Cooperation & Competition
▫ Humans are territorial: a trait that has made cooperation difficult. Territoriality influences social status and stratification, and vice versa.
Because individuals are compelled to cooperate with others for both survival and the satisfaction of the vast majority of human needs and desires, they are bound together in “antagonistic cooperation.” ~ Frank Elwell
▫ Cooperation takes advantage of shared intelligence, and so may improve both decision-making and the quality of decisions. Competition offers no such succor for enhanced cognitive power. Instead, competition fosters cunning: to take at someone else’s expense. Hence, competition degrades moral integrity, as abundantly evidenced in the world today.
