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From Rebecca, around 23/11/05

Hey Torgun,

As always it’s good to be in a discussion with you…smile.

Torgun: “I believe that in psychology, they operate with the concept of a ‘logical brain’ and underneath that we have an ‘animal brain’ (guiding our feelings and instincts). Most research in psychology, I understand, has tended to have been carried out on the ‘logical brain’ – the ‘animal brain’ has been swept under the carpet as something scientists would rather forget about or pretend isn’t there. I would rather acknowledge that it exists and that we have to understand both brains in order to understand a complete human being.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’m a firm believer in realizing our full potentials and addressing and assessing them, no matter what they are and no matter from which part of our biological make-up they come from. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that we should deny that which is genetically there and very much a part of our biological structure simply for the sake of reinforcing my socialist beliefs and position.

Torgun: “Competition in sports and competition for mates, are these separate concepts or related and will they carry on into socialism? Perhaps any accomplishment heightens our attractiveness in the mating stakes, and that sex and reproduction is what everything is about when all is said and done? Even if this is the case, I cannot see any reason why we should not fight for a much improved and sensible world for ourselves and our offspring, while we spend our allotted time in the constantly moving web that is the gene pool.”

I believe we have a competitive nature that won’t just disappear in a socialist society, but I do believe that the conceptual meaning of that competitiveness and our expression of that competing in our present day living arrangements are culturally determined to a very large extent. I don’t believe that we are naturally expressing our innate sense of competing in otherwords. I think that in a socialist society the means for that natural expression will not be hinderd or restricted. In that social situation I believe we will find that the natural course of expressing our innate sense of competition ‘most’ times will show up as us competing against ourselves and not against others. Not everytime, and not in everyway, but more often than not. I believe this because I believe competing against oneself is our natural form of competitive expression, and as can be seen, this isn’t a denial of our competitive nature. It is nothing more than a different conceptual meaning of competition and of how we naturally express it.

As an aside… I think that’s why even when a single male animal in the wild is in heat and looking to excite and entice a reaction from a female, with no other males in the area, he will still strut his stuff the same as if there were 50 males around. This is his natural competitive form of expression regardless whether or not there are any other competing males around. This suggests to me that his natural form of competitive expression is competing against himself, trying to be the best he can be no matter what. Regardless if there is another male to out perform, he will still do his best.

Rebecca: “I don’t think our competing against one and another will be carried out anything like it is today. I think most of our competition will be against ourselves if we so choose to.”

Torgun: “I agree with your first sentence. I also think a lot of our competition will be with ourselves – pushing ourselves in subjects and pursuits that we enjoy (if we so choose to, as you say.) But I don’t think all competition will be like this – I think we will also compete with one another – strive if you prefer – to, say, design the best, most comfortable, most beautiful new building for people to congregate in or live in. If I were an architect in socialism I can see myself cooperating quite happily on one project, but I can also see myself wanting to promote my own design on another project if I have an idea I feel passionate about.”

Yes, I agree. That’s why I specifically mentioned that I thought ‘most’ of our competition would be against ourselves. Most, but certainly not all. I say most, because after all we’ll still have that ‘logical side’ you mentioned and not just our ‘animal sides’.

When it comes down to understanding our mating and reproductive drives I tend to favor Richard Dawkins’s notions on the selfish gene. Although I don’t see this as necessarily incorportating an aggressively competitive drive that would have to involve males pitting themselves against each other in an attempt to procure a female for the purpose of mating. I don’t think that males have to compete at all sometimes. In other words, I don’t think that a female’s sexual drives are necessarily triggered by the aggressive competition between two or more males. In fact I think sometimes it’s a real turn-off for some women. In otherwords, I think there are other reasons for, and means that can act as, triggers for the raging (smile) hormones behind our feminine sexual drives.

I mean…what about love? Is love only experienced because what we’re truly after is a method of passing along our genes in the form of an off-spring? And if we are genetically structured with the sole purpose of passing along our genes, why is it that most parents, whether biological or not, don’t compete and wooingly pursue their own children? Is this drive satisfied once a person has secured a couple of off spring or so, or even one? -Because many times we make the decision on how many children we will have. And how can it be possible for some people to decide not to have any children if this is so? Is the design of their gene’s dysfunctional in some way?

Oh my… but I’m letting my thoughts carry me up and away…to some far off realm...lol. Sorry, back to the real gist of our conversation.

Torgun: “I think we forget that socialism will lavish so much free time on us all, time for everyone to develop skills they can be really good at. So from that point of view, people will be ‘winners and losers’, to put it crudely, at different times and in different fields.

