United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

Page 33 text:

Competition or Co-operation By Gustaaf A. de Cocq A FUNDAMENTAL and noxious paradox pervades our thought and action today: if we try to beat our fellow man to the draw, if we compete with him, think ourselves superior to him, if we push his away from the high place which we have chosen for ourselves, then we are branded bad, asocial, selfish and beastly; if, on the other hand, we co-operate with him, give him as fair a deal as we would give our¬ selves, help him along to the same height to which we ourselves want to attain, we are thought of as soft, lethargic, having no initia¬ tive, and not very fit for our present-day so¬ ciety. But either we compete, or we co-operate. Therefore, we are either branded asocial and selfish, or lethargic and without initiative. In the following exposition I propose to attack this fundamental dilemma by showing that the first alternative is true, but that the second alter¬ native is a false proposition. We are faced today with the above stated dilemma in practically all our institutions, and every individual, from childhood to death, is permeated with its inherent confusion. Why do we teach our children at one time to love their parents, friends and fellow-men, that is, to help them where, when and as much as they can; whereas, a moment later, we urge them to beat their fellow-men to the draw, to be first, fore¬ most, and outstanding above their comrades? (This teaching may even occur simultaneously, if we were, for instance, to reward the best essay on co-operation.) It would have the same effect, as encouraging our children to help their plates over the first hurdle and to push them off the next one. Can the outcome be very far from utter con¬ fusion in the minds of these children as to what does constitute their course of action? We have even been able to extend this dilemma into the field of the arts. The arts, which should promote better understanding between men, has become one more battlefield in the general warfare of competition. Our great Winnipeg competitive musical festival has joined the ranks of confusing influences upon the human individual. What about all these seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths, who become disappointed, yes, even frustrated, when they do not reach what some more capable child did accomplish. They may first come back with renewed vigour to “beat them” this time; but their ambition may taper off, the pleasure they once may have possessed of their own, will slowly disappear. How do we expect to make healthy, inwardly- adjusted, mature human beings out of them, if we persist in showing and teaching them these paradoxes: Music is beautiful, music is battle; do we have to fight with other people to find beauty? I should say that we were far enough removed from the medieval tourneys. What is sown in childhood bears beautiful fruits in maturity. Our adult population lives, thinks and acts in these terms. At one time we help our neighbour because he is sick, the next day we cheat him out of an opportunity for a better job because it fits our own purpose. Why do we actually bother to help the man when he is sick; we might be far better off if the man dies. But that goes against our morals. Apparently, we have lost all sense in our ap¬ prehension of morality. In other word ' s, the confusion, instilled in our childhood, has been very effective: the poison has worked with unerring acuteness. If we transfer our thoughts now from the in¬ dividual to the social realm, we will observe exactly the same phenomena. The irony in¬ volved, if we would see the manager of a large corporation attend a wounded colleague of a competing firm, is almost overbearing. But I presume that such cases occur. Why, the man would rather see his colleague safe and buried. (The feeling is probably mutual.) And we really do not have to take such extreme cases: our whole economic system is such an example. It is just recently that through the enormous effort of the economic council of the United Nations, steps in the right direction have been taken. But even so, the paradox still exists, especially in the economic dealings involved in the Marshall Plan: The U.S.A., on the one hand, ■stretches out the helping hand to dying Europe with loans, while, on the other, it raises its tariff Page Thirty-one

Page 32 text:

COMPLEMENTS OF . . . FORT CARRY £)yers and Cleaners SHERBROOK FLORIST Q. E. LECLAIR - L. M. DRAFFIN Specialists in Wedding Bouquets, Decorations and Corsages 464 Portage Ave. Phone 36 809 (Opposite the Mall) Res. Phone 88 905 BIRD CONSTRUCTION Co. Limited CONTRACTORS AND ENGINEERS Winnipeg, Manitoba Regina, Moose Jaw, Sask. Lethbridge, Calgary, Alta. ET AL A warm wind fanned through the maple woods, A very warm wind. And the heat of it came against me And I turned cold; For there was something in the wind Something that chilled, Something to he feared. It was not death; I had smelled death before. I had seen death and heard death and written of it. Truly, I knew death. And this strange wind was not of it, Nor of any part of it. And surely it was not hate — For hate does not bring fear Nor this empty dread. And we stood there together And the wind blew, And I was afraid. I looked at my hands And I felt of my face; And they were not my hands, nor were the out¬ lines of my face familiar, And we stood there! Two of us in a world that was swinging swiftly towards forgotten ages. The trees lost their clearness, The path swirled and convulsed, And where there had been silence there came noise, And more —louder and louder and louder — Until my brain swam And my mouth felt hot and dry And my sight smothered in that silent intangible clamour. Then I looked up through the kaleidoscope of swirling mists, And for an instant your face was clear, Very clear, and intent, And laughing a bit. Then I saw that you did not feel the vhnd, That the mist and the fear and the swift shadows were mine alone. And I could feel you laugh. And I was ashamed. Donna O. Munroe. Page Thirty

