“Cooperation is as important an aspect of life on earth as competition.” I don’t remember when or where I found this statement. To me, it is an important and timely affirmation although it only moves us in the right direction. The statement sounds rather bland, but when you unpack it, it has some punch.
Today, by far the larger emphasis in our culture is on the competition side of the equation, being best, winning, and so on and on. Acknowledged, competition has always been a significant and understandable aspect of many life experiences, athletic competitions, scholastic endeavors, political office contests, and among businesses vying for the same market. I remember hearing, “nature is red in tooth and claw,” “it’s a dog eat dog world,” “eat or be eaten,” “it’s a jungle out there,” or, “only the strongest survive.” There is no lack of statements such as these, all emphasizing competition.
But that is not and never has been the predominant story. In fact, just the opposite is true. Cooperation is not as important as competition, it is the predominant force in nature. This has been true since life began. We are multi-cellular beings along with most life-forms. From the inception of life, cells had to cooperate to form new organisms and to survive. According to the website, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/birds_do_it_bats_do_it we exist because of cooperating organisms. Fritjof Capra states, “This is a process that started with the first single-celled organisms. Life, from its beginning more than three billion years ago, took over the planet by networking, not combat.” The authors of the above noted article also cite the cooperation of ants, fish, and bats to assure the survival of the species, and between species. The same is true in the plant kingdom. According to Susan A. Dudley, in “Plant Cooperation,” at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4631906/, literature on plants is full of references to cooperation within and among species.
What about human beings? We also tend to cooperate before we compete according to some research (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/birds_do_it_bats_do_it). If this is the case, how do we take advantage of this to promote even more cooperation and less strife? At another website that I found, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_growth_mindset_can_increase_cooperation
Amit Goldenberg, a graduate student writes, “We found that people who believe societies and individuals are capable of change cooperate much better with each other.”
This doesn’t mean that cooperation eliminates conflict. “Cooperation never means the absence of conflict of interest,” notes Danny Grunbaum, an oceanographer at the University of Washington and a pioneer in revealing the ways that ocean life cooperates in order to survive. “It means a set of rules for negotiating conflicts of interest in a way that resolves them.”
In the end, it is all about our attitude. If we see another person or group as open, able to listen, learn, and change, we are less apt to judge them and more apt to work with them. Therefore, in the first place, we need to be open and willing to learn (and change)! When we believe that others are set in their ways, or in other words, our minds are set and closed, we are less apt to work with others. And less apt to cooperate.