One of the reasons some people are opposed to competition is because of the negative emotions and actions it sometimes produces. Things like anger, frustration, hatred, and even violence. However, this mere fact that these things are sometimes produced by competition is not a good reason to see it as sinful.
There are many things that can be good that also produce anger (we’ll stick with one of the outcomes for the sake of simplicity). Marriage, children, work, driving in traffic, and politics (to name a few) have all produced anger in their participants. But if marriage produces anger, the couple may be in need of better conflict resolution skills. If driving in traffic produces anger a person may need to develop patience (or drive when it’s not so busy). The production of anger is not enough to prove any of these things base. This doesn’t serve to prove that competition is good, only that citing the negative things it can produce is not good rationale for condemning it.
So this post leaves us back at square one. Is competition good, bad, or somewhere in between?
4 comments:
Can I pick up on something you referenced that is off-topic? Do you think, even in marriage, that conflict can ever be "resolved"--or is it just managed?
I do think conflict can be resolved. Maybe you have to do some management and some resolution, but I think if you have large conflicts (in quantity or magnitude) without resolution, bitterness builds up. I do think that resolving conflict takes humility, forgiveness, empathy, and a willingness to let things go by both sides.
I vote that competition is not an independent entity that is inherently anything in particular. Instead, the participants bring their own maturity or lack thereof, and this is brought out by competition. It could be said that competition has the potential for good or evil, but that is completely within the agents of competition. That's what happens when humans are free-acting agents. Sorry John and John.
check out the newest Relevant issue - story on anger. It might contribute some thoughts to this issue...
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