A world that worships winning should not be surprised when conflict becomes normal.

The crises shaking the world today are not only geopolitical. They also reflect the values a society chooses to reward.

Speak Your Mind! 🎯 “A World That Rewards Only Winning Will Keep Producing Conflict” by Dejan Trpkovic

13–MAR–2026 | Eleven years ago, the Belgian psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe wrote a piece in The Guardian with a blunt title: “Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us.” At the time, many people probably read it as an academic reflection on workplace culture and the psychological consequences of modern capitalism. What makes that piece still so relevant today is not just the criticism itself, but how clearly it helps explain the world we are living in now.

My view is that we are seeing the broader consequences of a culture that has spent decades glorifying competition, performance, image, and self-interest, while steadily weakening solidarity, responsibility, and any real sense of shared purpose. An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our ethics and our personalities.

That mindset did not stay limited to business, careers, or economics. It spilled into politics, public life, international relations, and finally into the way nations deal with one another. But it also entered our personal lives: how we measure ourselves, how we judge others, how much time we give our families, and even how friendships survive in a culture that keeps pushing us to perform, compare, and prove our worth.

When societies teach people that success is everything, that weakness is unacceptable, and that life is basically a race, it should not surprise us that public discourse becomes harsher, politics becomes more cynical, and global tensions become more dangerous. In that kind of environment, cooperation starts to look naive, compromise looks weak, and force becomes easier to justify. The same logic quietly affects everyday life too. It makes people less patient, less present, and less able to value relationships for what they are, rather than for what they deliver.

That is one of the reasons why so many of today’s crises feel connected, even when they happen in very different parts of the world. Wars, political instability, social anger, distrust between nations, growing extremism, and the collapse of serious dialogue are not isolated developments. They reflect a deeper moral and cultural shift. We have built a world that rewards domination more than wisdom, visibility more than substance, and short-term gain more than long-term responsibility.

What worries me most is that this mentality also shapes ordinary people. It creates anxious, exhausted, frustrated societies. People are constantly told they are free, yet many feel powerless. They are told success is open to everyone, yet more and more people feel excluded, ignored, or disposable. That kind of pressure does not remain private. It shows up at home, in strained marriages, in distant family relationships, in shallow friendships, in burnout, resentment, aggression, polarization, and a growing readiness to blame others.

This is why that old piece still feels current. Not because the world stood still, but because it moved further in the direction it warned about.

We now live with the geopolitical version of the same logic: transactional alliances, permanent rivalry, moral inconsistency, and a very thin commitment to human dignity when power or profit are at stake. The result is the world we see today: more conflict, less trust, and far too little humanity.

My reflection is simple. A world organized around permanent competition should not be shocked when it produces permanent crisis. And when that same logic enters our homes, friendships, and private lives, it slowly empties relationships of the care and stability that make both people and societies stronger. If winning becomes the highest value, conflict eventually becomes the common language.

Managing Director, PRODIREKT
Founder of Verbalists Education & Language Network