If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
If San Francisco's public radio station is spotlighting views like this, then perhaps the 'everyone's a winner, no one's a loser' mentality is finally reaching its end.
I'm fully aware that we live in the mecca of political correctness here in the Bay Area, but since when did it become politically incorrect to win?
Case in point: my 8-year-old son's soccer team last year didn't "count" the goals they scored. His youth basketball team didn't "count" the baskets they scored in their games either. The rationale, I was told, was to not call out the differences in talent and discourage those with lesser abilities from maintaining their enthusiasm and interest in the game.
...Then, it hit me. We were witnessing another example of the political in-correctness of winning. I always thought sports were metaphors for life. Wins and losses help prepare you for life's ups and downs, and setting and accomplishing goals demonstrates the value of hard work and commitment. How do we expect our kids to grasp these concepts if we don't provide a context for how they perform versus their peers?
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Feb '11
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Related story here: A culture war in miniature about parental conflict re winning & losing in 4th-grade basketball.
Dec '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Yikes! Kinda turns Vince Lombardi's philiosophy on it's head doesn't it?
Jul '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
"If Everyone 'Wins,' Everyone Loses"
Jun '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
If you're training little socialists, you don't want them to experience the joy of victory. They might learn to expect meritocracy. That's no good. Success needs to depend on loyalty and conformity. "You all did well comrades."
Sep '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
I guess when someone is hired at San Francisco's public radio station, everyone who applied is hired? Or no one is hired? Is the hiree required to share his salary with all who applied? Does anyone keep track of the amount of his salary?
This business of not keeping score is so unreal. Everyone learns, sooner or later, that scores are kept in life, in one way or another. And don't think for a moment that the kids in their unscored games don't know who the winning team is at the end of the contest.
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Yes, that's exactly what I was going for. Title amended.
Jan '11
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
As a parent, it isn't my job to prevent my children from encountering the world. It's my job to teach them how to live in it.
Loss is part of the real world. I happen to think it's integral and important. And, spiritually, suffering is at the core of any soul. But it's not fun and it isn't easy. It's just real.
If you aren't prepared to teach your children how to handle unpleasant things ...
Jun '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
I've never been a big fan of organized sports because bending over and taking one for the team was the only position I ever got to play. Now that I have that out of my system, I'll say this: If there is no reward for winning, why bother to play? Why even try if your efforts mean nothing?
This is not a one size fits all problem. Not everyone can win. Laughing at the losers (if you aren't a winner, you are a loser, right?) doesn't really help them. No amount of humiliation will ever make me a better runner, say, not that my coaches seemed to believe that. But effort needs reward, and great effort needs great reward.
May '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Doesn't that set the President's "agenda" askew?
Jul '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Well, these people who don't want to keep score should be asked,"Do you vote? And if so, should all votes be counted? Why should votes be counted and not sports scores? You believe in 'winning' elections don't cha?"
Feb '11
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
I suspect that this sort of thing is often driven by people whose *own* sense of self is very brittle, and who assume that other people are the same way. Regardless, it is a good way to bring up kids who can't deal with setbacks and fall apart when faced with criticism. The effect of this kind of misdirected "self-esteem building" is already being seen by employers:
Cindy Pruitt, a professional development and recruiting manager with the national law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, shares with disbelief a recent incident in which one of the firm's summer associates broke down in her office after being told his structure on a recent memo was "a little too loose." "They're simply stunned when they get any kind of negative feedback," Pruitt says. "I practically had to walk him off the ledge."
Link
Jun '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
I think one of the deeper meanings of this statement from SF public radio is that political correctness, reality shielding, or whatever you want to call it, has taken a life of its own. This guy on the radio is very likely liberal. I know several left-leaning people. I've seen many of these types of people scratch their heads over issues like this, just like we are. Does that mean that ultra-liberals have managed to embed themselves into every single sports league in America? No, but as a culture, both left and right, we have acquired this bad habit and it has grown like an out-of-control cancer throughout society with barely a push now. I coach a little league baseball team where most of the parents are quite politically conservative. I'd say most didn't raise an eyebrow when the league required us not to keep score. (not all age groups, but the youngest) And I can assure you that all of them will get trophies at the end of the season regardless of how well they played.
Oct '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
American kids already have too much self-esteem.
Jul '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Oh, this goes much deeper than mere sport. Our entire education system has been dumbed down to protect the self-esteem of children who, for whatever reason, cannot achieve.
Jun '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Totally agree...
Oct '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
This is a sad state of affairs. One question is are there still mandatory P.E classes ? And would they not help combat the bogeyman of obesity?
Will not address the dumbing down or elimination of scorekeeping. Unless .....
Would this be the death nell of the NBA, NFL plus other profitable pro sports ?
Just how does the odd logic of childrens sports fit the model ?
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
The thing is that the kids actually want to keep score. Throughout my youngest brother's (age 11) career in Little League, official policy was that teams were not to keep score. But the kids all kept score themselves (as did many of the parents, secretly) and at the end of the game, you had one team go wild with excitement over their victory as the other team looked somber and disappointed.
Kids are competitive -- no amount of political correctness can quash that natural instinct. And thank goodness for that.
Oct '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
May healthy minds, hearts and spirits win out against subserviance...
Edited on Apr 29, 2011 at 9:59pmFeb '11
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
Exactly. This kind of foolishness doesn't teach kids anything other than that a lot of parents have some really goofy ideas.
Of course, a healthy "normal" kid is going to think that anyway.
Jun '10
Re: If Everyone 'Wins', Everyone Loses
I have seen for myself as a substitute teacher in numerous schools throughout my district that today all children are "awesome" regardless of merit. I do not exaggerate when I say that I must hear the word fifty times a day.
The problem is that high self-esteem without commensurate ability creates walking, talking, human lodestones. These are the people who will burn down the kitchen while preparing breakfast and convince themselves they've done a bang-up job.
Now we have one such in the White House. He knows nothing, has no real ability except for self-promotion, yet he's totally awesome: "This time is different because you have me!" Indeed we do. And the republic will be lucky to survive this human lodestone of a president. Gah.