Winning or sharing

Writing on the seduction and subtlety of the powers working within contemporary social structures, Marva Dawn quotes Hugh Mackay in Turning Point: Australians Choosing Their Future (234-235).

“The truth is that the spiritual impulse and the sporting impulse coexist in most of us; they both have important messages for us, but they have almost nothing to offer each other. And that, in a way, signifies the tension that has Australian society in its grip at the end of the century. Our sporting impulse encourages us to think about economic growth, or globalisation, or industrial relations reform, in terms of winning; our spiritual impulse drives us to think about equity, fairness and justice, and about the impact of our success on the poor, the disadvantaged, the marginalised. In a culture that almost deifies competition, the sporting urge prevails most of the time.”