Opinion Articles

SOUL MATTERS: In a culture of winning, society is the loser
By Jessie Brown

You are sitting in the waiting room before the pearly gates of heaven. Next to you is an older man with black wispy hair and glasses, across the room a younger lady in a beautiful floral dress, both with tense expressions on their faces. God comes out to greet you and anxiety causes you to clench your fists in anticipation. He announces that the viewers at home have voted, the votes have been tallied and you have been evicted, losing the opportunity to win the great prize of eternity in heaven.

Life today has become a competition with individuals either being a winner or a loser, rather than a participant who has achieved. Why do we need this clear cut line between winner and loser which automatically deems the loser a failure? The ability to step up and have a go should be enough to validate a person’s worth.

This competitive environment begins at school. Awards are given to students who reach the top of academic or sporting ladders. In Year 12 students are constantly reminded of their level and eventually receive numeric evidence of their abilities in the ranking system for university admission. This teaches students that personal best is not good enough, to be valued in society you must be THE best. This philosophy continues when individuals apply for jobs. If you ace the interview and get the job you are the ‘successful’ applicant, however if you did not come first in the competitive job market you are the ‘unsuccessful’ applicant – and a loser.

After discovering you are the unsuccessful applicant you can go home and switch on the television only to watch more people compete for a prize and ‘losers’ being unceremoniously evicted from the program. Programs such as “Big Brother” quickly become popularity contests encouraging the rude, crude and attention seeking aspects of society to be magnified. Just because an individual was voted off “Dancing with the Stars” does not mean that person is any less worthwhile than the eventual winner of the competition.

The Australian culture likes to award a wooden spoon to the loser. But is this a subversion of the seriousness of competition or is it merely belittling? We regularly use the term ‘underdog’, which means the person least likely to succeed and tales of the underdog succeeding have become movie conventions, if not clichés. Maybe a cultural change needs to take place in order for life to stop being a series of competitions and starts being a series of opportunities.

Re-define what you believe is achievement and next time someone enters a competition don’t ask them how they ranked, or what award they received; congratulate them on their achievement.

Recently a fifteen year old boy died as a result of a fight at his school in northern NSW. A commentator said that so much of what passes as entertainment today involves at best, embarrassment and at worst, severe emotional and perhaps physical distress. Tragically, it now seems that the prize in the race of life can be life – or death.

Jessie Brown is a third year Communications student at the University of Newcastle. This article is submitted by the Churches Media Association. www.cmahunter.com.au


*This article was published in The Herald, 7th September 2009