Verbal Fencing
I suggest to first read 16. Competition or Cooperation.
Male animals, who live in groups, like deer, wolves, lions, are driven by instinct to fight for a high position in the hierarchy. Most humans are driven by the same instinct, the society is organized by countless hierarchies, at work, in political institutions, in the administration, in the military. Animals fight with physical force. In the past centuries, when those organizations were developed, physical fighting outside sports and the military became a valve for aggressive lower class men. Hierarchies were formed instead upon a competition of real skills, financial and social power, and skills for intrigue and manipulation.
Behind all this is a conscious representation of the hierarchy instinct, that makes people always compare themselves with others. They do not want to have something, because the need it, they want to have something better than what has another. They do not want to be good at something, they want to be better than someone else.
How marks are given at school, is a good example. Regulations require a hierarchy of achievement, and the teachers are expected to have results distributed along a bell curve, as many As as Fs. If all the pupils have As and Bs, this is not appreciated as an indication of a good teacher with clever students. If all have Es and Fs, it is not accepted as an indication of pupils with special problems or a bad teacher.
There has to be a bell curve to put the achievements relative in a hierarchy. Rationally, this makes no sense. The same pupil with the same achievement, could by haphazard be in a class, where he gets an A for it, or in another class, where he gets an F, his achievements are distorted by others, whom he might not have even chosen.
Rationally, marking should be independent of the other pupils, measured instead on how much he has learned of what has been taught. Everybody, who has learned 100% or little less, should get an A, independent of how many others have achieved the same. That would be just.
By the bell curve marking, school reinforces and enhances the hierarchy and competition thinking.
I have read somewhere, that competing and fighting for a position in a hierarchy is mainly a male trait. As far as it means using physical and financial power, this appears plausible. But in any other form of competition, I see women as not any better than men.
For example, I could never understand, how any woman in her right mind would get involved with a married men and then compete to get him divorce his wife, when there are enough men free and available.
This example again shows, how irrational competition is for the individual, as I already outlined in the business example in 'Competition or Cooperation'. But from the point of evolution, it makes sense, that all females want to have offspring with the fittest of all males, which obviously is the alpha-male. Thus, by instinct, many women compete for males, while for their individual happiness they would better look for the one, who is for them alone.
If the hierarchy instinct has become pathologically determining the entire relationship with the social environment, then the result are people, who have NPD, the narcissistic personality disorder. They do not just compare themselves with others all the time, they are addicted to be better all the time, even if being better is only their delusion.
Empathy for other's pain is such an important trait in social relationships of any kind. But it seems, that empathy gets deactivated in favor of competition. Competing with success means winning, and every time, one person wins, another person looses. Those who fight and compete to win, never seem to have empathy for the ones, whom they logically make to loose.
It seems that the strife for a high position in the hierarchy for the best survival of the genes, by the choice of a fit mate and by acquiring the power over resources, had already evolved in the animals, while empathy is more recent result of human evolution and therefore a weaker impulse.
As a rational person, I can decide to keep away from competition as much as possible, and find my peaceful corner in the ivory tower of the egalitarian search of wisdom. Unfortunately, this is difficult too.
When duels became illegal in England, the skill of fencing with a sword became obsolete for young 'gentlemen'. (I have never understood, what is gentle in those blokes...) So they developed a replacement art of fencing with words, the duel being named a debate. The topic was of little importance, the objective was to win by showing the better wit. By playing the devil's advocate, some even tried to win against their own true sincere convictions, when the opponent shared them. Winning over the own convictions in someone else was still a victory, more important than being true to oneself.
This fencing by words seems to have spread through the entire English-speaking world. I have read countless discussions in forums about anything between atheism and computer problems, and again and again, I had the impression, that it was more about being right and proving another wrong than about the topic in question.
This, unfortunately, leaves women not much choice. They can refrain from participating, or they can attempt to learn how to fence with words too and adapt to the male world.
