I normally use Firefox as my browser, and recently upgraded to 9.0.1. The upgrade came with this video. Watching it led to many thoughts
- this video expresses a lot of the spirit behind my own website
- it expresses much about the way I think liturgy should be
- church could be
- its quality is the sort of thing that churches could be producing
- …
I think your comparison has merit … and is worth commentary pro and con.
I am reminded of big corporation v. big government, capitalism v. socialism, open source v. paid service, pro and con SOPA, Encarta (remember that for-pay encyclopedia?) v. Wikipedia, and a certain social simulation game we once played in which players were assigned “status” (as it happens per surname syllable numbers) which altered initial competitive advantage (“luck”)–noting incidentally that a game involves (1) “luck” (e.g., dice, shuffling the deck) (2) skill, and (3) a sense of winning and losing.
Then into the competitive game the moderator (deviously to all appearance) injected “grace” or a cooperation value which made the competitive game less valuable, depending in part on whether one was winning or losing or had won or saw no possibility of winning in the pre-cooperation/pre-grace game. In practice, the cooperation element deflated motivation for playing, but at the same time introduced a bit of peace.
Of course church, family, and state jurisdictions and functions differ. Overall in society, I don’t think we can jettison either competition or cooperation, reward for merit or gracious giving, in the game of life. There seems a proper or functional place for each … and yes, failures and successes along all ways.
Thanks, Peter, for your helpful thoughts. I am reminded that “survival of the fittest” can also be interpreted as “survival of those who cooperate”. Blessings.