No Contest Read Free Page B

by reviewing the relevant evidence from such diverse fields as education, social psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis, leisure studies, evolutionary biology, and cultural anthropology. Contributions from philosophy and literature will be included for good measure. Investigating a topic like competition really seems to require this kind of interdisciplinary approach; the territorial inclinations of most scholars have often limited their effectiveness at exploring this and other important questions. These questions sprawl rudely across the boundaries that divide academic specialties.
    Beginning with a definition of terms, as I have done, is fairly standard. But in this case, being clear about what competition means not only helps to keep the issue in sharper focus; it actually forms the basis of a critique. Strip away all the assumptions about what competition is supposed to do, all the claims in its behalf that we accept and repeat reflexively. What you have left is the essence of the concept: mutually exclusive goal attainment (MEGA). One person succeeds only if another does not. From this uncluttered perspective, it seems clear right away that something is drastically wrong with such an arrangement. How can we do our best when we are spending our energies trying to make others lose—and fearing that they will make us lose? Can this sort of struggle really be the best way to have a good time? What happens to our self-esteem when it becomes dependent on how much better we do than the next person? Most striking of all is the impact of this arrangement on human relationship: a structural incentive to see other people Jose cannot help but drive a wedge between us and invite hostility.
    Again, all of these conclusions seem to flow from the very nature of competition. As it happens, they also are corroborated by the evidence—what we see around us and what scores of studies have been finding. One may not be inclined to consider this evidence, though, until the elemental question has been asked: What do we
mean
when we speak of competing?
    The more closely I have examined the topic, the more firmly I have become convinced that competition is an inherently undesirable arrangement, that the phrase
healthy competition
is actually a contradiction in terms. This is nothing short of heresy because only two positions on the question are normally recognized: enthusiastic support and qualified support. Broadly speaking, the former can be called the conservative position and the latter, liberal. Conservatives champion competition of all kinds, often coming close to Lombardi’s dictum about winning’s being the only thing. Liberals are typically more restrained, granting that
excessive
competition is to be avoided and lamenting that our culture now encourages winning at all costs. Competition itself, however, if it is kept in its “proper perspective,” can be productive, enjoyable, stimulating, and so on.
    The latter is the view of most of the critics of competition whom I will be quoting throughout this book. It seems to me, however, that they are unwilling to see their intuitions—and, in some cases, their data—through to their logical conclusion. Perhaps this is because these writers assume that they would lose all credibility if they took the extreme position that competition simply makes no sense, and thus they feel compelled to say that the problem is not with competition, per se, but only with the
way
we compete or the
extent
of our competitiveness. Despite the fact that such moderation confers respectability, my conviction that the problem lies with competition itself (and that the extent of this problem is in direct proportion to the degree of competitiveness in a given activity) has been strengthened as I have looked at each of the spheres where it appears. I believe the case against competition is so compelling that parenthetical qualifications to the effect that competing can sometimes be