Misconceptions Around Competitiveness

Misconceptions Around Competitiveness

    Mentioning it exclusively in individual terms, competitiveness can be referred to as an individual behaviour either towards a specific goal or as a general form of behaviour towards the outside world. There are no ethical problems with being competitive as long as a person strives to do the best by achieving something, being aware that the people around them can perform better, or assuming that perhaps they are not yet ready for the goal they want. Notwithstanding, being competitive can be a problem if one loses the perspective mentioned above. Part of that comes from messages sent by agents who lurk around the wildest capitalism. An example of this could be the books and talks that became popular at the beginning of this century about self-help to be a successful person. In those books and talks, there were messages like “If you want 10, go for 20”, or "Defeat is not an option; the only thing that matters is winning; who wants to be a loser?" that are toxic and can lead people to lose their way and begin to see other people as mere adversaries who must be defeated instead of human beings with feelings that can be hurt. They can also lead people to reduce the meaning of life to mere competition, losing the perspective that life is more than that. On the other hand, although the ontological meaning of being competitive implies competing with someone who has the same objective of ultimately winning or being surpassed by another, is that really what it is about? Yes, indeed, but let's put aside the term “competitiveness” for a moment and focus on the individual skills that one must have to be competitive that have been achieved through an individual process. Let's make a few assumptions with a quick construction using a simplistic premise in which I use the term "filter" as the process in which humans decode information from the outside world in a genuine way, just to set up the background. Each one of us has a cognitive filter through which everything we perceive from the outside world is filtered and decoded in a genuine way, so our experiences throughout life—fears, intrinsic survival skills, enjoyment, etc.—have partly shaped this filter, as I assume that the other percentage of this shaping is innate; we already have it when we get born. That would help explain how two people who are born in the same conditions, environments, and social contexts can be completely different from each other. Therefore, this shaped filter has a direct influence on our actions and, consequently, on the development of our skills, so each person perceives things differently (maybe slightly, maybe intensely); therefore, our skills are genuinely different from each other.

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Returning to the beginning of this article, in which I proposed competitiveness as a behavior that could be taken in the wrong way, my approach is that although circumstances lead people to compete with others for the same objective, in the end it is not about overcoming or being surpassed by someone but rather having better specific skills at a specific time for a specific objective, which, as a person, does not imply being better or worse, nor being a winner or a loser or other toxic messages that have been spread through for agents with dubious objectives. Therefore, there is no one to defeat, and there is no reason to be afraid of being defeated and feeling like a loser since each person has genuine abilities. It's about what skills best fit a specific goal at a specific time.

 

Antoni Font 15/09/2023 (revised 22/09/2023), Aberdeen.

Is it really their opposite will?

 Is it really their opposite will?

Peter, Sharon, and Jack were Catalan independence supporters who enjoyed the Basque movement during the 80s and 90s, which is why, whenever they could, they attended the popular festivals in Donostia, Gasteiz, Irunea, Bilbao, etc., normally called "Semana Grande". They were more of the radical left side in politics, and they used to go through the streets of the old town where there were popular pubs where people with similar ways of thinking enjoyed the parties, drinking, singing, laughing, arguing, taking drugs, well, there was a bit of everything. So one year in the mid-90s, they were on their last day of vacation in Donostia. On this day, there was an annual event called "Salve" that was commanded by Spanish unionists. This event ran through the streets of Donostia. It was a provocative event; there used to be incidents between the protesters against that event and the police forces that protected it. So, after Peter, Emile, and Jack had lunch, they started an argument. Peter wanted to go to protest against the unionist event, while Sharon and Jack didn't want to risk missing the train back home because the police arrested them. At this time, Peter got angry and went to the train station. It didn't make sense for him to be in the old town and leave before the demonstration started just because they didn't want to take risks. On the other hand, Sharon and Jack saw nothing wrong with staying there for a while instead of spending the last hours of their vacation cooped up in the station bar. In the end, Peter met two girls from Barcelona at the station bar. They enjoyed the afternoon together, drinking and sharing experiences. Sharon and Jack did not appear at the station, so Peter went to Barcelona without knowing anything about his friends. At that time, there were still no mobile phones, so there was little Peter could do. Even so, before the departure of the train, Peter had the dilemma: what should he do? Walking the streets looking for them? What if they catch the next train while he looks for them? In the end, they were adults, and Peter had no way of doing anything that would really produce satisfying results. Peter was right; the next day the three of them met in their small town, and Sharon and Jack explained how, unintentionally, they were abducted towards the manifestation where they suddenly found themselves on the front line of the conflict where the police were shooting rubber bullets at them. Sharot was able to catch a ball that she kept as a battle trophy. Many, many years later, Peter is still thinking about how willingness and reality can be in an opposite way many times; at the end, the circumstances command us, despite our willingness. So, those who wanted not to take a risk were at risk, and those who wanted the risk got free.

