Competition vs co-operation

One seeks to undermine team members; the other seeks to promote them.

We all know the stregths and weaknesses of competition from socially compulsory schooling. By setting low goals, the system damages those who easily achieve and those who for whatever reason, do not attain that goal. Such schooling is to turn out Betas, not Alphas. In fact, it damages Alphas, who frequently drop out. For as long as the system considers we have a surplus of Alphas, those who fail are left to languish and in misery, sometimes. The system does not care.

Co-operation is left to those who seek out the failures and rehabilitate them. Those who succeed at the competitive system do not want to recognize many truths about the system as it will unsettle them. They are in denial. Those who hijack the system, therefore are safe until a new paradigm arrives.

This is one of the best things about Australia. As anyone who follows sports will be aware, we are the most competitive nation on earth. But we also for the moment, recognize that the country in which we find our cities is very inhospitable and requires co-opeeration in order to survive. The acadamies for sport are very co-operative and the spirit of competition is less mean than in Ireland or England. England is one of the overcrowded countries, where like Japan, competition is ferocious, due to a mismatch of population and land, artificially induced by parks and areas which are preserved. Ireland is underpopulated, but seems to have some force at work that denies co-operation as a social objective.