Competition: Destroyer of character
|
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Nov. 15, 2005
What belief would you be willing to give up to attain a more peaceful, harmonious and abundant life for yourself and those you love?
Implied in this question is my belief that, for the most part, the problems that afflict us personally, in our families, communities, and in society, are true reflections of, and consequences of, our core beliefs and values.
I'm not talking about superficial beliefs and values, which, in my view, includes such commitments as ideologies, political platforms or religious beliefs. I see alignment with political groups or points of view as more akin to deciding what to wear on a given day than to real core values and beliefs.
For instance, whenever I talk to people who identify themselves as "pro-life" (I have yet to meet a member of the "anti-life" faction), I routinely encounter a visceral objection to the deliberate killing of doctors or others they consider their political enemies. While there seems to be a lunatic fringe that does espouse these activities, I have yet to meet one. So respect for human life is an example of a core value, something that makes us human. Never mind the hypocritical rationalizations of people who put this core belief aside for exceptions like war, the death penalty, etc. For people to give up this core value, the respect for human life, would be a fundamental change in their beings.
Which brings me to my point, the destructiveness of competition, and the reverence for competition, that acts as a core value in our western cultures. This worship of the role of competitive relationships, the mindless dedication to the idea that the best results are obtained by pitting people against each other, I find to be at the core of our collective suffering.
Please do not jump to the conclusion that I dogmatically reject any role for competition, especially voluntary competition. Please do not address what I have to say superficially. I am inviting you to reach down to your foundations and tear out a cornerstone of your conditioning.
Think about it for a minute. When has competition brought happiness into your life? How often has competitiveness brought sorrow and loss?
In the early seventies, there was a barn-storming rush to get into med school. The competition was intense and often ruthless. The results were often very ugly. I was a pre-med student at UC Berkeley, and one of the most important grades was the one you got in Organic Chemistry (and I can not imagine why this was, and still is, true since it has very little to do with being a good doctor).
A key to getting the best grade in Organic Chemistry, more important than test scores or brown nosing, was your laboratory grade. That grade was based on the amount of "product" that you were able to turn in from your attempt to follow the laboratory cook book instructions for synthesizing a certain chemical in the time allotted for that particular lab session.
One of the tricks that the "competitive" premeds routinely used (along with stealing needed books from the library, and other underhanded maneuvers) was to rush trough the steps of the synthesis, knowing that the absolute amount of "product" they made would be small, but ensuring a good grade for themselves by staging an "accident" that released a cloud of poisonous gas that would ensure that the lab would be evacuated, and that their competitors would be prevented from completing their lab assignments. This worked because grades were awarded "on the curve," with the highest grade going to the greatest weight of product and proportionally lower grades for everyone else.
This was a system designed for the morally depraved. It produced the "cream" of the crop (I would say the "scum") of physicians that we now find in charge of our less than satisfactory health care system.
As an aside, I usually got the best grade because I saw what was coming, snuck out onto the balcony during the gas attack, and came back to the deserted lab to do my work leisurely and carefully when the gas dissipated. I admit to having a competitive spirit par excellence. It’s just that I don't worship it as a value.
Competition, in spite of fatuous aphorisms like "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game," is a darkly evil thing when elevated to what amounts to a spiritual value, as we do in the U.S. these days. It destroys relationships. It destroys people.
Most of all, it destroys character. Lying, cheating, stealing, and other brands of evil behavior become part of people's character as they strive to achieve in ruthlessly competitive environments. If I believed in the Devil, I would say that our society's attitude toward competition is his work.
And for those still committed to mindless regurgitation of received wisdom, I might point out that I am the intellectual product of two non-competitive institutions of higher learning. My undergraduate work was done at Goddard College, in Plainfield, Vermont. I only went to Berkeley because I had to, to get into med school. I have no admiration for the UC system at all. I got my MD at Case Western Reserve University of Medicine. Go ahead, make my day. Try to tell me I got a poor education because I went to schools with no grades and no class ranking.
© by the author.
What do you think?
|
|
I am inviting you to reach down to your foundations and tear out a cornerstone of your conditioning.
Think about it for a minute.
When has competition brought happiness into your life?
How often has competitiveness brought sorrow and loss?
|
|
|
Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
|
Previous articles by this author:
America without the myths
by Herb Ruhs, MD,
To dream the impossible dream
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Refusing to see the obvious
by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
with comments by Herb Ruhs, MD
What can we do? Rhetorically speaking, that is.
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Banned in Cloverdale, by Herb Ruhs, MD
All of us are being fatally poisoned
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Daubert is the most influential Supreme Court ruling you've never heard of
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Enough already
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
War is sometimes justified, often not, but always insane
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The bad news is the same as the good news
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Trying to control your emotions "can make you pretty stupid"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The gangsters' mentality
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Nietzsche, New Orleans, and 'Nam
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Four decades in five minutes
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The masquerade of "civilization"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Habits of successful modern cannibals
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Face these horrors with acceptance, equanimity, humor
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Yet another, higher dose of pain
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The war of one against all:
The roots of our enslavement
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Doctors, medicine, hospitals, and the rest of the story
by Herb Ruhs, MD
System of privilege expands in scope and overall power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Highway robbery turns out to be legal after all
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Class warfare, anyone?
Why class war is not a fiction but a fixture of our lives
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why the little-known news is the most important
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why "Free Speech" does not matter
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Big pharma
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The genius fish and other comments
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When all else fails, try the truth
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Childhood abuse and the role it plays in maintaining coercive power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
|
|
|
