Coming In Second

Canadians are often the butt of jokes about placing second in international competitions. We would like to win, but we are fine with second place since it means we are up there with the best. Third place works too, though it is only a close shave away from disappearing into the anonymity of the pack. When we compete, we give it our all, but we are not maniacally driven to win or die trying.

We applaud those who are the best in their field, but we are not an exceptionalist people who will push others around in a childish need to claim victory. When nominated for a prize, we are flattered yet embarrassed to be in such illustrious company. We have been, and will be, decorated for first place, perhaps by fluke, and only for a brief moment, but we will bow to our neighbours in the sincere belief that the trophy could just as easily have been theirs. Second place, third, or even tenth place is a badge of merit, earned through persistence, determination, and skill. We don’t need to take first place to win.

People, teams, parties, and nations are strongly motivated to win whatever races they enter. Our social structure encourages us to find ways to feel superior to others. Consumerism waves promises of success at us that are available only to a few. Invisible caste systems still exist. Our governments have long understood the tactic of diverting its citizens from concrete problems by pitting them against each other on issues that could be easily resolved. Pockets are easier to pick when everyone is busy watching the game.

There are strong men who cry uncharacteristic tears when their flag is raised or when the flower of their nation is on the podium. Team sports generate scenes of blind and ecstatic loyalty. Fans are tribal aggregations moulded from the same clay as the players, bursting to celebrate a win for their side. Politicians call opposing parties evil incarnate and try to win by scaring the wits out of their equally shrill rivals. Losers sulk and winners gloat. The toxic effects that a competitive society produces are all around us.

The urge to compete, to judge who is better at a specific task, has often been blamed on testosterone. Yet in these times of inclusiveness, it is obvious that women, with only a fraction of male testosterone, have demonstrated an equally strong desire and capacity to win. There are other inborn factors that push humans toward competition.

There is competition in the animal world but it is based only on survival, a competition for resources. Extravagant mating displays and proof of fitness tests are engineered by nature to keep a species reproducing and viable, not to win medals or trophies. The Lion King’s only motivation is to ensure the survival of his offspring. There are no dancers and drums for him except in a Disney universe. Reality is tooth and claw. Humans have similar instincts that drive them to compete for different sets of resources, though food and safety remain at the top of the list for both. Humans understand the roots of their behaviour and attempt to channel it into ritualized competition. Except in war, we do not take our games so far as to kill each other, but there is a tragic undercurrent in all competition that is based on the law of diminishing returns. How much do we sacrifice in order to win? Will the victory be worth the price?

On a personal level, we are touched by the plight of someone who is in need of help. Competition doesn’t enter the picture unless desperation has made us twisted enough to steal from blind men. To offer assistance is in our better nature, but if we take a few steps back, and look at the unfortunate person as The Other, as someone who is in competition with us, as someone from the other team, we are capable of exhibiting mindless cruelty. It’s either him or me.

When George Orwell fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, he was never sure if he managed to kill anyone. His best chance came one day when a soldier ran across a clearing directly in front of him, but the man was so close, and holding up his trousers like he had been caught in the middle of a nature call, that Orwell couldn’t shoot. The soldier was too human, too much like him. If he had been unrecognizable in the distance, trying to pick him off would have been like target practice.

Winning is a human instinct, at least that is the thinking of the colonial west, but in reality it is a patriarchal answer to channel the urge to compete. Somebody must come in first place, and it may as well be me. But there is a more satisfying way forward than the habitual path of guts and glory. It takes the form of another human instinct that has been proved in the crucible of evolution, and it’s name is cooperation. Doing things for the good of all. It is not nearly as exciting as a good fight; there is no drama. There are no winners and losers, but only a quiet reasoned resolution for everyone.

We know that on a personal level, if the desire is there to do so, appropriate concessions can be made on all sides. The natural instinct to cooperate is demonstrated in times of disaster. Nobody asks a drowning person who they voted for or what is their favourite football team. If a scarcity of resources is the problem, an arrangement can be worked out to accommodate the needy. This is preferable to the poor fighting the poor, the anarchy of cold and hungry neighbours breaking down each other’s doors to steal each other’s hearth and home. While robbery might look like a win for the bully, it is a destructive win, the fingerprint of a personal coping mechanism gone wrong, a behaviour that will not serve the bully well in the future. Bullies love competitions, because they separate the weak from the strong, but what they don’t understand is that their judgment is based on their own limited opinions, and that they grossly underestimate the nuances of weak and strong. Their truth is relative, it is not absolute.

Correctly fielded, another person’s need to be first can be easily undermined. I had a friend who worked as a nanny for a mother with a stubborn competitive streak. Her husband was a successful writer and though she wasn’t jealous of his realm, she needed something of her own, a dominion that she hadn’t yet found. She was often irritable and would pick fights over little things and my friend, as a defensive strategy, would stop her in the middle of her furious polemics to tell her, “Okay, you win.” This infuriated her, and she would shout “That’s not fair. Stand up and fight!” When he would walk away calmly she would shout “Come back and fight like a man!”

“If she needs to win so badly,” he said. “I let her.”

Her children had already learned to back off when she behaved like the bull of her astrological sign and that left her further isolated with nobody to pick on. She would slam out of the house in a rage to find a place to calm down and assess her options before she would rejoin her flock. When she came back it was like nothing had happened. Bullies have their own demons to conquer.

I don’t see people fighting on the street unless they are drunk or trying to shake off the police. Disagreements in families are usually confined to private spaces; public arguments between neighbours are rare, but people will turn violent over property disputes. In Mediterranean cafes I have seen families threaten murder over the perceived theft of a strip of land only wide enough to plant a row of artichokes. Death is not the usual outcome. Solutions are found, either by correcting the original sin, by paying reparations, but sometimes there remains an eternal simmering war between families. These disagreements are often based on honour rather than the value of the object in discussion. Both sides want to win, nobody to back down, even if it is better for the welfare of the group. This buried rancour can poison any reasoned attempts at solutions, because in their crusade to pull down their neighbours, they pull down the entire tribe. Village life is a microcosm of all lives. Cooperation is always better because competition poisons the well, and should not be given first place.

Chimpanzees live in male dominated societies, but every so often the succession goes wrong. A ruling alpha male may be injured in a cross-tribe battle and be weakened and diminished, so his next in line takes charge. The successor may turn out to be a tyrant of the first order without little understanding of the fragility of the social structure. His reign of terror tests the females and less powerful males, but none of them will fight him directly because he is stronger and will beat them severely. After a few seasons of being pummelled, pushed around, and seeing their relatives maimed and killed by the dictator, the females and secondary males do what needs to be done, and the aberrant alpha male disappears.

It is not wise to concede to bullies, who in their own twisted way believe they have won, even if they have broken unspoken rules to do it. Hitler would have been happy with world domination. But with the right tactics, bullies can be punctured and deflated as the puffed up clowns they are.

Canadians don’t think that a competition is worth dying for, so we don’t always find the last ounce of momentum that will carry us first over the line. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. We tried, we enjoyed the experience, maybe we will win the next time or maybe not. Life does not pivot on a moment of victory or defeat. There is always another game. Whatever the outcome, the loser and winner will both leave the field and return to their humdrum lives. As life knocks some rough edges off them, they mature and learn that there are richer and more rewarding pursuits than extreme games, and that coming in second can be a blessing in disguise.