quantum theory in the early twentieth century were a product of such cooperative competitionor “co-opetition.” A handful of brilliant minds–Planck, Schrödinger, Einstein, de Broglie, Pauli, Bohr, and Born–vied to outdo one another. Yet this was far from cutthroat competition: From their scattered bases in the universities of Austria, Germany, France, Britain, and Denmark, they periodically met and mutually stimulated one another to devise a theory that is today at the heart of countless high-tech industries–a gift to the world worth trillions of dollars in created wealth.

[Shankapotomus]

Originally Posted by Knight2009

One thing I have observed about life in general is (and something that seems to be rather seldom talked about openly) is that ultimately and the way that society is currently organized, there is this "culture of competition", where everyone is forced to compete against everyone else, for virtually everything. Children compete with each other academically and for grades and social standing, at school. Young men compete with other young men for the romantic affections of young women and later on, for marriage. Co-workers compete with each other in the workplace for promotions, jobs, recognition, compensation, and performance, etc. This constant competition puts society into a definitive endless cycle of "winners" and "losers", and "have's" and "have not's".

How did this come to be, exactly? And how come there is no viable way to opt out of it, should one have that wish? (For example, suppose that someone specifically did not *want* to have to compete against others, to begin with?) Why not throw the whole "competion model", out the window completely?

I agree with you and have observed the same reluctance to participate in a society still under the shadow of the primitive concept of in group competition as something natural in myself. It's not healthy at all. Why would any large group of modern humans, allegedly assembled in order to cooperate on their mutual survival, engage in petty competitions over resources where some of the members of that group end up being denied what they need to be healthy?

You're absolutely right. It's primitive and it makes no sense.

And if you are in a society that is reluctant to be educated about why competition is wrong, the only solution I would think is for the people who realize how self-destructive competition can be, is to separate themselves from those who are incapable or unwilling to realize this and start their own society. They should create their own nation based on the principles of egalitarianism and non-competition. Socialism attempts to do this but I don't think we are technologically advanced enough for it to totally work. That's because you run into the problem of who is doing the work to provide everyone an equal amount of resources? Once the production of resources becomes fully automated, that might solve that problem to a more acceptable degree for everybody.