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Well, could it be a double psychological effect? Maybe Sharon and Jack didn't dare admit that they wanted to see the conflict, and this served as an excuse for Peter to avoid it.

Who knows?

 

Antoni Font 29/08/2023, Aberdeen.

Breaking the loop of evil

 Breaking the evil's loop

    There are moments when people behave as if they are under a spell—bewitched, possessed, or caught in a mental shift that drives them to act in a deterministic way. This kind of behavior, which isn't necessarily negative, can become a vicious cycle that traps a person in a loop of harmful actions, one from which they cannot escape by their own free will, especially when influenced by negative circumstances.

This reminds me of an experience I had during my mandatory military service aboard an aircraft carrier in 1993. Living with a group of young people in such close quarters, we faced constant interpersonal challenges that needed to be resolved, as there was no escape when we were offshore. In our living area, there were three cramped rooms, each with bunk beds on either side and six lockers. The space was claustrophobic, and neither the bedrooms nor the narrow corridors could accommodate two people walking side by side; we had to move in single file, at least until reaching the main corridor. Just next to these quarters was a small common area with a sofa, a table, and a TV.

One day, two colleagues, Paul and John, got into an argument about a portable radio. I don’t recall the exact reason for their disagreement, and truthfully, I didn’t understand it at the time. But both were determined to defend their position, no matter the cost. Neither could see that their argument was going nowhere. They were locked in an endless cycle of conflict, unable to break free.

Their heated exchange was disturbing the others in the common room, and I was one of them. As the argument dragged on with no end in sight, our friend Steve stood up, walked over to the radio, and lifted it with the clear intention of throwing it to the floor to break it. At that moment, everything seemed to happen in a blur. Paul and John quickly intervened, stopping Steve from breaking the radio, but Steve was furious and still intent on destroying it. In the end, he didn’t break the radio. Paul and John pleaded with him, and after a tense negotiation, Steve reluctantly agreed to let it go, expressing how foolish and ridiculous their fight had been.

In the end, it took a third person—Steve—to break the loop of anger and absurdity. And what’s worse, it took an extreme action—destroying the radio—to stop them, because words alone couldn’t intervene in their spiral.

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But this "loop of evil" can be far more destructive than a simple argument. In this memory, it only affected two people and the immediate environment around them. But what happens if such a loop is exploited by those in power? The "evil loop" is a fundamental weakness of human nature, and like any weakness, it can be manipulated with disastrous results. Through toxic rhetoric, populism, post-truths, and lies, powerful figures can stoke anger and hatred, creating division between groups, populations, or even entire societies.

I’m pausing here because it’s difficult to provide examples without oversimplifying complex issues. But I often find myself wishing that, in those critical moments when harmful cycles are taking hold, there could be someone like Steve—someone who could intervene and break the loop, just as he did in 1993.

 

Antoni Font 06/04/2023, Aberdeen.