What are Competition and Cooperation?
In order to adequately condemn competition (which is honestly my intention) and demonstrate the advantage of cooperation, I must first take the time to define and explain the two opposing ideas. Competition, technically stated, is striving to outdo another. Put another way, it is the attempt to accomplish something at the expense of others, or in such a way as to make it impossible for another to accomplish the same thing. The bluntest, and most unattractive manner in which to say this is that my success requires your failure. This is what Alfie Kohn calls Mutually Exclusive Goal Attainment, MEGA[1]. Put this way, competition doesn’t sound as healthy as it’s cracked up to be. It is trying to do something specifically so that others cannot. It being better (often at any cost) than everyone else. It is proving to oneself, if not to anyone else, that the world is beneath them- if only in one particular circumstance. It is constant, it is pervasive, and it is the American way. Okay, I’ll r
