Cartoon produced with the aid of Google Gemini
It turns out there are two different types of competition. Or perhaps, a continuum between two extremes.
Who Cares?
The difference between these two types explains the state of present political climate, because the two different types invite different solutions.
Global and Personal
Most competitions we engage in have two elements. First is the outside objective: the effect the outcome of the competition will have on the world. The second is the personal element: the necessity of winning in order to accomplish the objective.
Good or Bad:
Let’s first look at what we might term “good” competition. This would be where a person sees something in the world that could be better, and makes an effort to create change. Let’s be fair to the conservative element; if you see something happening that is bad for the world, it is a good thing to stop it.
The best example of this type of conflict is the democratic political process. Winning an election is a two-pronged attack. First, I have to produce a platform and persuade my constituents that is the path our group should follow. The second is the personal win: persuading the voters that I am the right person to guide the plan.
It might be suggested that the problem in recent politics, driven by the effects of social media, is too much concentration on the personal aspects of the competition with little regard to the platform.
Who Wins?
An easy way to judge the merits of any competition has to do with who benefits. If the objective produces good for the rest of the population, it can be considered a good competition. If the results benefit only the competitor, then we have a problem.
The Personal Approach
The objective in this situation is the win. The focus is on the personal success of the competitor. The simplest situation of this sort is the athletic competition. The ultimate goal is the Olympic gold medal. But what does that get you? Well, it gets you a gold medal. The ultimate ego trip. And that’s fine, as far as it goes.
Unfortunately, the personal approach is also typical of another sort: playground (or workplace or political) bullies, who create conflict they know they can win. The objective is the ego satisfaction of the competitor. The logic is, “I win the fight and then I can do whatever I want, because no one can stop me.”
The problem is that the win is the end. There is no plan for after the conflict is over.
The Global Approach
The objective in this case is to implement the plan and see it to the end. The good of the competitor must be secondary to the success of the plan. Look at Volvo and the seat belt or Dr. Salk and the polio vaccine. In both cases, the inventors immediately turned their creation over to the general population.
A Bad Combination
The real trouble starts when a patron of the personal approach uses it in politics. We go back to the objective. Certain politicians get so caught up in their own personal popularity that they forget the original purpose of the election, which is to set the course of the jurisdiction for the immediate future. This is the playground bully approach; “I win the fight, and then I get to do what I want. Who needs a plan?” And then they proceed on their path towards instant gratification, improvising as they go along.
The Bully’s Weakness: Lack of Preparation
True ignorance comes from not knowing how much you don’t know. People driven by instant gratification simply refuse to acknowledge the complexity of the results of their actions.
For example, who would have ever thought that America’s worst enemy in the war with Iran wouldn’t be planes, or bombs, or drones. It’s insurance companies. The tankers won’t move, not because of a fear of attack, but because their insurance would be void.
American history of the last seventy years shows two wars of invasion (Korea, Viet Nam) where they jumped in when they shouldn’t have and lost the war, and one time (Iraq) where they achieved limited success, but left the area with no plan for the future, leading to the rise of ISIS.
The Bottom Line
Trump jumped into the Iran war with no thought about how he was going to win it, and as with Venezuela, no idea what would happen after the war was over. The best bet is that he’s going to quit, making a big fuss about how he won, and leave the Middle East in a worse mess than before, while he goes on to his next big media stunt. He has brought Cuba to its knees. I wonder what he’ll do with that situation?
I suspect he’s wondering the same thing.
But not very hard.