xorbie

Comptetion is something I have been thinking about for a while. When people describe "the good life," they generally speak about harmony, peace, etc. However, I believe that people require competition, tension and stress in their life, although to varying degrees for different people.

In order to live a good life, people need to realize that life is a lot like, say, basketball. First and foremost, an intense love of the game, respect for the game and knowledge of the game is necessary. People who are apathetic towards basketball obviously don't perform too well, and the same goes for life... when people speak of "a passion for living" it is always a good thing. Thus, in order for people to live a good life, they need to revere, understand and love life itself (not just their own, but the very concept).

"In comptetition, there is inevitably a winner and a loser." FALSE! It is very important in basketball to want to win, but when people play with others who all love, respect and cherish the game, everyone enjoys it. Competing is seen as inherently good. This can even mean competing with oneself, which people do all the time to improve themselves by pushing themselves to always go a little farther.

Comptetion is also very helpful in everyday life in the mundane tasks we do. Recently, I had to spend an hour collating papers with my brother. VERY boring stuff indeed, but the time flew by when we starting a little competition to see who could do it better.

Another good side effect of people have this "competitive fire" for life is that for someone who reveres the competition itself, fairness and equality is of upmost importance. I highly doubt Micheal Jordan would want to go 1v1 with someone in a wheelchair. Thus, people who have this competitive fire would want to make sure that everyone starts out with an equal chance, and would also not cheat or lie out of reverence for life itself.

If you agree with some of all of this, think it is pure bull or wish for me to explain better any of this (which would be understandable), please comment.

jpbrooks

This idea seems related to the concept of "Flow" in Psychology.

I agree that this may be one "component" of the "good" life, but it is not the only thing that is valued by humans. Humans value many different kinds of things as significant "components" of a "good" life and that is apparently why it is so hard to arrive at a definition for the term "good life".
Your position seems to be more about what people require than what they personally desire. Focusing on needs rather than wants may help to narrow down the list of possible alternative interpretations of the "good life", but it is difficult to see how a definition of the "good life" that leaves out desires could be adequate.

xorbie

Huh? Maybe I just did not represent my idea well at all (not unlikely by the way, as I don't even have it well sorted out in my head), but this is all about desires. The competive spirit is what we NEED so that we can achieve what we DESIRE. Moreover, it can make things desireable that we need but would not otherwise want to desire (i.e. "ok kids, time to clean your room" - might as well race to see who can do it fastest )

Pyrrho

Okay, since you asked for it, I think it is complete bull. Some people enjoy competition, but not everyone does, nor is it necessary to achieve what one desires in life (unless one desires competition, which some seem to, while others do not).

And life is not like basketball. Life is not a game. There is no set objective in life, as there is in most games (such as basketball). Though it is a rather trite saying, basically, life is what you make of it.

xorbie

I want to thank both of you for forcing me to articulate my ideas more accuratly.

The thought that not everyone enjoys comptetition has obviously occured to me before, but I don't believe this nullify's me theory. To use the admitadly imperfect basketball analogy again, someone who is not competitive about the game will not win, nor will enjoy it. However, someone who is competitive will enjoy the game and will often win. No maybe the word I am looking for is not competitive, but it seems it lies somwhere between "competitive" and "passionate."

Of course life is not a game in the tradional sense, but I do think that living a "good life" IS an objective. Unfortunatly, not everyone can agree about what the good life, and I basically am trying to find a way to create a philosophical theory that encompasses the good life and the good society without really defining what either state looks like, but rather how they would be reached.

jpbrooks

You're welcome! Of course, I am still convinced that you have discovered a necessary but insufficient condition for the "good life".

I'll be back later.

xorbie

Hmm... I am not really sure what it is that I have discovered, because I still need to organize it in my mind. I really need to get around to sorting it out, but I can't seem to do it myself. What does help is other people pointing out flaws (my thanks again).

So basically, what (I believe) I have is the necessary condition for the good life and the good society. Assuming a lack of specific knowledge about what the good life and the good society actually are (which I have, and which I believe most have), I think this helps a lot. The point is that people who are apathetic towards life cannot live the good life. I think I should look into actually reading some of Nietzsche's work, because he speaks of the will to power. My theory is not so much about the will to power, but it is similiar in that it attempts to take something that seems pretty Objectivist and self-centered (competition) and show how it can lead to a more selfless person.

