SOSC 1040 Lecture 15: Agonism & Competition as the Primary Ideology of Power
10 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Agonism & competition as the primary ideology of power. It is the primary ideology of global capitalism. It is thus also a cherished and unquestioned cultural value. We have been socialized to accept competition as normal, positive, natural and desirable and taught that competition is the wellspring of evolution and life. Social science research states that cooperation is actually the human behaviour that has allowed our species to succeed and survive. If competition conflict - violence was the primary determining factor in human nature we would have gone extinct by now. Competition is the world"s largest secular religion a widely held belief is that competition is nothing less than a natural, positive thing with no negative aspects or social consequences. Like all religions competition has its social institutions: in sport, in competitive democratic politics, in business and finance, education and in the desire for consumers to compete with each other.
