Good point, FK. I assume that you see "envy" as a more positive base for personal artistic progress and "jealousy" as a vicious tangled snake-pit of ressentiment and ill-will?

Edited by author 11-19-2003 10:41 PM
I think what we're really talking about here is the subtle distinction between "envy" and "jealousy". All the more fitting in a literary context.

Dangerous assumptions aside, I like that distinction. Thanks, Occasional Intruder, Intrude more often!

Georg Simmel distinguishes between competition and conflict, with competition being “…the fight of all against all, at the same time, it is the fight of all for all." In competition, the parties are both struggling to gain something that neither of them have (an improved record time, the perfect poem). Competition therefore leads to an increase in resources or values (we now have another poem, an improved speed record), and since both parties aim for the same goal,(the perfection of sport or literature--as if either is attainable!!) both will benefit from it being attained. Conflict, however, results in the elimination of one of the parties, or the redistribution of existing values or resources. So that's what Simmel has to say on this, to branch out from etymology. Mind you, this doesn't address some of the issues that have been raised. After all, this definition assumes that everyone starts at the same place.... the 'level playing field' is always such a dangerous assumption.

True, Madeleine, I did say that, and perhaps it wasn't the best example, but I don't think it's incompatible with how I've defined competition. It's the sort of thing that motivates, say, Elvis Stojko to try a quadruple-toe-loop when the best anyone else has been able to manage is a triple. Would he have gone for the quad, if the previous best was a double? It's part of a creative dialectic. I only think in those terms vis-a-vis established champions. I don't read a crappy poem by Joe Who in Journal X and think, "I can do better than that." I see Seamus Heaney's "North" and I think to myself: "Famous Seamus has got something wrong in this poem; it rubs me the wrong way. I have something to say on this subject in contradiction to what he has said." My contradiction does not destroy Heaney's poem, but, hopefully, corrects it where it has not seen right.

As for feeling like a loser, that's between one and one's self. Nothing to be done about it. It's more perception than actuality.

The other problem with competition as it usually exists is that there is a winner. And when you aren't the winner, it can be hard not to feel like a loser. Which is probably not the best frame of mind to be in if you are trying to create.

All very well, Zed, but you actually started this topic praising the type of competition you are now slagging:

"I will sometimes write poems on a subject that I've seen someone else write about because I think to myself: "I can do better than that."

That's not the kind of competition that seems very beneficial. The other kind of competition does, sure, but that's not what you started talking about. Maybe it's true "the majority of people don't understand this word properly" but you can hardly fault us when your own example seems to be about "winning in relation to one another" as Janine puts it.

Z, as usual, we're fundamentally in agreement. My only caution is that I think it is important to be aware of the differences between how you are using language and how people are likely to interpret it. Just because we know we're right about what it should mean to compete doesn't mean that the rest of the world, outside of the people here, will read the word the way we want them too.

Ok, Janine, but I think if you were to sit down and talk with any serious-minded person engaged in an overtly competitive activity (say Wayne Gretzky or Muhammad Ali), the definition that would emerge would more closely resemble mine or your choir director's. Athletes, by and large, are upset by losing only if they know they could have won, but screwed up. If someone like Ted Williams went 4-for-5 in a game (a great day at the plate by anyone's standards), he wouldn't necessarily be satisfied, especially if his hits were Texas-leaguers and his out was a pop-up on a hanging curve. His dissatisfaction would be even greater if he played poorly in the field, or if his team lost because of sloppy play--or even if they won in spite of sloppy play. That's the competitive spirit, not the simple desire to win, to beat someone else, which is a perversion of true competition stemming from a fundamental sense of inferiority. A true competitor would rather lose to a legitimate opponent than beat up on a weakling. Maybe the majority of people don't see it that way, but in that case, the majority of people don't understand the word properly. One of the poet's tasks is to make people re-think the meaning of words. And etymology is a big part of this, it's not just some trivial game that's fun to play. Kowtowing to cultural standards and mistaken assumptions is something we gotta watch out for.

Skeat: Oxford Etymological.

Indogermanic root--

PET:(FETH), to fall, to fly, to hasten towards, seek, find.
Skt, pat, to fly, fall upon, pat-ra(m), a wing, a feather, leaf; GK. seek, im-pet-us

PET: (FETH), to spread out, lie flat

I see the fart connection clearly, can almost smell it.

Z, while etymology is a fun game, I think it's fair to suggest that in our culture 'compete' denotes rivalry where the goal is to win in relation to another, not to simply better oneself near the competent performance of others. I think the latter is the exception, not the rule. It would be nice to reclaim the word, to have us strive with, rather than against.

Way back in high school I had this great choral conductor who instilled in us that sense of competition that you're championing. During my sister's final year, the chamber choir won a class at the Kiwanis festival, but recieved a bit of a tongue lashing from the conductor during the break before the next class started. A member of another choir turned to Michelle in shock, "How hard is he on you guys when you lose?" Michelle had to explain to her that he never cared how they placed, he cared how they performed. Sure, they'd won, but they hadn't performed well - there was a sloppy cut off, blah blah other choir stuff.

I think that competition is good if exposure to others encourages striving towards excellence, but not so good if all you end up caring about is beating someone else.

Etymological sidebar: "Compete" derives from the Latin "competere": to seek together. Also related to competence.

How this relates to the French word for "fart," I'm not quite sure. Perhaps something to do with afflatus...

