Issue2 【SWEETBOX小组】第四次作业

jiangyue011UID: 2340595

TOPIC: ISSUE2 - "Competition is ultimately more beneficial than detrimental to society."
WORDS:        TIME: more than 1hr         DATE: 2007-6-21

The statement above introduces a meaningful issue about what is the most influential force of the society: competition or cooperation. Although there is no universal answer about this controversial issue, I fundamentally agree with the speaker's statement that competition is nothing else, but a generic factor benefiting an individual and the society as a whole.

For an individual, competition is the very force that propelled him or her to strive, to seek and to exert his or her best in order to achieve the goals. Students in school should compete with other students to get high scores, scholarships, or awards. Such competition, concealed in every student's heart, inspires each student's interests and motivates him or her to study actively rather than passively receiving a tremendous amount of stuffs without digesting and assimilating them.  The competition in academic performance not only allows the students to be competitive but also is an approach for the teachers to dig out the excellent ones, making it possible to teach advanced courses to the gifted ones and help the slow learners to master the materials with patience.  Another striking example involves any given sports, where one of the most commonly endorsed sprits is competition. From almost every sports meeting of the school or enterprises to the most popular worldwide game-Olympic Games, there are usually three medals made of three distinct materials: gold, silver, and copper. The reason for this phenomenon is simple: athletes should strive to be higher, faster, and stronger to be a winner to win both medals given by the holders of the game but the self recognition of their own value system.

On the social level, competition is the dynamic force that drives the society ahead. In the primitive society when our ancestors dwelled in caves and ate raw, they have to compete with carnivores to gain food while not being prey to other predators. It is the harsh environment from without and the competitive mind from within that make our ancestors to study to use tools, to learn a lot of methods of hunting and to educate the next generation; it is also the two factors that make the society advance and the civilization sustain from one generation to another.  In the modern world, competitions among enterprises and different nations have aroused the most advanced technologies and techniques that make our life more convenient and more comfortable.  During the last several decades men could see computers have increased significantly in performance and efficiency while have decreased in weight and in price. This change should be attributed to the competition among different IT companies. Airplanes, satellites, landing on the moon and many other great achievements are also partly, if not all due to the competition among different countries. Also, competition provides a mechanism to allocate the resources, allowing the most competitive and effective individuals or enterprises to gain more resources while lowering the supply for the less competitive ones. By this approach could the resources be used properly and could the whole society be developed more effectively.

Nevertheless, it should be mentioned competitions going out of morals and laws would bring about detrimental and irrevocable negative influence to the society. For example, enterprises caring only about the profits might produce a large amount of wastes that threat the environment.  Further, since the society is not filled with pure competition, we should at least see the other side of competition, cooperation. Students in school are not only competitors but also friends and cooperators; many enterprises in the business world are not only competitors but also allies; different nations on the planet are not only competitors but also mutual benefactors. The stress of pure competition may make us die at an early age, it is only by cooperation can we procure mutual support and make friends with others.

In conclusion, competition is one impetuses of the society and it benefits us by a myriad of approaches, also any individual should see other side of competition and learn to cooperate with others. After all, stimulated by the triumph of achieving a goal and challenged by the fierce situations of the real world, the winners, along with the losers, comprise a successful society.