One of the greatest hidden pathologies in our thinking is the “zero-sum game” paradigm. For the Cardinals to win, the Cubs had to lose. For Ruben Studdard to win, Clay Aiken had to lose. For Obama to win, McCain had to lose. And for “The King’s Speech” to win, “True Grit” had to lose. Clearly, the ”one-up and one-down” paradigm is sometimes a reality. But the taint which comes from expecting that pattern to hold everywhere easily blinds us to the true character of situations where it simply isn’t so.
Consider romantic relationships. At their worst, they are lose-lose, and at their almost worst they are win-lose. But when romance works properly, both parties gain tremendously from their interactions. On a good date, both people come out happier at the end. Who lost for such winning to occur? No one lost. Both are ahead. What a perversion it would be if all relationships were doomed by structure to produce no net advance for the combined participants!
Consider art. If I invent a new way to perform a dance movement (unlikely) or a new style of brushstroke (more unlikely) or a novel and poignant enwordment of ideas (possible, at least), people will be blessed by it. Others may even copy and duplicate my invention. Who is worse off in this situation? I have gained by knowing I gave the gift. Others have gained by receiving it. And still other givers and receivers will be blessed through the spreading ripples of artistic emulation. What a horror art would be if society gained no net enrichment through its production!
But significantly, consider commerce. Although it is common to think of money as a zero-sum game (since someone always gains the money from someone else paying it), nothing could be further from the truth. When I go to the store and purchase a product, I am happy to buy it, and the merchant is happy to have sold it to me. Who is worse off? The counterimpulsive answer is, “No one.” In fact, we’re both better off. This is the magic of free transactions. The shirt is worth more to me than the money I spend, and the money is worth more to the retailer than the shirt he sells me. We’re both better off. Consider an alternate universe where the simple ownership of money were the only value in the world. No one would ever spend theirs. But of course, they do, most of the time quite willingly. Why? To get something worth more to them than the money from someone to whom the money is worth more than the something.
The tremendous “positive-sum gameness” of these extremely significant domains of human experience should serve as a warning. Since it is possible to misunderstand them as win-or-lose environments if we have spent too long in such arenas, we must constantly beware such paradigmatic bleed-over. Otherwise, we will mistake win-and-win environments for the other kind and practice them accordingly, ruining by perverse expectation what God intended as another way to reveal His own ever-flourishing nature.
Anything in which there must be winners and losers should make us suspect that it may not be God-given. And anything which clearly is God-given should inspire us to look diligently for ways to conduct ourselves so that all players benefit from the endeavor.
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