Competition, Paranoia, and Cannibalism


In a feverishness of a action, team-work simply slides into paranoia. The hunt for vital advantage is intoxicating. It summons adult unusual puncture resources secure in presence physiology. Under stress, competitors can feel “high” a approach soldiers knowledge conflict trance, with discontinued fear and attraction to pain. In such a state bounds blur. As we go all-out opposite opponents, we can be competing with yourself, perplexing to siphon adult that winning additional detonate of fighting spirit. Next thing we know, foe becomes “do-or-die” and paranoia replaces cooperation.

You can cruise of enlightenment (“good sportsmanship”) as a record for handling a tie between foe and paranoia. Rules and referees work to umpire a feedback loops that daub into rage. But aroused foe can turn a informative style, with fans deliberately looking for a possibility to run amok. On a job, a “loser” upheld over or dismissed “goes postal” and shoots adult a office. Thrilled by a marvellous headlines, a copycat torpedo tries to mangle a record. In a corporate military, your paycheck literally depends on gripping adult an arms “race” and a arrogance that opposition nations are always wannabe “enemies.” In politics nobody blinks during a thought of “competitive bridgehead states” and “attack” ads.

In a enlightenment that prizes do-or-die aspiration and snarls during regulations, it seems healthy for assault to be sublimated in competition. You can forget that during bottom, winning and losing are compared with presence and death 

In such an atmosphere we might be so used to foe that we might not even comprehend that you’re held adult in it. You’re only teasing or being maudlin or “going for it.” To “win” a boyfriend, a high propagandize child posts blue-ribbon bare snapshots of herself that go viral. Lovers review themselves and their partners to rivals and ideals, and worry about “performance.” Invisible foe can mangle adult relationships, with copiousness of event for a adore of your life to turn a wordless counter or, with a assistance of a divorce lawyer, your enemy. 

The paranoid side of foe helps to explain some weird anomalies. California, for example, has over a third of immature black males in some proviso of a probity system, many detained for pacifist drug offenses. You can indicate to racism, though injustice is in partial a paranoid greeting to foe for status, sex, jobs, and not least, self-esteem. The probity complement is holding opposition males—and their undone energy—out of circulation.

Or cruise a quarrel over supervision debt. If a debt is during predicament levels, as radical conservatives insist, aloft taxes could compensate it down. But they frustrate during taxes, perfectionist spending cuts instead, generally in amicable reserve net programs. In an epoch of “free market” and Ayn Rand ideology, they trust they’re “producers” competing with a 47% of a republic they tag “takers”—parasites and gratification cheats. Supposedly they opinion for Obama since he gives them “stuff” such as medical coverage and food stamps.

 The underlying thesis is Social Darwinism. It assumes that expansion advances by deadly competition, ignoring a existence of independence and symbiosis. Only a fittest survive. Winners live, losers die. If we support “takers,” we inspire deadly debility in a physique politic. To be a winner, it helps to have a executive energy to set salaries. You remember a aged fender sticker:

MORE MONEY MAKES THE RICH WORK HARDER

LESS MONEY MAKES THE POOR WORK HARDER

The 47% thesis is paranoid insofar as it imagines half a republic as a threat, exaggerating whatever intrigue there is and ignoring tangible needs. It views a foe between abounding and bad not as category warfare, though as just remodel of “entitlements.” The position is also paranoid inasmuch as conservatives never curb a magisterial corporate troops budget, that pays for tangible crusade opposite diseased rivals. For good measure, a debt fighters omit a new widespread of corporate crime, that has given us such colorful coinages as “banksters” and “too large to jail.”  

It’s tricky, since once you’re a winner, we can hook a manners of good sportsmanship in your favor. Trying to keep up, your opponents will follow suit, lifting a foe to a new turn that’s expected to breed nonetheless another level, so that foe becomes a funhouse of crazy mirrors.

 But that’s not all.

 The turn of a blade is this: heated foe kills competition. “Free market” doctrine is absurd, for example, since business drives toward monopoly. It’s a house and a trainer essay to be “last male standing.” They combine resources during a top, though have kept salary low for decades. Today they’re fighting a arise in a smallest salary that still wouldn’t be adequate to live on. For them, it’s a contest. Keeping employees during presence salary in a time of high stagnation is a good gaming strategy. It keeps them sealed in, alone, unable to compete. But whoa. Labor unions can pattern adequate strength to bargain. Hence a paranoia about unions and a relentless “free market” integrity to kill them off.

 What can we expect? Even God likes monopoly. He outcast a rival angel Satan to Hell. When Adam and Eve attempted to be “as gods,” meaningful good and evil, a vast Dad punished everybody who will ever exist with death, work, and a tiny tellurian pelvis that creates birth unpleasant for women. As Abel found out, even his hermit Cain elite monopoly. 

Still, like individualism and presence of a fittest, corner has some drawbacks. The final male station is a cannibal, who has no rivals left, though also no groceries, and no fun on Saturday night. In today’s chronicle of this, a tip 1% have swallowed so most of everybody’s income that consumers can no longer buy adequate to keep a economy from stalling.

Trading, by contrast, requires talented sympathy. To make a understanding we have to be means to suppose what others wish and value. Trading has always combined manners and rituals, since both parties need to feel confident or somebody gets hurt.

Competition is a lizard in that Eden. It promises ultimate confidence and nonetheless it’s inherently unstable. It’s like gripping a gun—the energy to kill—in your dresser drawer. It promises poise and survival, though it’s most some-more expected to broach hideous word statistics.

 Remember a aged saying: You can take a cannibal out of a village, though we can’t take a encampment out of a cannibal.

 

1. We cruise of paranoia as a disorder, even when we use it casually. Here’s The World Health Organization‘s ICD-10 shopping list of symptoms. Three of some-more of these consecrate what WHO calls paranoid personality: 

Tags:
american culture, civility, meridian change, copycat killer, drones, puncture resources, fighting spirit, good sportsmanship, gun sales, accessible tool, paranoia, paycheck, square of a puzzle, referees, marvellous headlines, state boundaries, vital advantage, summons, presence physiology, group spirit

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • email
  • StumbleUpon
  • Delicious
  • Google Reader
  • LinkedIn
  • BlinkList
  • Digg
  • Google Bookmarks
  • HackerNews
  • Posterous
  • Reddit
  • Sphinn
  • Tumblr
  • Tumblr
  • Tumblr