I suggest to first read 16. Competition or Cooperation.
Male animals, who live in groups, like deer, wolves, lions, are driven by instinct to fight for a high position in the hierarchy. Most humans are driven by the same instinct, the society is organized by countless hierarchies, at work, in political institutions, in the administration, in the military. Animals fight with physical force. In the past centuries, when those organizations were developed, physical fighting outside sports and the military became a valve for aggressive lower class men. Hierarchies were formed instead upon a competition of real skills, financial and social power, and skills for intrigue and manipulation.
Behind all this is a conscious representation of the hierarchy instinct, that makes people always compare themselves with others. They do not want to have something, because the need it, they want to have something better than what has another. They do not want to be good at something, they want to be better than someone else.
How marks are given at school, is a good example. Regulations require a hierarchy of achievement, and the teachers are expected to have results distributed along a bell curve, as many As as Fs. If all the pupils have As and Bs, this is not appreciated as an indication of a good teacher with clever students. If all have Es and Fs, it is not accepted as an indication of pupils with special problems or a bad teacher.
There has to be a bell curve to put the achievements relative in a hierarchy. Rationally, this makes no sense. The same pupil with the same achievement, could by haphazard be in a class, where he gets an A for it, or in another class, where he gets an F, his achievements are distorted by others, whom he might not have even chosen.
Rationally, marking should be independent of the other pupils, measured instead on how much he has learned of what has been taught. Everybody, who has learned 100% or little less, should get an A, independent of how many others have achieved the same. That would be just.
By the bell curve marking, school reinforces and enhances the hierarchy and competition thinking.
I have read somewhere, that competing and fighting for a position in a hierarchy is mainly a male trait. As far as it means using physical and financial power, this appears plausible. But in any other form of competition, I see women as not any better than men.
For example, I could never understand, how any woman in her right mind would get involved with a married men and then compete to get him divorce his wife, when there are enough men free and available.
This example again shows, how irrational competition is for the individual, as I already outlined in the business example in 'Competition or Cooperation'. But from the point of evolution, it makes sense, that all females want to have offspring with the fittest of all males, which obviously is the alpha-male. Thus, by instinct, many women compete for males, while for their individual happiness they would better look for the one, who is for them alone.
If the hierarchy instinct has become pathologically determining the entire relationship with the social environment, then the result are people, who have NPD, the narcissistic personality disorder. They do not just compare themselves with others all the time, they are addicted to be better all the time, even if being better is only their delusion.
Empathy for other's pain is such an important trait in social relationships of any kind. But it seems, that empathy gets deactivated in favor of competition. Competing with success means winning, and every time, one person wins, another person looses. Those who fight and compete to win, never seem to have empathy for the ones, whom they logically make to loose.
It seems that the strife for a high position in the hierarchy for the best survival of the genes, by the choice of a fit mate and by acquiring the power over resources, had already evolved in the animals, while empathy is more recent result of human evolution and therefore a weaker impulse.
As a rational person, I can decide to keep away from competition as much as possible, and find my peaceful corner in the ivory tower of the egalitarian search of wisdom. Unfortunately, this is difficult too.
When duels became illegal in England, the skill of fencing with a sword became obsolete for young 'gentlemen'. (I have never understood, what is gentle in those blokes...) So they developed a replacement art of fencing with words, the duel being named a debate. The topic was of little importance, the objective was to win by showing the better wit. By playing the devil's advocate, some even tried to win against their own true sincere convictions, when the opponent shared them. Winning over the own convictions in someone else was still a victory, more important than being true to oneself.
This fencing by words seems to have spread through the entire English-speaking world. I have read countless discussions in forums about anything between atheism and computer problems, and again and again, I had the impression, that it was more about being right and proving another wrong than about the topic in question.
This, unfortunately, leaves women not much choice. They can refrain from participating, or they can attempt to learn how to fence with words too and adapt to the male world.