Again we’re in agreement to a large degree. However I think that most of the time people will not look at themselves or be socially seen as a loser if they do not win, or if they were not the best. They would simply give their proper and appropriate respect and recognition due to the other and fully understand that they did the best they could have done. This doesn’t eliminate any competitive nature in us, nor deny it. We still competed against ourselves to be the best we could be and we actually did succeed in being the best we could be, so we have also satisfied our natural expression of competitiveness, but it just turned out that we were not be the best that there was to be had. Nothing more than that. No negative connotation of defeat and not seen as the loser, no denying our competitive nature, because one did best themselves, thus it’s just a different view of that nature and how it was expressed.

This is what I meant when I mentioned in my posting to Chris that you know there are going to be people better than you at this or that for whatever reasons there might be. But I don’t think we’ll view that as a competitive concept of – you’re the winner therefore I’m the loser – Instead I think we’ll come to the rational conclusion that in this regard you’re the best there is and are better than me. We’ll respect that about one and another. We’ll still give praise, but we won’t think of ourselves as losers. Probably because most times we won’t be playing the game to be the best over any other. We’re not dancing, building, designing to be better than another, we’re more than likely doing it because we want to be the best dancer we can be. Or because we want to design the best house there is, but not because we want to beat out another in designing the best house there is. Try this on for a moment... If your intentions are really to build the best house there is, then you won’t care whether or not it was our own design that provided this. You’ll care only that someone designed the best house there is. If your intentions are to be the best designer of a house, and you aren’t, then I believe you’ll still be for the very most part, satisfying your natural drive to be competitive by being satisfied that you did the best you possibly could.

I’ll have to hope to finish this off the rest of this posting at another time. I’m afraid I’m out of free time and it’s back to work I go.

Thanks Torgun! You (and Arms) always seem to ask such interesting questions, and bring up such great points, that I really enjoy conversing with you.

Cheers, Rebecca

Byron,

Are you supposing that people will not want to play the game solely for the sheer fun of it? That people won’t play the game for reasons of physical exercise and for their own personal skill development? Do you really think that people must keep score, win by beating out another player or another team or they’ll refuse to play and that people would not be willing to watch?

Do you really think that Johnny’s parents will refuse to watch their son hit his first ball when at bat simply because he is not competing against another player or trying to hit that ball for the purpose of scoring a run against the other team?

Do you really think that a girlfriend would not be interested in their boyfriend’s self-improved skill level just because he wasn’t competing against another player’s level of skill?

Do you really think that a bunch of people getting together and playing a game must keep score and have a designated winner or it couldn’t possibly be any ‘fun’ to play or watch?

Byron, you’ve repeatedly shown me over the years that the Socialism you envision isn’t any kind of Socialist society I’d care to live in or would struggle and strive to create. The people in the world you wish to see are far too nasty and demanding, among other things, to be any kind of socialist I’d care to associate with.

Rebecca

Byron said:

Rebecca:

I forgot to address one of your main points: “Byron, you’ve repeatedly shown me over the years that the Socialism you envision isn’t any kind of Socialist society I’d care to live in or would struggle and strive to create. The people in the world you wish to see are far too nasty and demanding, among other things, to be any kind of socialist I’d care to associate with.”

In all of my disagreements with your projections of socialism I may have failed to address the most important point, and that is that the working class must FORCIBLY change, by their aggressive and COMPETITIVE nature, the capitalist system. What greater competition could there BE? The greatest competition in the world will be the forces of socialism vs. capitalism.

We DeLeonists make the assumption that the working class must not only organize politically, but industrially. In other words we must confront the power center of capitalism--its economic system. THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF MARXISM! I’m afraid that the WSM puts economic organization on the back burner, despite the fact that Adam Buick has stated that he sees the necessity of such organization, but not right now. I agree that the present is not the time for such an organization, but firmly believe that socialist philosophy demands the open promulgation of an industrial organization BEFORE we have the crises that has the potential of inaugurating socialism. Graham Taylor’s posting of an SPGB obituary of DeLeon showed the failure of the SPGB to grasp industrial organization as a necessity for working class emancipation. Admittedly, this was an article written in 1914, shortly after DeLeon’s death and may not represent their present position, but I have seen nothing that indicates that it has changed.

Your emphasis on non-competition could best be characterized as Bellamyism. [Edward Bellamy of 1889 “Looking Backwards” fame]. Like most of your previous posts, it is based on your predictions of a fully-blown socialist society. This is fine, but not of much help in the present. I know of no revolution that was accompanied with revolutionaries holding hands while skipping to a tra-la-la into the future.

We hardcore revolutionists have tempered ourselves for the unpleasant coming struggle that will be both “nasty and demanding” [your stated objections]. Don’t recoil from reality--the political movement is only half of the struggle. History indicates that any revolutionary changes will not be accompanied with a diminution of the forces that are irreducibly related to competition--the competition of the industrial struggle for a new society vs private productive ownership.

