We have been taught to believe that competition breeds excellence, hence we have competitive school systems etc.
I have a problem with this.
If we assume that competition leads to degradation, then the implication is that since our society is based on competition, we must be on a downhill slide. That is to say we are not progressing, we are regressing.
Does anybody share my doubts?
Or can anybody lay my doubts to rest?
I think competition is healthy. It does helps build confidence in people. If there wasn’t any competition it would affect sports programs as well. The result would be raising a bunch of passive sheep and belaying leadership skills.
Competition without rules would be the downfall.
Liten, team sports promote 10 sheep to one leader, now individual sports without teams are another matter.
get a job teaching.
-Imp
I’m more of an deontologist, than a consequentialist.
I’d prefer to see actions done for their inherent value, not the possible positive outcomes. This makes the justification inherent, and, pragmatically, puts the goal at hand as the primary focus, rather than a secondary attribute. For example, trying to teach someone knowledge through competition, stresses supremacy and not the knowledge. The desire to supremacy correlates to knowledge advancement in unforseen positive and negative ways, as well as being seen by many as a vice rather than a virtue.
To answer the question in general terms. It’s possible that it produces excellence (in a limited definition) more often than non-competition, but the positive may be negated in many ways. For example, the reaction of many who are not able to compete at a high level may be to remove all attempts to compete at all and will therefor contribute no more to the cause. Where as doing something for its own sake maintains its value no matter how one compares to others.
I think the most important thing through all this though is simply allowing people to decide for themselves. Competition should occure naturally, not out of obligation. So in a situation such as public schools, a mandatory government run institution, advancement must be based on objective goals and criteria, not competition.
Kris, kids on junior and high school team sports compete for positions in their perspective areas. Once the decisions are made by the coaches to whom fits the positions the best, then the players follow the captains of the defensive and offensive squads. The captains of those squads are decided by the players, not the coaches.
Who says that competition leads to degredation, and why?
Of course it does, and I’m sure we could provide all sorts of examples. Most people have mentioned sports, I think team sports also breed excellence. Anyone who has played in a team will know that you always feel bad when you perform poorly and let people down, hence this drives you on to work harder. Running etc is a lot easier with people providing encouragement. I think we could draw plenty of examples from the arts as well, wasn’t Pet Sounds a result of Brian Wilson trying to outdo the Beatles? So we owe one of the most highly regarded pop albums of all time to competition. Bob Dylan has said that all he ever wanted to be was Woody Guthrie. I can’t think of names, but a lot of authors will talk about books that really inspired them to write. In philosophy, you can tell there’s a huge amount of competition between the ‘greats’, why else do phlosophers take such pleasure in rubbishing opposing views? We have Hume to thank for the Critique of Pure Reason (of course, whether you’d want to thank him is another matter…) etc.
I would go so far as to say that competition is, in itself, healthy. In Britain there’s a lot of talk about how kids aren’t allowed to compete at anything anymore, things lke teachers ensuring football matches end up as draws etc. This is, clearly I feel, ridiculous. However, there is a difference between good, healthy competition between equals and mismatches. Obviously there’s a balance to be reached, but the answer isn’t to artificially level the playing field. Also, if you are good at something, competition is fun. I used to play rugby, and I always played better against better teams, and I enjoyed that a lot more than hammering useless teams.
Yes. Conflict is the driving force that produces excellence. Competition is a form of conflict, and all conflict, properly utilized, produces excellence and superiority where potential exists. Where potential does not exist: well, the individuals that possess no potential are hopeless lost causes, anyway. Levelling the playing field for them will only restrict the development of those who have potential.
competition can lead to progress and it does, say, the human genome project, though they eventually joined forces it can be healthy.
It works for the many, but not the few: as with everything!
There seems to be a theme running through the replies that (1) popularity and (2) speed or distance, say, with respect to sports, are indicators of excellence.
Lets take popularity: the book The Da Vinci Code is undoubtedly popular and selling many, many copies. Does that make it an excellent book? Is the popularity of Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds an indicator of excellence?
In other words, is popularity always a measure of excellence?
Or how about sports. If one human being is a microsecond faster than another, is that an indicator of excellence? Why is speed an indicator of excellence?
In short, what is excellence with respect to human endeavour?
Conflict or competition are instruments that branch us into failure or excellence. They cause us to progress or regress, they are simply the defining moments. How one reacts to competition and resolves the conflict determines the outcome, not the competition. Competition only breeds outcomes, nothing more nothing less.
With regard to the sport one, I don’t understand your point. Of course a difference of a microsecond doesn’t make A far better than B, but in general speed is an indicator of excellence because in eg a 100m race the stated purpose is to travel the distance in as fast a time as possible. We define the fastest person as the one who runs a set distance in the fastest time. Given the purpose is to tell who is more excellent at fast running, of course its an indicator. Its no indication of excellence at poetry, of course.
With regard to human endeavour in general, well not sure about that one. We can make plenty of sense of excellence within disciplines though. Of course there exists no absolute standard of excellence for a discipline, but there exists no absolute standard of measurement of distance, or speed, or whatever, and that doesn’t worry scientists too much. I don’t know what ‘excellence with respect to human endeavour’ would be. Anything I could say would sound a bit empty or cliched.
WHile its totally unphilosophical to say this, you know that the Da Vinci Code just is rubbish, whereas, say, 1984 isn’t. That might be just an opinion, but its a better opinion than somebody who calls it the greatest book of all time.
Going back to the original post, I just fail to understand how you think we are on a downward slide?
If each attempts to be the best, we would have to be on an upward slant. This is assuming that each is successful in doing better of course.
I know this I swam in school. but, still, one leader with 10 followers does not promote leadership, it promotes followers. You wish to succeed to be a part of the team.
Since you brought up school… A very violent ego filled place. Sports becomes a way of classism and if you fail you are humiliated degraded and made to feel like crap for losing. If you do not choose to humiliate the illfated one, then you too become crap. This part caused me to get into a fight or two. It is the extreme of bigotry that happens, Cripes even on speech and debate teams this happens.
Competition can bring out the best but, it does bring out the very worst too. There is no balance and there is no balance in school.
Team sports are better. There is individual competition (for a spot on the team) and group competition (to win the game).
Team sports are a much better reflection of real life. Everyone will be both sheep and shepherd at some point. Excellent people excel in both roles.
Being a ‘lone wolf’ is just as much a reflection on life as being on a team.
I did all individual sports in high school and I don’t see how individual or team sport is ‘better’ than the other.
Care to explain Knox?
excellence is only perceived as the mastery of competition. competition does not breed excellence, excellence is a latent subjective perception that is attributed to the victors of any given competition. the only excellence that has been demonstrated is their excellent abilities to triumph over their fellow competitors.
but as for the sense you may have been getting at, yes i believe that the existence of competition contributes to an increasing skill in the field which in which the competition is based but it is only the approach to excellency, excellency by nature cannot be attained through finite methods other than sheer coincidence luck or random chance
I wake up every morning and piss excellence.