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Why Are Americans So Obsessed with Winning?
Watching the Olympics or any professional sports contest provides participants and spectators alike with an intense experience of competition and almost an obsession with winning. Many a competing athlete defines success as winning the gold or the game or championship trophy and anything else as failure. Amateur sports have adopted professional sports’ obsession with winning at the expense of other valuable experiences.
Political candidates and campaigns are characterized by the flood of language about winning as if they were athletic contests. And so many businesses now have adopted the language and posture of “beating” the competition and winning. The government’s economic and military strategy constantly focuses on beating other countries and winning.
While dictionaries define winning as an act of victory, it has come to mean much more in American culture. First there is a strong association with the concept of “losing,” for you can’t have winners without losers. Second, the American language is full of common and often quoted expressions of winning, which have bled into non-sport areas such as business and politics. Examples are “winning is everything” or a variant, “the winner takes all,” “to the victor goes the spoils of war,” and “winners never quit and quitters never win.”
