Wisdom | Cooperative Games

Cicero

January 17, 2012 by Suzanne Lyons

Do not hold the delusion that your advancement is accomplished by crushing others.

– Cicero
Ancient Roman philosopher and statesman

In the nineteenth century, the Darwinists and Social Darwinists talked about the competition in nature, the fight – “Nature, red in tooth and claw.” In the twentieth century, ecologists have discovered that in the self-organization of ecosystems cooperation is actually much more important than competition.

– Fritjof Capra
Physicist, Systems Thinker and Author

Paul A. Colvinaux

January 17, 2012 by Suzanne Lyons

Whenever we find rather similar animals living together in the wild, we do not think of competition by tooth and claw, we ask ourselves, instead, how competition is avoided. When we find many animals apparently sharing a food supply, we do not talk of struggles for survival; we watch to see by what trick the animals manage to be peaceful in their coexistence.

Peaceful coexistence, not struggle, is the rule in our Darwinian world. A perfectly fashioned individual of a Darwinian species is programmed for a specialised life to be spent for the most part safe from competition with neighbours of other kinds. Natural selectionis harsh only to the deviant aggressor who seeks to poach on the niche of another. The peaceful coexistence between species, which results from evolution by natural selection, has to be understood as an important fact in the workings of the great ecosystems around us. It is also, surely, one of the most heartening of the lessons of biology.

-Paul A. Colvinaux
Contemporary Environmental Scientist and Author of Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare: An Ecologist’s Perspective

Leaky and Lewin

January 17, 2012 by Suzanne Lyons

We are essentially cultural animals with the capacity to form many kinds of social structures, but a deep-seated urge toward cooperation, toward working as a group, provides a basic framework for these structures.

– Leaky and Lewin
Contemporary Biologists

Jim Deacove

January 17, 2012 by Suzanne Lyons

Competition was virtually unknown to the Zuni and Iroquis in North America and the Bathonga in South Africa. The Mixtecans of Mexico regard envy and competitiveness as a kind of minor crime. From kibbutzniks in Israel to farmers in Mexico, cooperation is prized and competition is generally avoided.

It doesn’t have to be a “dog-eat-dog” world. We can unlearn that kind of learned behavior. Why not play “King of the Mountain” where everyone stands at the top?

– Jim Deacove
Owner of Family Pastimes Games