One important thing to notice is that I do not in any way advocate living a life in which you need to win everything and are upset whenever someone does anything better than you. I advocate a life in which people see competition as fundamentally good. Of course, this is not to say that people need to always be competing. However, I think we can see in many fields how important competition is. Just look at evolution or economics. Moreover, competition between ideas is the only way science ever progresses.

In addition, I think one of the most important things in life is honor and dignity. In good competition, honor and dignity are always preserved. Both (or all) competitors are aplauded for their efforts. When I compete withsome, be it in chess, debate, sports or whatever, I always try to respect them. How is this accomplished? By respecting and dignifying the competition itself. Even if I don't like the person who I am competiting with, I respect whatever I am doing enough that I will not act harmfully.

In life, it would be nice if we could all just love each other and get along. Love thy enemy, love thyself, love thy neighbor. Well it gets kinda hard. That is why I think it should just be like so: "Love life, respect life, dignify love." From this, all else stems. People who respect and dignify competition itself (the idea, not any specific ones) are less likely to cheat and more likely to seek equality.

Well this is by no means complete, but hopefully it is clearer than before (though I know it needs more work).

Pyrrho

Being apathetic about life is NOT the opposite of being competitive. One can relish life without desiring to "win" any competition with anyone else. Indeed, there is no necessary conflict between two people both leading a good life. But two people, one-on-one in basketball, cannot both win.

The opposite of "competitive" is "cooperative", not "apathetic". (The opposite of "apathetic" is "enthusiastic" or "passionate".)

A better analogy than basketball for leading a good life, in my opinion, is sex. Sex is best when everyone involved tries to help everyone else be as successful as possible. The best sex is essentially cooperative, not competitive. (Of course, this is merely an analogy, not something exactly the same as leading a good life.)

Consider, for example, people living on the streets. If life is viewed as a competition, then that is, if one is rich, a good thing, as it shows one has been more successful than others, in a more complete and absolute way than if everyone else had a decent life. But only a horrible person regards it as good that others don't have a home, and no decent person can contemplate homelessness with anything describable as pleasure. To live an ideal life, others must also live well, as any decent human has feelings of compassion for others.



Another problem with what you are saying is that, in fact, with people competing, they often want to win at all costs. This means that they are perfectly willing to cheat. This happens in athletic competitions frequently, or would if there were not people trying to stop others from cheating. It also happens in life, with companies using underhanded means to achieve greater wealth. If you like working only 8 hours a day instead of 12, and if you like working 5 days a week instead of 7, if you like being paid a little better than starvation wages (literally), and if you like that there is some attempt at providing safety in the workplace, then you are enjoying things that run counter to those things selected by companies driven by competitive impulses. The labor movement has been partially successful in preventing such abuses of others by greedy rich people who have no compassion for their workers.

Competition is not essentially a good thing. It is sometimes useful, but it just as often, if not more often, leads to very bad things.


Your previous post:

I believe you would do well to go with "passionate" instead of "competitive". But, of course, whether passion is good or bad depends entirely upon the object of one's passion. One may be passionate about Beethoven, or one may be passionate about killing people. The two are not on an equal footing.

This leads us directly to your acknowledgement that people do not agree about what the "good life" is. This makes life very unlike basketball, because the object of the game is explicit in the rules. If the object of life were equally clear, your analogy might be a little better.

Here are a couple of links to sites describing the good life. Although not everyone agrees on such things, much of what is said at these sites is at least a part of what most people seem to regard as being necessary for a good life:

www.atomic-swerve.net/tpg

www.epicurus.net

xorbie

I do recognize that competition an lead to bad things. But this is when winning itself is seen as more inherently good, or as the only good, and competing itself takes a back seat. This is the reason why I don't like the term competitive, but I still find a word like passionate to be far to vague to actually describe what I want to talk about. I am NOT talking about the characteristic of people willing to do anything to win. Maybe competitors is a better word, I don't know. In any case, the characteristic I am looking for is people who respect competition, the concept itself and respect it to a degree that they would be unwilling to destroy its sanctity by cheating. Moreover, any such person would be devoted to providing equality for all people, because all good competition is based on equality. Of course, this good-competitiveness is by no means the only characteristic necessary to live a good life, but I thnk it is an underplayed and often ignored one.

Also, with regards to cooperation, I agree that it too is necssary. However, in many cases were cooperation is called for, competition would better serve the parties involved.