Shenk talks about learning from failure and using competition to improve oneself. Michelangelo and Da Vinci, for example, had a lively rivalry that developed from their culture. This would push them to create better works of art. (146-147) In nature, too, there is intraspecies competition, but there is also interspecies competition.
How is competition between humans different from competitions in the animal world. Are there any similarities between the two? What types of results come from such types of comeptition?
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ReplyDeleteHuman competition differs from animal competition because we have intellect which allows us to problem-solve and try to spread out resources. On the other hand, animals work together to get food or it is every individual for himself or herself, meaning that they go for the simple approach to get benefits and do not waste time or energy thinking up an alternate solution to help others. Also, humans are not directly competing for food as the grocery stores are stocked full of produce and products. Animals, however, have to search and hunt for their food every day not knowing if they are going to eat. Yes, some people are homeless or starving, but the majority of humans don’t have to worry about food and the majority of animals have to hunt for their food. Humans and animals also differ when it comes to competition for mates. Animals choose their mates in order to maximize their reproductive success whereas humans try to find their soulmate through personality and appearance not just based upon traits expressed that will allow offspring to survive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection#Concept). Lastly, animals are more gruesome than humans. They will kill relatives, pack members, or anyone in order to survive whereas human competition is not as fierce and is primarily through the exchange of money and not life. There are many similarities between animal and human competition. There can be competition within a family (intraspecies) to do the best in school or to be better at sports and animals will often compete for food, shelter, or water within a species in order to survive and keep their worth. There can also be competition between families, schools, businesses, etc…(interspecies) and here the individuals try to outdo one another and take the profits that the other might have received. This is similar to animals who kill other species for food and then take their land so they have shelter and a ready supply of food if their old supply was diminished or taken from them. In both types of competition, “we learn from one another…constantly compare and compare with one another for affection, accomplishment, and resources (146). The results from intraspecies and interspecies competition are improvement and hatred. Improvement comes about because each individual or group tries to outdo each other so that they reap the benefits or get all the attention. The hatred fuels the drive to get better, but it also instills a fierceness to try to squash the other individual or group’s progress so that they may do better. (Regan Frieling, regan1995@yahoo.com)
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I think that Regan’s response was incredibly thorough and accurate. She was correct in pointing out the primary reason for the differences in competition between humans and animals—complex cognitive thinking and the ability to problem solve. Cognition is defined as the process of knowing, represented by awareness, reasoning, and judgment (Campbell 1128). Problem solving is defined as the cognitive activity of creating a method to proceed in spite of obstacles (Campbell 1128). Together, these two features along with the complexity of the human brain make a potent combination. Humans are undoubtedly much more mentally complex than any other organism on earth, and as a result they have been able to develop technologies and innovations that eliminate the need to fiercely compete for food or mates. Like all other animals we still need food and we need to reproduce to maintain our species, but it has moved past the animalistic way of “compete for food or die” or “reproduce to pass on your own genes.” Also, in addition to Regan’s discussion of how animals compete directly for food and mates, I also realized that they must compete for shelter, while with humans it is no longer much of a competition. With animals, they compete fiercely to maintain a favorable shelter, typically because that location is beneficial in that it contains plentiful food or makes a favorable nesting or mating site (http://dennis-holley.suite101.com/territorial-behavior-in-animals-a136934). With humans, we simply browse casually through the house market, and choose one that is most suitable to us. And we certainly do not attack our neighbors if they set foot on our lawn (usually).
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to point out, that although there are many differences between animal and human competition, there also exists an important similarity, that although both animals and humans compete, both can also act selfless. For humans it is out of kindness—that we want to help someone because it is the right thing to do. Animals can also exhibit selflessness, in the manner of behaving referred to as altruism. However, for animals they do not act selflessly to be nice; instead they only do so because it may increase their own fitness. Altruism is when animals behave in a way that reduces their own personal fitness but increases that of other individuals (often family members) (Campbell 1138). The discussion of the root of competition in the animal versus the human world also brings up an important point that Regan discussed—emotion. She talked of how humans can compete out of hatred, which is something that animals certainly will never do. Human action is irrevocably tied to emotion, what we happen to say or do is closely knitted to it. Whereas, in the animal world, they will never feel anger or jealousy or happiness like we do. All their actions, whether competitive or not, are tied instead to instinct and necessity.
Out of the competition for food, shelter, and mates, animals gain, most simply, the ability to survive. Humans have moved past the need to compete for such things; now, we compete for the best ideas, the most money, etc. Like with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, competition between humans can spur incredible achievement. It can also, like Regan brought up, become just as vicious, sometimes even more so than the competition in the animal world. Humans, after all, are still animals…
Diane Kuai (dianekuai@gmail.com)