Re: Metaphor and Mental Models

Eric Bohlman (ebohlman@netcom.com)
Wed, 4 Jan 1995 15:16:49 -0800 (PST)

>
> More response to the war metaphor. The basis of competition.
>
> If the motivation and competitive edge is through winning by defeating the
> opponent; if it is the use of control, direction, and authority within a
> patriarchial system; if fear of error and waiting throungh competition for the
> mistakes to occur overtaking the opponent through their own loss: then the
> metaphor of war is wrong. The traditional heart of the patriarchial system is
> fear and intimidation, not growth and learning. Any Good coach knows that
> success comes when everyone succeeds, some will always succeed more than others
> the defeat of the less successful is very costly to our way of life.

Two suggested books are *A Dream Deferred* by Philip Slater, which
describes why authoritarianism (which is what you're calling patriarchy;
the latter is a specific instance of the former) appears to be efficient,
but isn't; and *No Contest: The Case Against Competition* by Alfie Kohn,
which is a review of the psychological literature on competition and
cooperation (and also contains precise definitions of these terms)
suggesting that competition (defined as a situation in which for one
person to reach his goal, someone else has to be prevented from reaching
his) really doesn't work as well as we think it does.

It *is* very important to be precise when talking about "competition" and
"cooperation"; in the sense in which they apply to organizations, the *do
not" mean "dominance" and "submission" (Kohn points out that a lot of
people misuse "cooperation" to mean "obedience"; he defines cooperation
as a situation in which one person can reach his goal only as a result of
a process that enables others to reach their goals as well). A simple
example I use to illustrate these terms is to people trying to push a
large box across a floor; they're competing if they get on opposite sides
and push; they're cooperating if they get on the same side and push.
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