Conquest Versus Cooperation

We try to conquer each other every day. We compete over who has the most stuff. We race to see who can get to a red light first. Then we step on the gas to see who can accelerate away from it faster. We are surrounded by the culture of conquest in every day life. And it's mostly unconscious. We mostly don't even realize it.

For example: Who has the latest bling-bling? We worry about fashion while people half-way around the world starve, and suffer any number of brutal assaults against their personal beings and human dignity.

We are living, as part of this society, drastically and dramatically out of proportion, and out of scale, with the planet's ability to provide. We are on a downward spiral. If this doesn't change, more and more energy will be poured into diminishing returns. Energy, of all Earthbound kinds, is becoming more and more scarce, and more and more difficult to access and maintain. It's a chain-reaction. It's a self-destructive cycle.

Yet, nonetheless, we have an opportunity to build a different culture. We can build a culture of cooperation, compassion, kindness, equitable use of resources... Yes we can.

So let's compare some of the aspects of these rival cultures. Below I have created a list.

This is a work in progress. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I am sure that I have left out some major and important points.

Please feel free to add terms to the lists.

Culture of Conquest	Culture of Cooperation
violent imperial exploitative hurtful harmful domineering authoritative controlling militaristic destructive socially degrading environmentally degrading dehumanizing corrupt dishonest divisive focusing on differences hateful malicious selfish greedy racist judgmental make assumptions jump to conclusions	nonviolent sharing compassionate kind loving trusting honest truthful respectful constructive productive of lasting achievement uplifting life-serving participatory democratic consensual peaceful life-affirming benign generous tolerant and accepting of differences regarding race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc. treat all people equally ask questions