Analysis Of Friendship And Competition

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In this article, “Of Friendship and Competition”, Peter, the author, states very clearly that competition plays a major role in life. Several websites disagree and even conclude that competition should not exist. Peter overstates the health of competition in his thesis. He states “it [competition] is the most important aspect of human life” (Peter). While competition does play a major role in life, its origin contains unhealthy aspects that Peter fails to see. People compete over land, money, food, housing, even love, power, or importance. This competitive side effects the life of a number of people on a macro scale and a micro scale, because it causes war, hate, economic and political problems, and it ruins friendships, allies, or families.…show more content…
As Dr. Rimm pointed out, “The label ‘competitive’ frequently calls forth visual images of children who not only expect to win all the time, but do not deal well with losing. (Rimm)” This helps one to understand what Peter addresses, except he does not point to the problems of competitiveness, as Rimm does, but to the benefits. The pointers that he provides involve ‘survival of the fittest so that humans can evolve, Columbus sailing to the Americas, and the reason the lightbulb exists. He states that humans would not have evolved if there without competition; however, many people disagree with the ideas that evolution actually exists, therefore giving the author a weak introduction. Also, Columbus did not actually sail because of competition. Actually, he sailed to prove his theories of a round world. However, competition still existed in this situation, because the queen’s competitive nature to have power and wealth in this world proved as the only reason that she allowed him to use her ships. Furthermore, the lightbulb would not remain undiscovered if competition disappeared, but because of human’s desire to see in the dark. To conclude, competition has not changed life significantly, therefore it plays minor roles in our lives, not the most important…show more content…
In high school, lots of competition exists between boys and their claims, then girls compete with their grades. While Peter gives a good picture of how competition plays a role, he contradicts himself and proves himself wrong. Because of the striving competitive children, friendships ruin in devastating ways. Also, colleges teach in a way so as to help their students to understand the healthy ways to compete. Colleges teach to aid their students to work well and learn. Colleges, however, do have sport teams, more competitive than high school. Alfie Kohn, in “The Case Against Competition,” suggests that “It’s remarkable, when you stop to think about it, that the way we teach our kids to have a good time is to play highly structured games in which one individual or team must defeat another. (Kohn)” However, this competitiveness remains healthy because coaches teach their teams to lose

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