(~5 minutes to read)
There will be no winners in World War III. We’ll all get participation medals, and whatever it was (hairstyles? Is it the Hokey Cokey or the Hokey Pokey? Which end of an egg is the top?) that started the war will remain unresolved so that we can fight World War IV (a name that has a nice rhythm to it) and get another participation medal each.
Last week, I wrote about banned pillow fights in a military academy, and in it I had one of my characters, Aaron Frogchoker, provide his theory about World War III being fought with pillows rather than nukes. In order that we all survive to receive our WWIII Participation Medals and go on to participate in WWIV, we should probably work towards Frogchoker’s theory becoming fact.
I hate the concept of war, fighting, conquest, and imposition of ideals and philosophies on others. Unfortunately, our species is flawed, and so all these things happen. And when they happen, an opposing force has to… well, oppose. If it didn’t, then everything within the antagonists’ growing sphere of power and influence would be changed by the unopposed force.
In war, there are winners and losers (although you often have to define the criteria quite carefully; try telling a mother who lost three or four children on the battlefield that although they are dead, they are winners.)
In business and on the stock markets, there are winners and losers (and this is one environment in which size does matter.)
In professional sports, there are winners and losers.
In competitions, competitors compete. In competing, they “strive for superiority or supremacy” or “take part in a contest”. There are therefore winners and losers.
When a job is advertised, the advertisers often refer to the position by a “contest number”. If there is only one position open, there will be only one person hired. He or she is the “contest winner”. By definition, the unsuccessful applicants are the losers.
Then why, in the name of all that is sensible, logical and real, do so many people believe in participation medals and eradication of the concept of winning and losing at school, in extra-curricular activities, youth sports… the list goes on.
Winning and losing is not an attitude that education and enlightenment can remove over a period of time like misogyny, sexism, racism, anti-Semitism or many of the other anti-social “-isms” can. It’s a reality of life. Unless there is a tie, there’s precisely one winner.
So why the stigma about being “not the winner” (he says, trying to avoid the word “loser”)?
It seems that the word “loser” has become more strongly associated with a perceived chronic condition than with an acute bout. The word has acquired a social “sting” in a similar way that “negro” or “yankee” or even “immigrant” have. In my 1944 dictionary, “loser” is loosely defined as “one who loses”; it’s left to the individual to decide how to interpret it. In my 1985 dictionary, “loser” had gained the sense of being a person who seems destined to be taken advantage of; the phrase “born loser” is cited, and I remember it being used in a sympathetic manner rather than a pejorative one.
It doesn’t help that the race car driver Dale Earnhardt made famous the saying, “Second place is just first loser”.
The “chronic” connotation of the word is now ingrained in the everyday vocabulary of bears of little brain to the point that one only has to say, “Loser!” to convey one’s carefully-considered opinion that one’s target is a misfit; socially worthless; intellectually or physically or emotionally inferior.
No wonder that in such an environment, people don’t want themselves or their offspring to be labelled “losers”. And since we use the same word for both the acute and chronic situations, we have stigmatized not being the winner.
Interestingly, there is an archaic word that could, and likely should, be resurrected to replace the chronic sense of “loser”. That word is “losel” (pronounced “lowzel”), and its original meaning was “a worthless person”, which, let’s face it, “Loser!” users mean.
While I’m not advocating or condoning the arbitrary labelling of downtrodden individuals as losels (or anything else other than “unfortunate” for that matter), it would at least allow “loser” to refer unambiguously to the point-in-time loss.
If you drive a car, you are a driver.
If you pitch baseballs you are a pitcher.
If you win a prize or a race or a game or an award, you are the winner. There is only one winner, so we use the definite article.
If you lose your keys, you are the loser (of your keys). You are the only one who lost your keys, hence the definite article.
If you lose a chess game, you are the loser. (Two people—one winner, one loser.)
If your team loses a football game, your team is the loser. (Two teams—one winner, one loser)
If you or your team fail to win a competition in which there were more than two competitors, you are a loser. You are one of many, hence the indefinite article.
But how did you feel when you read the words, “you are a loser”?
And therein lies the problem.
So people… please take the time to separate the act of losing from the stigmatized label “Loser!” Everyone loses. Dale Earnhardt, the originator of that true but toxic quote, lost many times. He ultimately lost his life. None of that makes him a “Loser!” Pick your hero/heroine. Muhammad Ali, David Beckham, Stephen (spit) Harper, Albert Einstein, Paul Kossoff (who!?)—whoever your hero is—they’ve all “not won” in their lives; that doesn’t mean that they’re “Losers!”—each of them was a loser at a point in time.
Allow yourself to compete. Allow your kids to compete. Accept the result. If it doesn’t reflect your opinion of your ability, prove it by competing another time. If 57th place in a marathon is a reasonable result for you, then why worry that people could label you a “loser”?
If and when World War III does happen, and it doesn’t result in our planet and everything on it being blown to oblivion, there will be winners and losers. I cannot fully imagine the horror of war itself, but I can imagine that beating yourself and your kids up for being on the losing side will be both soul-destroying and pointless.
Even if it was a global pillow fight.