[alpha]

Brilliant post Candlelight, I think that what you say about cooperation being more important is totally true in spite of all of the survival of the fittest and competitive mantras that get driven by the more selfish and narcissist groups in society and who tend to hold the power (due to the reasons you stated). I also think that because of the domination of those groups in industry and politics, a culture has ended up developing whereby narcissistic and selfish behaviour is respected and seen as inevitable at all levels of society, for instance in social groups.

None of this is good of course! But it is helpful to have an understanding of it. I would still agree that umm has a point in that whatever the rights and wrongs, each of us has to find a way of getting by, which in today's world means finding a way to deal with selfish or narcissistic people. As I said before I think I'm yet to do that personally admittedly!