From the online etymological dictionary:

compete - 1620, from Fr. compéter "be in rivalry with," from L.L. competere "strive in common," in L., "to come together, agree, to be qualified," later, "strive together," from com- "together" + petere "to strive, seek." Rare 17c., and regarded early 19c. as a Scottish or Amer.Eng. word.

Edited by author 11-19-2003 02:31 PM
Ninja, I think a too-narrow definition of competition as vicious strife is colouring this discussion. It's not how I conceive of competition. More as a friendly thing, perfectly in tune with "a line bouncing off their curves." One learns from one's opponents, one does not merely attempt to obliterate them. After the battle, shake hands and say "good game," then go for a beer together. Even plants compete with each other; there'd be something wrong if we didn't too.

Kathryn, I think the trance is largely chemical (adrenal?) and can be situationally induced. When I was a student, I used to go into such a mode for as long as 3 consecutive hours while I wrote an exam. I'd come out of it barely able to recall what I'd written, but with the vague notion that it was very damn good. I've never taken cocaine, but I imagine it to be a similar sort of thing, from what I've heard. Or, to bring it back to the article, akin to the mania phase of bipolar disorder (thankfully, I have no firsthand knowledge of this condition either). I know that when I've been doing a lot of writing, I've been asked by people quite close to me if I'm on coke. So yes, the spark, the spark, that electric arc.

Yes yes yes and yes. You write out of competiton, to yourself and others. Me too. I want to develop or some word like that but not so pyscho-babble. I also write from somewhere else, from this place that wants to look at something until I can't stand it anymore and then look some more (as a dare almost, to see if I can).

You do not exclusively write to get a reaction from others. My point was that the work sparks life, as it must have for Emily Dickinson, life, feeling, reaction, what have you. Isn't that what we're after? That frisson? That the reaction is the thing, either your reaction to your own work, never made public, I don't care, or someone else's reaction to it, spoken or not. Is it alive? That's good enough.

And.

That trance you and Madeleine speak of. There. What is it? It's not proof of talent, or good formal work, I agree but what the hell is it? That's what I wonder about regarding the connection between your hands and your mind, your performance on stage etc. Is that what Flaherty's on about re: the limbic part of the brain? Is it chemical? And if so, can we bottle it?

Edited by author 11-19-2003 01:23 PM
I might add something, I think. I used to have a wicked competitive urge that drove most everything I did. Might have been a holdover from soccer and judo. Might have just been a "guy" think. Who knows? Anyway, I worked in a comparative/competitive mode "against" other writers, my peers, and myself. Not all the time, mind you, but often.

But, at some point along the road (an almost definite hour), I decided to largely give this up. I am much happier as a result, both personally and artistically, and I think my writing is better. My interaction with other writers now is more tangential than competitive. I am a line bouncing off their curves. I feel like I'm in a canoe, drifting, waiting for things to happen and sometimes touching toe to water to see what ripples form, checking out the scenery. This attitude has reduced my output by about 90%, but it's also exponentially improved the quality of what I do produce, I think. In fact, that's it -- I think. Now I think instead of merely reacting. I think for a living and writing is a byproduct of that thinking.

Here on the boards I write freely, without much thought or consideration to idea, form, grace, execution. But when I am writing, my mind slows down considerably and is able to wrap itself python-like around a given concept and squeeze the ever-loving shit out of it. At least, I hope so. I throw away so much less this way, but I lose those tiny horny mind-orgasms daily poems give... I miss that sometimes, but think I'm better off.

Baby crying.

Kathryn, for me the act of composition is often an interaction between the thought, the spoken and the written. And, tho not as frequently as I might like, it is often a matter of being or seeming to be, as Madeleine puts it, possessed by an outside force that directs my mind and hand. I'm a bit skeptical of the accuracy of this last statement, because tho I felt a similar sense of possession five years ago, what I wrote then wasn't as good as what comes out of the same trance-state now. I don't think a writer can abdicate responsibility for what he has written, no matter how incapable he is of accounting for it.

Madeleine, I said that competition has "a lot to do"--not the exclusive reason--with my motivation to write; also that it is competition against myself as much as against others. In the collection of interviews with Canadian poets edited by Tim Bowling, the question "Is competition healthy or unhealthy for a poet?" was asked in each interview. (Granted, the question was framed in terms of "reviews, awards and other honours," which I think warped responses, because this is the pettiest form of competition--however, poets of all people should be able to make a question mean whatever they want it to.) Almost exclusively, the answer was that it is unhealthy. And that is utter nonsense. It's like Lance Armstrong saying that he rides his bike just for the sheer joy of it; as if competition didn't make him better. No, thoughts of bettering others or one's self can't be at the forefront in the heat of composition, but in the cool, sober process of revision and the decision to publish, it has to be a factor. Competition is human nature, and poets are not exempt from it, no matter how celestial they think they are.

Back to Kathryn: I won't pretend that I don't like, or dislike, public reactions to my work; I wouldn't endeavour to make it public otherwise. However, the work would go on without it. Emily Dickinson, after a disastrous (to her mind) initial experience with criticism, kept her poetry to herself. But she kept on writing, oh boy did she ever, and if it suffered for not interacting with the world at large, I'd love to see how good her writing would have been had she not been a hermit. Moby Dick got panned, and Melville felt futile as a result, but he channelled that sense of futility into Bartleby the Scrivener, one of the best short stories ever written. One more word on the subject: Kafka. I don't feel any more useful as a writer for having people respond to my work; it's just an added bonus. Writing and publishing are almost completely separate worlds, as far as I'm concerned.