Finally, if you don’t want to live a socialist society where the working class has initiated its control over industrial society, then you are not supporting the obvious, i.e., that workers already are producing everything and only the deluded doesn’t recognize this on a tangible level.

Socialism needs its Bellamyists, but most of all it needs its nasty hardcore revolutionists that will insure that the Bellamyists are not just farting in the wind!

Byron

And more from Rebecca, 24/11/05

Hey Torgun;

I just wanted to quickly add:

Rebecca: “I think you’ll hear verbal encouragements from excited girlfriends watching their boyfriends improve upon their personal skills, but it won’t be because they bested over the skills of another.”

Torgun: “Still not too sure about this.”

We have some awards that are presented to those who have improved upon their own skill level the most. I believe one is called something like MIP – Most Improved Player? This suggests to me that there’s more to the game than being the best, and that competing against oneself already plays a role in our sports.

Torgun: “I find it difficult to think about these concept and competitive sports, because I am so totally disinterested in them all. The closest I can come is in my appreciation of acrobatics and dancing. I would go and watch the Chinese State Circus or the Canadian ‘Cirque du Soleil’ because they are spectacular and beautiful to watch, because they are among the ‘best’ in the world – and to become ‘the best’, you need to be ‘better’ than others, I suppose – competition?”

Somewhere in Africa a tribe plays a game something like soccer. They score goals, but don’t keep track of points. There are no winners, no losers. They play until they get tired. They don’t play this game to impress the women of the clan or to win them over, they don’t play this game to promote some god into favoring them or their hunting bounty, they don’t play this game to prove who is the best at it. They play for the enjoyment and for the exercise and have done so for 100’s of years. This suggest to me that there’s more to game playing than winning or being the best or for the social fame.

Also:

We don’t call the game simply because the other team has won by so many points that there is no way the losing team could catch up in the time left to play. They will still finish the game out. This suggests to me that there is more to the game than just betting out the other team and winning.

Torgun: “As socialists, we emphasise that humans are highly social animals.”

Yes. I don’t think there’s any doubt that we are social animals.

One of the effects of our being this particular social animal is to gain social recognition. (Perhaps it’s even the reason for us seeking validation from another and acknowledgment from our peers?) However, I don’t think that the conceptual meaning of this has to represent competing against another for that recognition in an effort to be better than them over trying to be the best we can be. We certainly give due to those who try hard to improve even when they aren’t the best in the world. This suggests to me that we can receive social recognition without having to be the best.

In other words, social recognition comes in many diverse forms. A smile shown to another while passing them in the busy street is a form of social recognition. And we don’t need to compete for the most smiles or to be the best smiler.

Torgun: “Precisely for that reason, I would argue, it is important to us to be socially recognised. Why do some socialists have such a problem with this? What is wrong with social recognition? We cannot say that we are social animals and at the same time say we do not crave social recognition – it is a contradiction.

There is nothing wrong with it. In fact I agree we need it. I think that’s pretty obvious really and I’m not arguing against it. I am only suggesting that there are many other ways to receive it and many other reasons for giving it, and that it doesn’t have to come from beating out over another or being the best.

Torgun: “Competition for mates – this is a subject which needs a thread of its own, I think. I will need to think about it some more and come back on it.”

You’re probably right. It just sounded so very interesting to me. I’d like to read your views on it and how this competition might be played out in a socialist society. Looking forward to any comments you come up with about this....

Cheers, and Happy Thanksgiving Torgun!

Rebecca

Brian responded:

I am getting confused as to who (Torgun/Rebecca) said what here. But I don’t think it matters much. Someone said:

“Somewhere in Africa a tribe plays a game something like soccer. They score goals, but don’t keep track of points. There are no winners, no losers. They play until they get tired. They don’t play this game to impress the women of the clan or to win them over, they don’t play this game to promote some god into favoring them or their hunting bounty, they don’t play this game to prove who is the best at it”

This is a good point, and when discussing sport we shouldn’t let the media perspective distort the reality, and lose sight of the fact that while the vast majority of sport that is played inside capitalism is competitive in the sense that on an individual or specific basis players are competing to do better than their opponent, it is also the product of a lot of co-operation. The bigger picture is that two people meeting after work for a game of squash are co-operating massively to create this temporary, artificial and well-defined arena for competition.

I play 5-a-side football and am always impressed with how much voluntary co-operation goes into arranging these games. Sure, for 60 minutes play may be physical etc, but by and large anything approaching aggression is tacitly – but severely nonetheless – disapproved of. And this is in the absence of any sort of neutral referee.

