Talk:Competition

Unsourced

• Competitions are for horses, not artists.
  • Béla Bartók

• The more unfair competition, the better.
  • Milton Friedman, as quoted by Michael Ignatieff on the BBC Radio 4's program 20:20 (5 February 1997)

Quotes about competition from popular culture

Today, Peter1c removed the following three quotes from this page:

• Miss Harridan:  "Rock for Daddy Day Care—help us finance our new permanent home."  Do you know what this means?
  Jenny:  It's a chance to improve ourselves through a little healthy competition?
  Miss Harridan:  No, you bobbleheaded idiot.  It's a death sentence.
  • Miss Harridan (Angelica Huston) and Jenny (Lacey Chabert) in Daddy Day Care (9 May 2003), written by Geoff Rodkey.
• Dr. Gordon, this is your wake-up call. Every day of your working life you have given people the news that they're going to die soon. Now, you will be the cause of death. Your aim in this game is to kill Adam. You have until six on the clock to do it. There's a man in the room with you. When there's that much poison in your blood, the only thing left to do -- is shoot yourself. There are ways to win this hidden all around you. Just remember, X marks the spot for the treasure. If you do not kill Adam by six, then Alison and Diana will die, Dr. Gordon... and I'll leave you in this room to rot. Let the game begin. [whispers] Follow your heart.
  • Jigsaw Saw (2004 film) screenplay by Leigh Whannell
• There can be only one.
  • Highlander (film) tagline written by Gregory Widen, Peter Bellwood, and Larry Ferguson.

In so doing, she or he has exorcised popular culture from the page.

Now, I will admit that removing the Saw quote was probably a wise decision.  The quote is rather irrelevant, it seems, to the topic of competition.

But, as for the other two quotes, I believe they merit being readded to the page.

1. Let's start with the Highlander tagline, uploaded by CensoredScribe on 21 October 2015.

   The quote is obviously noteworthy in that it is not just a famous line, but is the most famous line from all of Highlander media.  Even those of us who know almost nothing about Highlander know that quote.  Moreover, it is a pithy, and thus quotable, quote.  Indeed, it was the most pithy, well-known, and quotable quote dealing with the nature and/or spirit of competition on the entire page before its exorcism.

2. Now, let's discuss the Daddy Day Care quote.

   Daddy Day Care is a film all about competition between two businesses.  It is a commentary on the way big business uses the state to destroy the competition so that big business can thereby monopolise the market.  In the film, Charlie Hinton and Phil create a small startup called Daddy Day Care, thereby going into competition with the other daycare services available in their area, including the prestigious yet expensive Chapman Academy run by a Miss Gwyneth Harridan.  When Chapman Academy begins losing customers to Daddy Day Care, Miss Harridan gets the government to try to shut down her competition.

   Notably, this quote, better than any other in the entire film, sums up the entire dynamic.  Jenny is Harridan's assistant, and when they see a flyer adverising an event called 'Rock for Daddy Day Care,' their differing reactions are extremely telling.

   Jenny sees the inherent benefits to competition, viz., the opportunity for self-improvement.  There is such a thing as healthy competition.

   Miss Harridan, by contrast, isn't interested in self-improvement.  She is only concerned with maintaining a corner on the market, and is willing to retain this by any means.  Not only has she already sicced the regulators at her competition so as to avoid having to compete in the market, thereby indirectly violating the rights of Hinton and Phil, but in the scene immediately following this quote, she violates their rights directly by personally sabotaging the event whose advertisement she and Jenny had read.  Thus, her means of competition is purely underhanded and, thus, unhealthy.

   There is no quote on the entire page that sums up the dichotomy of healthy v. unhealthy competition now that this quote has been removed.

Therefore, in conclusion, I believe both the Highlander quote and the Daddy Day Care quote should be reinstated in the page.

Sincerely,
allixpeeke (talk) 02:19, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi Allixpeeke. With your (very clear and articulate) explanation, the Daddy Day Care quote seems very interesting and relevant. But in order to be included in Wikiquote, a quote has to include enough context to be comprehensible on its own. The Wikipedia page for Daddy Day Care would (IMHO) be greatly improved by the addition of the analysis you just gave. There are often cases were paraphrasing and summarizing are more effective ways of presenting the content of a text than quoting. It's awkward that Wikiquote doesn't currently have a good way to do this.

For the Highlander quote, I don't have a strong opinion. I leave the decision to your judgment. ~ Peter1c (talk) 12:03, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Dear Peter1c,

Thanks for the response.  It seems I, having seen and analysed Daddy Day Care, overestimated how clear it would be to readers that that quote expressed the dichotomy between healthy and unhealthy modes of competition.  I thought it was comprehensible on its own, but if it is not, then you are probably right in having removed it.

I went ahead and readded CensoredScribe's Highlander quote.

Cheers,
allixpeeke (talk) 04:13, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Anyone know where/when/if Cicero said "Do not hold the delusion that your advancement is accomplished by crushing others."

• Anyone know where/if Cicero said "Do not hold the delusion that your advancement is accomplished by crushing others."  ??Marcus Tullius Cicero

I looked in Treatises on Friendship & old age + Letters of MTC -with negative results. Om777om (talk) 18:37, 3 April 2019 (UTC)