"Robert Link" <[email protected]> wrote: To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 11:46 AM Subject: Re: Arguments against privileging the competition narrative
> > On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 12:20:09AM -0400, Paul B. Hartzog wrote: >> Ex: >> Sports teams compete on the playing field, >> but they cooperate to maintain the sport itself (social interest, >> labor laws, etc.) > > Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes! Both competition and cooperation are > examples of participation in some containing set, function in some > larger system. It takes two to tango, and you can't compete with me if > I don't participate. On the other hand, I can't stop you from competing > with me if I do participate, even if my participation is intended and > viewed by me as cooperation, as when a well-meaning liberal goes on the > Bill O'Reilly show thinking a "fair presentation of facts" will be > persuasive. Units that participate in a system can be seen to compete or > cooperate, much as we can perform arithmatic calculations by adding > positive numbers or subtracting negative ones. > > Pardon me riffing here. > > rl Er, steady on, Robert! I'm not so sure it's simply a question of personal view as to whether one is competiting or cooperating. If you choose to participate as a player in a tennis game, for example, you are clearly competing. What we need to distinguish is the difference between a competition on the one hand, and its holding framework on the other. Any competition should occur WITHIN a holding framework of cooperation. The cooperative holding framework consists, in this case, of the Lawn Tennis Association (or the world equivalent), the rules of the game, height of the net, thickness and position of the lines, umpires, line-judges, etc, etc. That is the cooperative framework of governance WITHIN WHICH the competition of the game itself can then take place. So the players are really COMPETITORS not cooperators - no mistake! They are only cooperators in terms that they respect and uphold the outer holding cooperative framework of rules/governance. Given a good and comprehensive cooperative governance framework, the competition is then likely to be CONstructive rather than DEstructive. Were the framework to be inadequate or to break down in some way (a biased line-judge, for example), the competition will become unfair and will turn DEstructive. Another example of such a breakdown would be when some cells in one's body start reproducing independently of the body's DNA; i.e. of its governance system. If that happens, what you have is cancer. Hope that helps. cheers John --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
