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Caitlin Trainer
Perspectives on Literature
4 May 2012
Cooperate to Compete
A man lives in an isolated jungle with no animals and no other human beings. He
has lived his whole life here with only plants to eat. He competes with nature as he tries
to survive, finding shelter in the rain and building fires for warmth. The moment another
human being enters the environment, does he cooperate or compete with them? His
instinct is to compete. He competes with this new human for food, water, and other
resources needed to survive. Soon they will learn that if they cooperate, they can split the
work of finding resources and compete against nature together. Society did not have to
teach them how to compete. As human beings, it is our instinctive nature to compete
against not only each other but also ourselves and nature. In doing so, we learn to
cooperate; therefore, cooperation becomes second nature. In his novel Franny and
Zooey, J.D. Salinger provides an excellent example of humans’ natural inclination to
compete in his novel Franny and Zooey. Both competition and cooperation are natural,
although competition always comes before cooperation.
Human beings are motivated by competition. For example, when a mother tells
her son to pick up his toys, he does not listen right away. In an effort to motivate her son,
the mother may say, “Let’s see who can pick up the most toys!” Making the chore a
game creates competition between the son and the mother, and motivating the child to
complete the task. The son is not naturally inclined to cooperate with the mother at first,
but once an opportunity to compete is offered, he instinctively plays along. He cooperates
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to compete. Furthermore, they pick up all the toys in the room, the son fills with joy and
pride to see that, indeed, he beat his mother in picking up more toys than she did. We are
filled with an insane amount of happiness whenever we accomplish something great,
which is why competing comes so natural.
Another example of our competitive nature is seen everyday by the way humans
interact with each other. Women compete with other women with the clothes they wear.
They constantly have the desire to one-up each other and be acknowledged. Even in
sweat pants, a girl is making the statement that she can still be cool in sweats even though
all the other girls wear nice sun dresses. Men and women compete daily in the way they
dress, how funny they are, how many places they’ve been, test scores, sports, and
materialistic possessions. Everything in life is an argument, including every piece of
artwork, advertisements, and even cars. A billboard argues that its product is worth the
investment. A run-down car conveys that the driver probably could not afford a
luxurious car (Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters). Therefore, if everything is an
argument, then naturally, we are continuously competing.
As we compete throughout life, we learn to cooperate. Any sport supports this
claim. While playing soccer, for example, our initial desire is to beat the other team.
Once this desire is present, we must take a step back and figure our how we will
cooperate with our own team to reach the goal of winning, as well as cooperate with the
opposing team by playing by the rules. Even in a sport that doesn’t necessarily have
teams, such as singles tennis, the player must cooperate with the opposing player to keep
score and play by the rules. The order of humans’ thought process is as follows:
compete, cooperate, compete while cooperating. Once again, we cooperate in order to
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compete, and once we learn how to cooperate well as we get older, cooperation comes as
naturally as competition.
René Girard, a French professor at Stanford University, created what is called the
mimetic theory. The mimetic theory “emphasizes the role of imitation in our lives, as an
effect and a behavior and a motivation” (Haven). Girard’s theory argues that people’s
desires determine our desires. When a child sees someone with an ice cream cone, he or
she will desire the ice cream because of what they see. We don’t want just for the sake of
wanting, rather, we see what others have and want to be like them. We learn our desires
from other people, and we are naturally driven to compete for our learned desires
(Haven).
Moreover, J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey is about a young, college-aged girl,
Franny Glass, who struggles with her spirituality and the world’s fakeness. The story is
two-fold. In the beginning, Franny has an emotional breakdown while having lunch with
her boyfriend, Lane, whom she had not seen for a while. She notices Lane’s
superficiality and is suddenly overwhelmed with the idea that she is the only one in the
world who notices everyone’s lack of depth. The second part of the story takes place at
the Glass home and is composed of dialogue between Franny and her older brother
Zooey. Zooey tries to help Franny understand what she is feeling, but he only makes her
feel worse. In the end, Zooey eventually helps Franny to conclude that everyone, no
matter what they say or do, is deserving of love.
As mentioned, in the beginning of the story, Franny and Lane are seated at a
restaurant, and Franny picks up on Lane’s egotistic, shallow mindset.
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When the drinks had first been served to them, ten or fifteen minutes
earlier, Lane had sampled his, then sat back and briefly looked around the room
with an almost palpable sense of well-being at finding himself (he must have been
sure no one could dispute) in the right place with an unimpeachably right-looking
girl—a girl who was not only extraordinarily pretty but, so much the better, not
too categorically cashmere sweater and flannel skirt. Franny had seen this
momentary little exposure, and had taken it in for what is was, neither more nor
less. But by some old, standing arrangement with her psyche, she elected to feel
guilty for having seen it, caught it, and sentenced herself to listen to Lane’s
ensuing conversation with a special semblance of absorption” (Salinger 11).
