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"men are always in competition."

I tend to think of this as dickheads are always in competition.

Facetiousness aside, this might be more of an American thing. When I was on a Dutch airbase on a joint exercise with various US and European military personnel (anyone else here from IJOLDS 2005? I'm so old :( ), there was a noticeable difference in styles. US was high competition, European was high cooperation. Is it the same in civil society?

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I think even the non-dickheads are in competition. They just do it in non-dickhead ways, like actually being really good at what they do.

Perhaps it is a mainly American thing. I've never worked in Europe, but the Europeans I've worked with are definitely mellower.

Also, from my experience, the noisier you are, the more insecure. Like I said, non-dickheads have better ways to command respect.

You may be interested in the work of Geert Hofstede, who attempted to map different cultures. He gave the USA a score of 62 on competitiveness over comfort, which he calls masculinity, and a score of 91 on individuality over cooperation.

http://geert-hofstede.com/united-states.html

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