For me then sport is an example of human co-operation, and is an example of the exception to the rule ie that humans are immensely co-operative (to the extent that we often overlook this) such that they have to create carefully bounded rules and conventions (whether informally as in the playground or formally as with amateur leagues etc)

Brian

From Torgun, 27/11/05

I am reading Watching the English by Kate Fox, a social anthropologist. It’s a “fun” book about the social rules governing English behaviour, from pub etiquette, to the habit of thanking bus drivers as you get off, to why you should say “sorry” when you bump into somebody even though it wasn’t your fault, to why you should never sit in an English front garden!

Anyway, she has the following to say about football and football hooliganism:

“...You know the well-worn joke about ‘I went to a fight and a football match broke out’? Well, that’s pretty much how football started. The game of football has been associated with violence since its origins in thirteenth century England. Medieval football matches were essentially pitched battles between the young men of rival villages and towns. They involved hundreds of ‘players’, and were often used as opportunities to settle old feuds, personal arguments and land disputes. Some forms of ‘folk-football’ existed in other countries (such as the German Knappen and the Florentine calcio in costume), but the roots of modern football are in these violent English rituals.”

She talks at great length about how socially inhibited the English are, and about how they need ‘props’ in order to instigate social encounters with other people (like their many games, field games and pub games). She says English men, according to social rules, are allowed only three forms of emotion – surprise, anger and triumph – all expressed by the use of expletives!

I am wondering whether one very strong attraction football has to offer is that it is one of the few occasions when men (in this part of the world) are allowed to show strong emotion and bond with a group of people – even hug and kiss other men(!), unthinkable under any other heterosexual circumstances!

Torgun

From Rebecca, 28/11/05

Hey All,

Just thought that I’d add a bit of back-up for my opinion that competition has much to do with the conceptual understanding of the meaning behind the action. It is a short read, but I believe will give as well as support a different perspective, and one that I think is sorely needed, and at the very least given proper consideration.

John Woods says:

I’d like to weigh in on this discussion about competition and cooperation, but I’m going to put a twist on it. I like to tell people that competition is not the opposite of cooperation but simply a particular form of cooperation. When people compete, it requires that they accept and act on certain assumptions about their relationships and how they will interact together, just like cooperation. In other words, they must cooperate to compete.

We have all seen how competitive relationships can be destructive to the individuals who participate in them, whether within a family or an organization. Still, such competition requires tacit (perhaps even unconscious) agreement among the participants on how they will interact with one another. One thing that seems to characterize such destructive relationships is the sense of win-lose. For one person to win, somebody else has to lose and “winning”, no matter by what method, becomes the goal of all. However, such assumptions merely serve to perpetuate this win-lose mentality in such a way that the loser will want to work harder to make the other guy the loser next time. Ultimately, there are no winners here, only people taking actions to enhance their personal egos at the expense of others. Deep down we all know this is a formula for insecurity and unhappiness. In other words, it is a losing approach for all. Thus, I believe that if we operate from the attitude of win-lose, that is, for me to win, you have to lose, this is really a lose-lose proposition for all concerned. It’s not healthy. It leads to all the problems Deming railed against as he urged people to understand the organization as system and to focus on processes and their improvement.

So the question, as Myron Tribus wondered about, is can competition ever be good? My response is that it can be. Perhaps there is a situation that requires extraordinary effort from all the participants working on their own, each one doing his or her best to go faster, be more productive, sell the most, or whatever. In such situations, the goal is to bring out the best in all participants using the resources they have at their disposal. The goal of the situation is not, however, to win for the sake of winning. It is to discover how well people can perform. I suppose the Olympics is the model of such competition or perhaps an architectural competition or an engineering competition. In all cases, participating is less about winning (though we corrupt such competitions to make that the most important thing) than about discovering what human beings are capable of. In this case, setting up a competition can be good and all participants can feel good about being a part of it because it brings out the best in all of us and helps set new standards for what individuals or teams are capable of. This is a win-win approach to competition, undertaken with the right spirit and with those declared the victor having a certain humility and an appreciation for the chance to participate and contribute. And still in all this, the spirit of cooperation and camaraderie among participants is preserved.

However, we should also note that pure cooperation can also be another way to bring out the best in people. Perhaps most often this is the way to bring out the best in people. It gets people communicating openly and sharing information. It recognizes that the success of any person depends on the performance of many other individuals. It gets people working together to figure out how to pool their individual skills to succeed together. It, too, is a win-win approach to getting things done.

So in the end, we all need each other and we all work together, whether cooperatively or competitively. In appreciating this, we may adopt the mode that is best suited to the situation in which we find ourselves. But in making this selection, never make “winning” your goal. Rather, make performing your goal. Make bringing out the best in everyone your goal. Make serving others your goal. Be humble when you do well and learn from the experience so you can get still better. If you have this attitude and take this approach, you can be assured that good things will happen. And if you take an approach that emphasizes win-lose, you can be sure that in the long haul there will only be losers.

Cheers, Rebecca

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