Franny’s initial response to Lane’s prideful observation is not positive. In fact, if she had
continued to act upon her initial reaction, she probably would have immediately insulted
Lane for being so self-centered. The reason the reader can know her thoughts are
negative is because she immediately feels guilty for noticing. If Lane had been doing
something she was happy about, she would feel guilty. Naturally, Franny wants to argue
to Lane that being conceited is wrong, but once she realizes her thoughts, she quickly
decides to cooperate and listen to him rant about himself.
The first time the reader sees Zooey interacting with another human, he is arguing
with his mother, Bessie, about his taste in drama. Immediately, Zooey gives the
impression that he is an actively competitive human being. When he is in a conversation
with Franny, he reflects on his views that every person is egotistical, similar to Franny’s
new realizations. At one point in the conversation, Zooey looks outside and thoughtfully
gazes at a girl happily walking her dog. “‘God damn it,’ he said, ‘there are nice things in
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this world—and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get sidetracked. Always,
always, always referring to every goddamn thing that happens right back to our lousy
little egos.’” (151). By saying that everyone glorifies themselves, he is making an
argument. Therefore, by calling everyone else in the world competitive, he is also being
competitive. It seems as though Franny and Zooey do not consider themselves as
competing within the competitive world, but rather, against the world as a whole, yet
competition, rather than cooperation is still the first nature.
As Zooey attempts to help Franny, he tells her everything she is doing wrong. He
tells her that she is wrong about her belief of Jesus, and he spends immense amount of
time correcting her beliefs. Within his arguments, Zooey implies that instead of blaming
other people for their egos, Franny should remind herself to forgive them for their
failures. Meanwhile, Franny is feeling worse about herself and becomes “busy with
several folds of Keenex” (152). She tells Zooey that he’s not helping her confusion.
Zooey is competing with Franny to allow her to understand her thoughts and emotions,
while Franny is competing with Zooey in order for him to see her side of the situation.
They talk in circles until they realize the importance of cooperation.
At the end of the story, Zooey goes into Buddy’s room and calls Franny,
pretending to be Buddy at first. Soon after, Franny realizes that it’s Zooey on the phone,
and he continues talking. He explains that when they were in a radio show as kids, he
was taught by one of their older brothers to shine his shoes for the “Fat Lady.” Zooey
conveys that everyone is deserving of love. We should love everyone for the “Fat Lady.”
The Fat Lady is a symbol of Jesus, the person who is watching at all times. Franny is
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finally able to understand what Zooey was trying to express, and they are able to
cooperate. Following their argument, cooperation finally came naturally between them.
One objection to the argument that humans are, by nature, competitive is the
question, “What about the behavior of people following a natural disaster?” When a
hurricane strikes land, the residents of the area are immediately inclined to cooperate with
each other in order to survive. “People cooperate not only for selfish reasons but also
because they are genuinely concerned about the well-being of others, try to uphold social
norms, and value behaving ethically for its own sake” (“A Cooperative Species”). The
answer to this question is that while humans may be cooperative with each other in such
an event, they are competing with the natural disaster. The natural disaster becomes the
common enemy, so humans are quick to cooperate with each other, but the natural
inclination to compete came even before the cooperation.
Another objection may be, “If we learn our desires from other people, then how is
it natural for us to compete for unnatural wants?” Yes, aside from hunger, thirst, and
sleep, there are certain desires that we learn. They are not natural because society creates
them, but that does not mean that competition is not natural. There is a competitive drive
within all of us.
Our competitive nature is important to understand in order to be cooperative. We
must learn to be cooperative in order to co-exist with one another. It’s important to be
aware of the fact that our instincts to compete are not always the best for us as a whole.
Competition can be both good and bad, but we must first know it is natural and then
move on from there to decipher between constructive and deconstructive competition.
An example of constructive competition would be the market economy. Every business
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is at competition with the other, and in turn, the businesses become better and better as
each attempts to be the best. An example of deconstructive competition can be seen in
some wars between countries in which nothing is settled, and each side only becomes
weaker.
In conclusion, humans learn their desires, as shown in Girard’s mimetic theory.
We want what others have. As people learn, grow, and mature, they realize that their
natural tendency to compete is not always the best for their well-being, and cooperation is
learned and actively used. We are naturally both competitive and cooperative beings, but
cooperation is only second nature.
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Works Cited
“A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution” Themontrealreview. The
Montreal Review, Nov. 2011. Web. 3 May 2012.
Haven, Cynthia. “History is a Test. Mankind is Failing it: René Girard Scrutinizes the
Human Condition from Creation to Apocalypse.” Stanford Magazine. Stanford
Mag., July 2009. Web. 3 May 2012.
Lunsford, Andrea A., John Ruskiewicz, and Keith Walters. Everything’s an Arugument.
4th ed. Bedford: St. Martin’s, 2006. Print.
Salinger, J.D. Franny and Zooey. New York: Litte, Brown and Company, 1961. Print.