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Argument Essay

The document summarizes an argument against a claim by author Alfie Kohn that competition is degrading, unproductive, and harmful. It argues that Kohn makes flawed assumptions in claiming that competition requires diminishing others and taxes competitors physically and mentally. Instead, competition challenges people to better themselves, which benefits both individuals and their community. It concludes that competition usually improves rather than destroys competitors and produces valuable results for society.

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625 views2 pages

Argument Essay

The document summarizes an argument against a claim by author Alfie Kohn that competition is degrading, unproductive, and harmful. It argues that Kohn makes flawed assumptions in claiming that competition requires diminishing others and taxes competitors physically and mentally. Instead, competition challenges people to better themselves, which benefits both individuals and their community. It concludes that competition usually improves rather than destroys competitors and produces valuable results for society.

Uploaded by

api-491420987
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Argument Against Alfie Kohn’s Claim Concerning Competition

Author Alfie Kohn argues in his essay “Why Competition?” that competition is

degrading, unproductive, and harmful. He argues that competition creates an incentive to

diminish one’s competitor and thereby leads to participants bringing about deterioration rather

than growth. Kohn also believes that competition damages the competitors in addition to the

community because always needing to be on top taxes the competitor’s psyche and body.

However, flaws riddle both Kohn’s assumptions and reasoning. Competition does not harmfully

tax the competitors, nor does it harm the community, but rather serves the interests of the

common good.

Kohn begins supporting his claim by proposing that when people within a community

compete, the competition requires effort to be spent diminishing the efforts of another, which

leads to the detriment of the community as a whole. However, competition, when conducted in a

fair and legal manner, only diminishes another through becoming better than he, not by

destroying another’s success. Rather than harming the community, this aids it by means of the

competitors’ success. Individuals are more productive and therefore useful to the community

when there is a goal they have to overcome.

More thoroughly discussed, however, is the proposition that constant competition is

taxing on the body and psyche. Kohn claims that participants in competition are harmed because

one will rarely secure a position of supreme standing, much less remain there for long. However,

the exact opposite is more often true, because competition requires one to better his or her self.

Without competition, one simply drifts about without purpose or motivation. If there is no

indication or necessity for further personal success, there is no will to improve. Being unable or
unwilling to better oneself is a significantly more horrifying fate than constantly needing to

work. Competitors do not sacrifice themselves and their wellbeing to the competition, they

improve themselves for its sake.

Alfie Kohn contends that competition is never good. He bases his theory upon

questionable assumptions and easily penetrable reasoning. Competition can, and at times is, most

certainly harmful or dangerous, but this is not the case for all or even the majority of

competitions. In most instances, competition challenges and improves the competitors, not

destroy them, and produces that which the community desires, otherwise there would not be a

competition. Competition does not wreak havoc on those in and surrounding the competition, but

rather improves and benefits them.

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