[Aaron]

Victims of our own success.

The children, of the children of the Great Depression & WWII have lost a crucial aspect of living a meaningful life. Competition & success have become their own justification. The meaningless pursuit of wealth & power have evolved over these generations into a shadow of their former selves. Unless you are a highly socially evolved individual, the process of competition with your peers is viewed in absolute terms of outcome . You can see the evidence of this condition everywhere in American culture... right down to our children.

I was confronted this morning with a news story about schools implementing changes in their policies regarding physical games kids play. Their idea was to eliminate "competition" based games in favor of activities which don't foster competition... no winners or losers.

It seems to me pretty clear evidence that these folks have lost touch with the most important thing about competition.

Competing.

By that I mean the joy of combat, so to speak... regardless of the outcome.

It's like Americans think mountain climbers do it to reach the top. When in fact, it's the climb that's interesting. The top... is the end of the fun part. The sheer joy of combat... with a mountain no less.

America, your greed blinds you to the fun part of life itself.

In your desperate struggle to acquire, you miss the point of all this.

Despite your illusions, there are no real losers in combat.

Win or lose... it's the joy of the dance which makes life worth living.

When the music fades & the dance is finished... what will you have then, except for your memories of the joy of combat?

When that bald kid in the Matrix said "There is no spoon", he was correct.

You will never acquire enough success, to fill the void in your life.

90% of your time is spent thinking about the last 10%... reverse that.

Let the dodge-ball begin!

[chris-h]

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/index.htm

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm


just read the book and you will understand that there was never a true success in industrionalised societies.

1984 is alive in education.

here is a quote

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'v')ery principal institution in our culture is a partner with the particular form of corporatism which has began to dominate America at the end of WWII. Call it paternal corporatism, wise elites can be trained to provide for the rest of us, who will be kept as children. Unlike Plato’s Guardians whom they otherwise resemble, this meritorious elite is not kept poor but is guaranteed prosperity and status in exchange for its oversight. An essential feature of this kind of central management is that the population remain mystified, specialized dependent, and childish.

The school institution is clearly a key partner in this arrangement: it suppresses the productive impulse in favor of consumption; it redefines "work" as a job someone eventually gives you if you behave; it habituates a large clientele to sloth, envy, and boredom; and it accustoms individuals to think of themselves as members of a class with various distinguishing features. More than anything else, school is about class consciousness. In addition, it makes intellectual work and creative thinking appear like distasteful or difficult labor to most of us. None of this is done to oppress, but because the economy would dissolve into something else if those attitudes didn’t become ingrained in childhood.

We have evolved a subtly architected, delicately balanced command economy and class-based society upon which huge efforts are lavished to make it appear like something else. The illusion has been wearing thin for years; that’s a principal reason why so many people don’t bother to vote. In such a bargain, the quality of schooling is distinctly secondary; other values are uppermost. A great many children see through the fraud in elementary school but lack the language and education to come to proper terms with their feelings. In this system, a fraction of the kids are slowly over time let in on a part of this managerial reality because they are intended to eventually be made into Guardians themselves, or Guardian’s assistants.

School is a place where a comprehensive social vision is learned. Without a contrary vision to offer, the term "school reform" is only a misnomer describing trivial changes. Any large alteration of forced schooling, which might jeopardize the continuity of workers and customers that the corporate economy depends upon, is unthinkable without some radical change in popular perception preceding it. Business/School partnerships and School-to-Work legislation aren’t positive developments, but they represent the end of any pretense that ordinary children should be educated. That, in any case, was the burden of my talk at Cypress.

[eric_b]

'The journey is the reward.'

Something I've always agreed with. There's nowhere to go anyway.

[kjmclark]

Ummm, Aaron, do you realize that you're making their case for them? Think about the mountain climbing example. There are no winners or losers in that. You do it for the fun of doing it, not so that someone wins. Everyone wins, right?

If the important part is "the joy of combat, so to speak... regardless of the outcome", then what's the problem with games that are all competition, but without winners and losers? Imagine playing soccer or baseball for the regulation time/innings, but not keeping track of the score. Or, heaven forbid, lifetime sports like running, biking, skiing, mountain climbing, martial arts, etc., where you win if you do it.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kjmclark', 'U')mmm, Aaron, do you realize that you're making their case for them? Think about the mountain climbing example. There are no winners or losers in that. You do it for the fun of doing it, not so that someone wins. Everyone wins, right?

If the important part is "the joy of combat, so to speak... regardless of the outcome", then what's the problem with games that are all competition, but without winners and losers? Imagine playing soccer or baseball for the regulation time/innings, but not keeping track of the score. Or, heaven forbid, lifetime sports like running, biking, skiing, mountain climbing, martial arts, etc., where you win if you do it.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'I') dunno, Aaron, I compete mainly with myself in Aikido and I love it. Still, my son will be home schooled.

[NEOPO]

<singles out the obese kid with glasses>

This is further domestication of the species.
They want well trained, completely apathetic and totally submissive sheeple.

