I know I have at least discussed these examples with Howard at one time or another:
Whether you SEE cooperation or competition happening is a function of your level of analysis. Ex: Sports teams compete on the playing field, but they cooperate to maintain the sport itself (social interest, labor laws, etc.) The same thing happens in biology: Species find niches to occupy, precisely so that they can avoid competing with other species, nevertheless species compete for some resources, but cooperate to maintain the stability of the ecosystem as a whole. And then there's a final example that Howard and I are fond of: Rhizomatic fungi on the roots of trees. Most kinds of symbiosis are difficult to fit into a compete/cooperate metaphor, primarily because it's awkard to say that there is competition occurring for a resource, when that resource didn't really even exist until after symbiogenesis. Cooperation can make new resources available that were essentially invisible beforehand, and thus spur competition in that new frontier. cheers -p On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Andrea Strimling <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks, John, good point. I like your dance lead role metaphor. > > Best, > > Andrea > > On Mar 9, 2009, at 1:31 PM, John Bunzl wrote: > >> >> "Andrea Strimling" <[email protected]> wrote: >> To: <[email protected]> >> Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 5:07 PM >> Subject: Re: Arguments against privileging the competition narrative >> >> >>> >>> Hello all, >>> >>> This reminds me of Elise Boulding's work, especially her last book, >>> published at age 80, "Culture of Peace." She argues that history is >>> generally written as a sequences of wars, conflicts, invasions, >>> conquests, etc., but that history could just as easily be written as >>> the history of peaceful coexistence to nonviolent conflict resolution >>> to other related episodes in human history. Rather than refute the >>> prevailing approach, she focuses on creating an alternative that >>> illuminates cooperation. Elise is the wife of the late Kenneth >>> Boulding, and a highly-recognized scholar and peace activist - >>> nominated for Nobel some years ago. >>> >>> Andrea >>> >> >> Thanks for the tip, Andrea - I'll check it out. >> >> Another aproach to human history is the evolutionary approach by >> which it >> can be mapped, broadly, as the evolution of ever-larger scales of >> cooperative social units with competition actually driving the >> process. So, >> broadly, there's been an evolution from families to tribes to Middle >> Age >> small states to nation-states to, most recently, supra-national >> organisations such as the EU. And paradoxically the driver for these >> ever-larger social units was not cooperation but competition. >> >> Competition between families became so destructive that at a certain >> critical point it became in the common interest to become tribes. >> Competition between tribes in turn made it in the common interest to >> become >> small states and so on. >> >> Seen in this light, competition and cooperation perform a kind of >> interconnected dance with each playing the lead role at the >> appropriate >> time/circumstance. >> >> Obviously, this only makes any sense taking the broadest overview of >> history >> and there are doubtless many reversals or contradictions the closer >> in you >> look. But broadly, to me it makes a great deal of sense and offers a >> much >> more complete view which marginalises neither competition nor >> cooperation. >> It also allows us to make greater sense of globalisation, allowing >> us to >> view it - for all its goods and bads - as part of the natural >> evolutionary >> process I describe above. In other words globalisation - including >> climate >> change and the present economic crisis - are indicators that >> competition is >> reaching its melt-down point; i.e. the point at which global >> cooperation - >> i.e. some kind of global social cooperative unit - becomes in >> everyone's >> best interests. >> >> Would welcome any comments. >> best >> John >> >> >> >> > > > Andrea L. Strimling > Research Fellow > Harvard Kennedy School > Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, International > Security Program > > > > > > > > -- -------------------------------------------------------- http://www.PaulBHartzog.org http://www.panarchy.com [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] -------------------------------------------------------- The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms. --Muriel Rukeyser See differently, then you will act differently. --Paul B. Hartzog -------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CooperationCommons" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CooperationCommons?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
