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The competitive spirit is not a universal ideology. It is something learned and taught. While the members of every culture have their own systems of hierarchy, trade, and exchange, and while there are always the ‘haves and the have-nots,’ the individual will towards competition is something culturally unique.
A lot of parents will put their children into children’s sports leagues where this competitive spirit is first disseminated. Even if the children don’t know what they’re doing, they are presented the rules and instilled in them is the will to win. Later in life, these sort of aimless competitive children’s sports become analogous for every-day experience. It is through competition in sports where we derive our economic impulses and our ‘good business sense.’
While competition in sports does often have good lessons to teach, especially regarding self-control, teamwork, obedience, and so forth, it does also tend to stir-up a darker side of the human spirit – the Will to Win. It is this Will that will drive people to do sometimes conniving and devious things in order to be able to bask in that winner’s spotlight, because the nature of American competition is to reward those who stand out most, even if they’re competing on a team.
While the competitive spirit is something taught and formed through education, like all of life’s lessons, there is a good way to teach and a bad way to teach. If a competitive spirit is properly nurtured, it will extend itself beyond the sports world and help shape the individual’s ability to persevere, accept loss (because it happens to everyone), and follow directions when necessary. If a competitive spirit is neglected and improperly rewarded, perhaps by focusing too much on individual effort and overshadowing others who tried just as hard but didn’t ‘shine,’ it will simply continue to propound the oblivious, cocky attitudes which turn so many people off to sports in the first place.
While teams are comprised of individuals, most competitive sports are about the team, and how well the team can communicate and work together to achieve the winning goal.
