Is the American need to have winners & losers in every human activity

the root cause of our problems? That competitiveness infects our children from day one in the crib and they are unable to cooperate without tagging everyone as a winner or loser. This also causes us to become cheerleaders for the winners and booers of the losers. That may explain why, even though people sensed that Bush had stolen the elections in Florida, they admired the way he was willing to do anything to be a winner. This is also why they support the war on Iraq in spite of the deceptions because a winner does whatever it takes, right?

As for the rest of us,mindless cheerleading for a winner, when you do not have a direct stake, has become a national pastime.If all else fails to arouse us, there is always Britney or Anne or whoever happens to be the sex kitten du jour.

We like winners.We hate losers.We want people who are willing to do anything to succeed.That applies to our studies at schools,our sports,our need for wars every so often to "charge our batteries, so to speak".We are in short a predatory nation that other nations have to be afraid of.

Americans simply do not believe in chance when it comes to lifestyle. Anyone who isn't rich, happy, and healthy is assumed to be "suffering the consequences" of a lack of Personal Responsibility™. You can even regularly see this cruel philosophy at work here on DU.

Failure is from personal weakness, and its suffering is a punishment from God (or Consequence, which replaces God in the secular world).

--p!

weight than those of someone less successful.Money is the measure of success.If you don't have it,you are a loser.

If there is no external enemy, this country will turn on itself. There's no better example of that than what happened to Clinton during his Years Of No War.

Somewhere in the Reagan years, the model of the Gracious Winner was thrown out. It was no longer enough to simply have won. Suddenly, the Winner (to be a REAL man) had to thump his chest and spray spit upon his vanquished foe while yelling "IN YOUR FACE, LOSER!"

Part of this is Limbaugh's "fault" (shared with the millions of morans who listen to him daily) for faithfully harping on the Reagan doctrine of it being okay to hate certain groups. Part of it comes from the Murkin obsession with Sports and Spectacle. Victory is not enough anymore; Ritual Humiliation is required, as a modern substitute for killing the losing Gladiator. It's Bread and Circuses as surely as it was in Rome.

To answer your question: is the need to have winners and losers the root of our problem? Hell if I know, but it certainly is the magnifying glass that's used to fry the ants.

"If someone's better'n yew, either pretend they ain't there or SHEWT 'em . . . heh heh heh."

Some of society's "winners" are it's biggest losers. Like the asswipes running this country, for example.

I was in this huge tent, where different tribes were all playing
drums together. It seemed some sort of contest, but rather it was a
contest that had no winner. I recall at the time thinking, "this
doesn't make sense." How could a contest not have a winner? Yet it
seemed all the players were in very very good spirits to be playing
together under one tent roof. There is much the white man never
learned from the american natives he killed... even today.

Each will play their best licks, someone will answer back with their best licks, somebody else will come in and top the first two and around it will go all evening with everybody within earshot grinning until their faces hurt!

:bounce:

of its emphasis on cooperation rather than competition as the basic trait that is encouraged. The striking example of this occurred when, Stefan Edberg, the great tennis player played a match against Jimmy Connors at the U.S. Open, and lost.The CBS reporter on the sidelines asked Stefan" How do you feel about losing?".Edberg replied, "this is only a game.There are many more important things in life besides tennis". That completely floored the numbskull who was dumbstruck by the response.She could not dismiss Edberg because he was a champion in his own right, but not of the chest thumping Jimmy Connors variety.That scene told me all I wanted to know about our national pathology that wreaks havoc on everyone.

"the fiercely equalitarian Norwegians" is a phrase i have read.

PS the bike racer from tx, armstrong, once left the race to help a competitor who fell off a steep mt side during a race.
That's why i like him.

Not anymore. I am not sure when it changed so drastically or if it has been gradual. But this is why civil rights has stalled and the "war on poverty" has been abandoned. We can thank people like Rush and the other hate mouthpieces partially. Bullying and selfishness are in, humility and sharing are out.

imperative. If it wasn't for that our corporations would have been content to stay home keep our jobs here and continue to prosper.But that American disease makes anyone going to India a winner and the rest losers in the great game of Profit Maximization. I am sure that ancient societies like India that were never competitive are now going to be infected with our virus and never will be the same again.

folks with that type of personality buy into ranking.

another term, the one used by Freud, is "anal-sadistic". Anal just means greedy.. anal-retentive.
Sadistic refers to sadomasochism, or love of pain .
greed-sadism sums it up more clearly.

see Adorno's book ... the authoritarian personality.. for the landmark study of it in nazis.