Page 34 text:

barriers so that Europe can not bring any ex¬ ports into the U.S.A. Why the helping hand, may I ask? The political field shows exactly the same picture. It is true, we have risen from the war¬ ring tribes, through the fighting nations, to the battling blocs; but we are still competing. We .help countries when they are in the depth of deprivation, when peoples are starving, when nations are yearning for freedom; but we help them only as long as it fits our own welfare, as long as it is to our own advantage. As soon .as our owni superiority is in danger, we will destroy those we helped. There will not be a true spirit of co-operation, as long as the Dutch consider themselves superior to the Indonesians, or the Union of South Africa to the natives, or as long as Russia or America regard themselves as the chosen people. Still more pronounced, and still more deeply penetrating into the constitution of human na¬ ture, is this confusion of morality in the reli¬ gious field. Indeed, we abstain today from those rigorous methods of conversion by the sword —although even in the 20th century we are prone to express our feeling of superiority in violent ways: The Moslems and the Hindus in India; the Christians and the Jews in Germany. But even if. we do not “crusade,” there is still a continuous friction in the world due to the feeling in any one of the major religions that they are the chosen ones. Why do we proclaim all men to be equal, and exclude in the same breath all those who do not belong to our speci¬ fic denomination? How do we account for Love and Justice, if we maintain simultaneously that only our specific sect or faith is true, and all other sects and faiths wrong, if not sinful? Have we ever tried to establish a real inter-faith council, not just one composed of Christians and Jews? In consideration of all the above mentioned fields in which this paradox occurs, we must ask ourselves where this idea originated. We know that there is an inner compelling force influencing us in our co-operative actions. Is there such a principle operating in competition, though? It is an inherent factor in human nature, in all nature, men will reply. Fie on them! The fact that the lower kingdoms—-the vegetable and the animal—abide completely by Kant: Critique of Practical Reason—Chapter III. strife and competition is absolutely no reason that this should hold true for the human king¬ dom too. For we are but eager to stress the point that we are different from these king¬ doms, since we possesses a rational faculty. Let us use this rational faculty then, let us be con¬ sistent, and not draw analogies where it is most suitable for us—where it aids us to excuse our beastly habits. Another fallacious argument that is commonly applied reads: the co-opera¬ tive system in economics has never worked. Apart from the fact that it has worked quite successfully on a small scale, it seems quite natural that it should not work in the large field where the competitive spirit is st ill pre¬ vailing and has, by its very nature, not given the co-operative system a fair chance. The competitive system is based on the fact that we need incentive for individual and social progress—incentives which lie outside of our¬ selves. Do we have to depend, however, on external stimuli—reward and punishment—for our actions? Our actions, apart from those purely personal, habitual actions like eating, sleeping and walking, we may accept as moral actions. Our great teacher Kant emphatically states that our moral actions are based on inner compulsion—the moral law, and that we “must not seek for any other motives (for instance that of interest) that might enable us to dis¬ pense with the motive of the law itself, because that would produce more hypocrisy, without consistency.” There is no reason in the world then why we should not assume inner-respon¬ sibility in all our actions. There are enough stimuli within each person to. make him realize his own capacities to the fullest extent. If properly developed, a person does not need someone else’s capacity as a standard for him¬ self. It is, of course, much easier to depend on achieving actualization of one’s capacities. In- such incentives, as reward and punishment, in deed, it is much harder to educate a person in such a way that he will become aware of his abilities, limitations, possibilities, and special gifts without any outward driving force. But the fact that i ' t is more difficult—especially for us, so deeply rooted in our traditions, conven¬ tions and habits—does not hold any guaranty of its invalidity. It seems as though we have made a dangerous split in the consideration of our actions, just Page Thirty-two