On Competition

Most people cannot see any further than their noses. Every individual person may be looked upon as one of many caught in an avalanche, each trying to make comfortable his immediate surroundings and oblivious of the general movement. Whole civilizations have lived in misery without knowing it, for how could they if there were nothing to compare their condition with?

People can suffer almost anything as long as they see that the other fellow is suffering the same ills. But would the ills be considered ills? The phenomenon is called gregariousness or togetherness.

Some people are averse to competition and allow the words “co-operation” and “humanism” to drool from their mouths, apparently meaning thereby a large blop of protoplasmic homogenuity that lacks all individuality. It is not individuals and their liberty that concerns them, but rather some sort of well greased squirming mass that would seem to be analogos tot the brains from which such amorphous “ideas” emanate.

But if there is no competition, then there can be neither comparison nor any real standard of evaluation. Competition is but a synonym for individuality. If there were no individuality, that is no difference between humans, then for certain there would be no competition.

But does individuality imply conflict? It does only to the lackwit who aspires for togetherness in co-operation. And the reason for this lies in the fact that the combination of differences inevitably causes conflict or suppression of individuality.

The truth is that harmony, or at least lack of discord, comes from disassociation, and the opportunity for independence.