PS yes, ranking all the time is our flaw. It is why i never watch Reality tv. Or game shows.
Co-operation is vastly superior as a lifestyle. Co-ops, in our economy, are vastly superior... they run refineries {see McPherson KS refinery website}, electric power plants {rural electreic co ops}, auto parts factories {Mondragon Spain, where they also manufacture most everything else as well} , Credit Unions .. which replace banks.. and Insurance co ops, .. anything, really. Not just groceries anymore.

PS cooperative sports do exist.. better than the tribal wars called football and suchlike.

PS we have to begin with kids not being channeled into competive schools.. rather, into Summerhill style ones. No grades. Not into sports that bash others. Have to get schools free of bullies, a related cause of admiring/fearing a ranking person. Summerhill itself failed to get rid of bullies, i read. Odd.

today, our schools are rife with ranking. Even the Jacees are in there with their perveted courses on "economics", their style.

Please help me improve the language.

Avoid the unclear term egalitarian, and use the better term equalitarian.

both are correct, and mean the same thing. But my choice, is the one which is clear as to what it means. this helps the young understand our idea right off the bat, and no need to ask "what does that mean".

BTW, use "financial", not the hissing RW term, 'fiscal".

together, or that in order to feel good someone else does not have to feel bad, we would begin to change the society that produces bullies and haters. This is how we are raising our kids in our house--and guess what--they are the ones their age mates come to for advice and comfort. Hmmm...

Fear is the natural and overwhelming emotion in us all, the fear of "The Other" manifested in so many ways (I don't look right, I don't fit in, I won't get my share, etc.) Therefore, fear is easy. And we have hundreds of ways to mask it, such as acquisition of things, taking drugs or drink, overeating, doing bad relationships, and so on.

Just as fear is easy, love is hard. Love, in my opinion, simply means finding one's true self as shared with others, and identifying with that as reality, rather than with the apparent differences and fears. It's what Jesus taught, and what most spiritual traditions seek to explain.

"Winners" and "losers," by this reasoning don't really exist. We are all winners and losers by turns and in different ways. The American right wing has succeeded only in pointing us toward the easy thing, Fear of the Other, and away from the hard thing, Love of the True Self and merging with the Other (which is really not "other" at all.)

I don't think it's an exclusive American process (the masses have been led by fearmongers since the beginning of time), but our right wingers have mounted a successful effort and used modern technology in clever ways to wage an unusually focused campaign.

excerpted from his book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People":

o Win/Win
o Lose/Lose
o Win/Lose
o Win
o Lose/Win
o Win/Win or No Deal

Win/Win - is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win/Win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial, mutually satisfying.

Win/Lose - "If I win, you lose". Win/Lose is the authoritarian approach: "I get my way; you don't get yours." Win/Lose people are prone to use position, power, credentials, possessions, or personality to get their way.

Lose/Win - "Go ahead. Have your way with me." "Step on me again. Everybody does." Lose/Win is worse than Win/Lose because it has no standards - no demands, no expectations, no vision. People who think Lose/Win are usually quick to please or appease. They seek strength from popularity or acceptance. They have little courage to express their own feelings and convictions and are easily intimated by the ego strength of others. "I lose, you win"

Lose/Lose - Both will lose. Both will become vindictive and want to "get back" or "get even," blind to the fact that murder is suicide, that revenge is a two-edged sword. Lose/Lose is the philosophy of the person without inner direction who is miserable and thinks everyone else should be too. "If nobody ever wins, perhaps being a loswer isn't so bad".

Win - People with the Win mentality don't necessarily want someone else to lose. That's irrelevant. What matters is that they get what they want. A person with the Win mentality thinks in terms of securing his own ends - and leaving it to others to secure theirs.

Win/Win or No Deal - No Deal basically means that if we can't find a solution that would benefit us both (Win/Win), we agree to disagree agreeably or "No Deal".

-------------

I thought I would throw this in here b/c he seems to have thought this subject out pretty well.

reality has nothing to substantiate it. We're emotion addicts, and can quite easily dismiss any part of reality, like, dead soldiers, in order to get our good feeling fix. Pathetic race, we humans.