I do not think this comes as any surprise to most of you here.
We see this daily in those who deny that the worst could happen and then when/if they come around to this concept they then go straight to doomer and wish to believe that no amount of preps will help which is simply a way for them to keep from feeling as if they have to do anything......apathy.

Same goes for those who are OK with this war for oil as long as their life/prosperity is not disrupted.
This is more then degradation - this is a fucking disease.
Its not just America or the first world only.

"Then you will see, it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. "

[Aaron]

In case you folks are wondering what we are talking about...

Aikido

Jiu-jitsu

Judo

[TommyJefferson]

I think both the joys of competition and the rewards of victory are important.

People who seek to eliminate competition from children's sports are doing a disservice to the children they are supposed to be helping.

One day, these kids will grow up and find out that in the real world, people keep score. People expect results. Not everyone gets a trophy. Some people make more money than others.

Doctors make more than street bums, in spite of the fact that this makes the bums feel bad.

Marxist collectivism only works in the artificial environment of the classroom or totalitarian state like N.Korea. It fails utterly when put to real world tests.

Still, our educators remain enamored with it because their teachers were, and so on, all the way through Herbert Marcuse and back to the Frankfurt School.

As an alternative, examine the success of educators like Gigoro Kano. The sport and colored belt system he developed out of classical jujutsu 120 years ago has spread world-wide and helped build millions of stronger, better, more perfect human beings.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'I')n case you folks are wondering what we are talking about...

Aikido

Jiu-jitsu

Judo

[WildRose]

I don't know if the joy of competition has been reduced to just the "outcome" for all of our young people. My sons and their friends are one example. They organize basketball games at the park, play for hours, and yes, competition is an essential part of it as they discuss each player's antics on the court following the game. But they LIVE to play the game - being outside, getting together, the more the merrier. It really doesn't matter who won. Of course, some of these same kids play on a school team as well; then the score matters.

On a professional level, imagine NHL hockey without a scoreboard - wouldn't sell very many season's tickets. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing!

But the way competition is used in education mainly serves the system the students graduate to in college and beyond, too often creating corporate followers rather than individuals who would think for themselves or be willing to help out a coworker.

[PrairieMule]

I took a year of Ueshiba Aikido in college. I got to study under a master who learned from Sensei Satome. To me it seemed like the aim of Aikido was how to redirect unharmonious aggresive competition. That and how to take a fall..

I have always thought of my previous Sales gigs in Mortgages and Copiers as a good outlet for competition. It's not Aikido as much as it is a Phillipino street fight. This sounds silly, but it's really true. If someone put a gun to your head, could you persuade them to not to pull the trigger? Would you emotionally collapse inward or look doom in the eye then roll the dice? It takes that kind of mentality to survive in sales. They don't pass ot paychecks for participation.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat jujitsu video would have been much better with bikinis and jello. And why is it all the aikido ukes I've ever seen are utterly incapable of executing a proper punch, and flop around like a fish out of water if they come within 10 meters of tori? Nice judo vid, though. Very cool arm bar.

[TheDude]

There's those stress cards they give soldiers in basic training. What a load. That'll produce GIs who won't buckle under fire, yeah sure.
There's this general tendency in America to respect people's sensitivity, to make sure they aren't bruised psychologically. Makes me want to puke; or smoke, drink, and use profanity anyway. Fuckin' wusses!
So is this part of a conspiracy to keep down sheeple? Or have people turned into sheeple on their own, who are now getting what they deserve? Or is just symptomatic of malaise, ala Jimmy Carter?
Seems like in a Dilbert type world there's still plenty of competition, though. Not in a 1984 type world, though.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat jujitsu video would have been much better with bikinis and jello. And why is it all the aikido ukes I've ever seen are utterly incapable of executing a proper punch, and flop around like a fish out of water if they come within 10 meters of tori? Nice judo vid, though. Very cool arm bar.

[mmasters]

I would go to say it's the capitalistic debt based monetary system that is the main influence here. All this prosperity turns into a bandwagon where everyone wants to be on board, keeping up with the joneses, etc Nobody wants left out, everyone wants a piece of the pie, but there's only so much...

Whereas other monetary systems bring out the opposite of competition, for example a credit based monetary system brings out community instead of competition among people. And a demurrage (opposite of interest) based currency encourages people to build things that last because they will be worth more in the future as opposed to less like in our current system.

[JoeW]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'I') took a year of Ueshiba Aikido in college. I got to study under a master who learned from Sensei Satome.
I have always thought of my previous Sales gigs in Mortgages and Copiers as a good outlet for competition.....They don't pass ot paychecks for participation.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JoeW', '
')But I thought that in sales, they pass out paychecks based on how you look in a skirt.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '.')..I was confronted this morning with a news story about schools implementing changes in their policies regarding physical games kids play. Their idea was to eliminate "competition" based games in favor of activities which don't foster competition... no winners or losers...

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')uh? Where did that come from? I'd like to see that story. It must have been about some very obscure, new age, "alternative" school or something. It sure couldn't have been any sort of mainstream school.