What do you think about our competitive behavior?

Question

Have you ever thought about what the world would be like if species survived through cooperation, rather than competition? In what ways do you think our lives would be different? Do you think competition has helped humanity advance at the rate we have, because we are always trying to be the best? Or, do you think cooperation would have been better, because we would always try and do what's best? What if instead of killing, animals and humans were like plants, and only needed sunlight?

Oh, sunlight and water.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to support communism, or even socialism. Those are forced cooperation systems. I'm talking about what life would be like if we were NATURALLY cooperative.

Hmm, I know that we survived this long because of our competetive behaviors. Sparta mentions a society that was cooperative, but failed because of corruption. Humans, like most species, are naturally competetive, that is why it failed. What if we had not competetive drive? What I'm trying to say is, what if all species, including humans, on this planet were naturally cooperative?

Answer 1

There are two kinds of competition, what you might call constructive and destructive. The plains Nations called them male and female competition. Male competition was the constructive sort; even in wars you they were less competition and more opposition. You didn't hate your enemy, you might admire him, and give a whoop when he counted coup even when it was on you, because you admired his courage. By using the enemy as opposition instead of competition you end up fighting yourself, trying to improve so you can stay in the running. Sports are a good example of this today. True, one side wins and the other loses, but everybody applauds when somebody does something amazing or spectacular and in some cases the MVP might be on the losing side. With this sort of competition you don't have to crush your enemies; indeed the greater your opposition the greater you must strive to achieve.

Female competition or the destructive kind can't win unless the other side loses. Happiness can never be achieved unless the enemy is crushed, destroyed, and ruined. It's not enough to defeat them on the battlefield; their children and wives must be slaves, their houses burnt, their animals slaughtered or captured. It's the epitome of what they call bad sportsmanship. The creative destruction of the economic system has some aspects of this kind of competition, but it is not entirely destructive. It's hard to find a perfect example today. I'm not entirely sure why it was called female competition.

To quote one Arapaho chieftain 'competition was opposition's ugly sister.' Perhaps this has something to do with the sort of spite and vindictiveness that is a traditionally female style, however being male I'm only peripherally aware of female society so it seems unusual among women today to--to me anyway. I saw Mean Girls, and that's as good an example as I can come up with.

So to finally answer your question, without constructive competition nothing would exist, not even plants, because they strive with each other too, and in the larger sense, ie the ecology which they inhabit, their form of competition is constructive. The same goes even for predators and prey, as they balance each other even though for individuals it might seem pretty cruel.

Without destructive competition where would we be? A lot further along than we are. Whether destructive competition is female in style or not (and I think not), it has been used by countless men in positions of power to do innumerable evils. Whether it's Subotai killing everybody in an enemy city or the Crusaders running amok in Jerusalem, the concept of demonizing the enemy has a long and grotesque history. I think we could easily do without destructive competition, and yet we would still not have to be cooperative or turn into plants or anything.

Answer 2

It was only the ingrain genetic drive of the survival of the fittest that allowed mankind to flourish these many centuries. Remember, there were cooperative efforts made when civilization banded together for protection and human comfort. It was only the frailty of humans in corrupting others that makes this question seemingly necessary.
Spartawo...

Answer 3

Well, we'd be sitting ducks if an aggressor appeared who didn't want to be cooperative, and they'd overtake our society and change the way our culture worked until we didn't know anything except for aggression and competition.

So if we did away with aggression, we might be ok until that fateful moment where we lose, and then aggression will be a part of our society again.

Answer 4

We would never have advanced. Why invent the wheel? We will just lie here eating up the sunlight. Yum, can I get that without mayo?
We are what we are because we are what we are. One of the big failings of Communism was that it did not matter what you created. Think about Bill Gates in the old Soviet Union. He would have been middle management.

Answer 5

I get where your going but I don't think comatition is a human flaw BUT, I do think our territorial nature is. Why boarders and so forth. verses a faster car. what do you think.