by margaret hillcroft

Created on: July 29, 2008

Competition. Where would we be without it? That is a question worthy of serious consideration.
Does it hurt young people? I think it does worse. It hurts anyone and everyone who cannot play the game.
It threatens our very survival on this planet.

The concept of competition is inextricably linked with other man-made mental constructs, such as "winners" and "losers", "success" and "failure", all of which have served to create the kind of society we have today,which is greedy, performance driven and where profit comes before people and, often, before common sense.

There is nothing wrong with a degree of competition in the right place. It can motivate some individuals and groups to greater achievement in the sporting arenas. There are, however, many areas of life where competition is a negative force or entirely undesirable.

Here is a parable.

There are two groups of people. Each contains the same mix of ages, disability, education, ethnic origin,
sex. They have no food. Two large basket of apples are placed in front of them. When the whistle blows, each group must feed its members.

Group One, the competitors, form a team with an aggressive strategy for getting as many apples as possible. One individual is stronger and fitter and takes the role of leader. The leader commands the other team members who are strong enough to pitch in and get as many apples as possible from the basket closest to them. His team rush forward and start grabbing. There are, though, in this team a woman who is heavily pregnant, a blind man and a little girl of two who is still only toddling. They cannot hope to join in the feeding frenzy. Feeling helpless and impotent all they can do is watch and wait and pray that the others, younger, physically more able members of the group will choose to share the apples they
get their hands on. "I bet I can get more than you" they cry to each other as they scrabble for the fruit, pushing each other out of the way. Fights break out. "That's mine". When they have got the apples both people and apples are bruised, they are stressed, hot and bothered. "I collected more than you,so I eat more than you" they say. "I fought for this. Its mine" As the the "strongest" sit with apple juice running down their chins, the blind man, the woman and the toddler sit and wait. When all are eaten, the pregnant woman picks up the discarded cores and gives them to the blind man and the toddler and herself. The others, full and satisfied,sit and boast about how many apples they

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