The Lost Art of Cooperation

This piece in The Wilson Quarterly (an excellent journal for anyone who values creativity and broadening the world of ideas) is a fascinating examination on the evils of competitive behavior in larger society.

I was raised in a highly competitive atmosphere and, from that personal vantage, tend to agree with the idea that competitive thinking has taken us on the wrong path.

I tend to be a little skeptical of soccer parenthood, for instance, after having been to a few childhood sports events in my day and seeing just how destructive these situations can be for developing young minds. That's not to say, of course, that there isn't good to be found in healthy competition, but the keyword here is healthy. In the article, they make the distinction between the original sort of competition first sought in the Olympics of early Grecian times, and what competition has become in the US. The Grecian model fits my picture of what competition should be. And yet, it isn't at all the reflection of competitive life, American-style.

Funny, this article has been such a springboard for me. You know how you plant one idea in your head and it spawns off little weedlets of other ideas almost immediately?

I was just reading a comparison between capitalism and socialism which definitely disses capitalism. So many of the same discussions, if you look closely, between that article and the one at TWQ. Competition versus cooperation. The individual versus the community. It makes me think about a number of things that seem related.

For instance, one of my relatives, who has long held disdain for Democrats and who voted for Bush in 2000 (not in 2004, however), is now a staunch Libertarian (he wants practically no government at all!). To me, that runs truly counter to the idea of working together toward any greater good. He is an immensely competitive person and, in many ways, an immensely unhappy person.

Less personally, I can't help but reflect on the growing interest in a national health care program, which is perhaps the most socialist thing we've discussed as a nation.

Recently, I was wondering about governance by committee and how Bush has really stuck out like a sore thumb inside a culture which seems to be naturally inclined toward boardroom decision-making rather than supporting autonomous governing practices.

And it's become clear that Americans are interested in beefing up their national image worldwide; perhaps it's due to what seems apparent to me: a growing communitarian spirit at the grass roots level, where We has more might than I (which, in some ways, is a complete negation of the argument in TWQ that competitive behavior is spoiling the US).

All of this is great food for thought when encountering your individual creative projects, believe it or not. Making art is one way that we explore the human condition.

Whatever you're working on, you may wish to "interview" your project, asking it: "Are you the product of a competitive or a collaborative mindset?" If the project, say, a short story, involves a single main character going up against the world, that would be one kind of story. If the story centers on the inner workings of a small community of people (say, a classroom of students in a school, or a family at a reunion, or a gathering of strangers at the grocery store), it would be a very different kind of story.

The same applies regardless of medium. A sculptural wall-hanging using metals scrapped at a junk yard might be more collaborative, since it requires working with materials outside one's own making, while a watercolor painting is steadfastly competitive because it is really a contest between the painter's brush and the paper itself. A song composed with many parts (instrumental and vocal) might be thought of as cooperative, while a set of lyrics might be thought of as more competitive or singular or individualized because it focuses on that singular aspect of a whole song.

I think it's a good idea to play with these abstractions from time to time, especially as a writer. Charles Baxter does an excellent job of opening up abstractions in his book, Burning Down the House, which I consider one of the best and most useful books on writing I have ever read because it supports a theory I've embraced for a long time now: that strong writing is strong thinking first.

Anyway, I'm all about seeing the world in new ways. While pondering any sort of question (personal, political, artistic), you will likely arrive at the same answer no matter which way you get there, but getting there is the part that counts. Opening up our eyes, our ears, our minds, our guts and our hearts to new approaches can only help us to move forward with our own creative lives, and in doing so, heighten the ceiling of our personal lives.