Yesterday we talked about the distinctly male characteristic that is known as "competitiveness". You know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, read yesterday's entry. It's a semantic distinction whether we see this as a good thing or bad, and there are two sides to each coin, this one most of all. Of course, the flip side of this coin is to call it "gambling", where males will bet all on an extremely unlikely outcome rather than work to earn a slightly less valuable sure thing. To gloss this over by calling it "competitiveness" misses certain important aspects of male-oriented competition.

The competition is compulsive. There is no consideration of whether it is the best way to accomplish a goal, and in fact it might be highly counterproductive.

I often look on it as "scoring points". You score points by inconveniencing somebody else, by preventing them from getting something, even though doing so may mean that neither of you gets it. So you score points by cutting off someone as they are about to put their car in a parking space, even though doing so may prevent you from getting a better one yourself. You score points by passing someone, even if you have to do it 100' from the exit you are taking while traveling at 80 mph.

So in a fourth grade class, I observed a boy sharing his love of skateboarding with a visiting adult reader. A few seconds later I saw a scuffle in the area. What had happened? Another boy, hearing that the first boy had said he like skateboarding, had said, "I bet you can't do (some professional stunt)." The speaker, when questioned, said he had asked the first boy if he could do that stunt. The first boy took it as the challenge that it was. Why did he do this? It was the instinct for gambling, for jockeying for position and territory. The feeling that If he can't do that stunt, I will get points for making sure everybody knows he can't do it, even though I can't myself.

This was but a trivial example, hardly life and death. Now let's look at a more serious one, published in the Boston Globe yesterday.

SCSU student's shooting followed religious argument

Witnesses told police that Stetson and Bell got into a philosophical argument outside a local strip mall. Stetson was waiving a bible at Bell, who is a devout Muslim and currently uses the name Malik Abdul, according to the affidavit.

When the argument escalated, Stetson pulled out a pellet gun and Bell responded by pulling out a real gun and shooting Stetson in the chest, the witnesses told police.

He did what? Well, let's see. He got points for trying to convert a muslim to his religion, and he probably gave himself more points for sticking with the argument in spite of the clear lack of interest of the other participant in conversion. Then he got points for pulling out a gun and pointing it at the other guy, too. Too bad his points got reset to zero when the other guy had a real gun that he was willing to use, eh?

I would say there some sort of logical disconnect going on, except that logic doesn't seem to have played any role. Clearly the dead guy was gambling that pointing a gun at some muslim was going to increase the likelihood of him accepting jesus as his savior (more points!) while having no possibility of repercussions.

Any of you males out there who think this was a logical thing to do, please feel free to comment.

Link to story

All this brings to mind a story that was in the local news around here a year or two ago. Two guys were drinking in a trailer, and one of them ended up shot, allegedly by the other one. There weren't a lot of details available, but I heard on the local public radio station news that the dead man's last words were, "You don't have the nerve to shoot me."

A challenge and a gamble indeed.

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