Competitions in every-day life

Should a local fair without any competition be a real one ? The range of the possible topics for competing is huge. From the most earnest to the most comic, from the most conventional to the most unusual, the diversity of the topics is always enlarging. Why are folks so much attracted to competing, while the reward – just a token – only appears nominal in regard of the great efforts made to succeed ? Why is it of paramount importance for the local press ? What is the new role played by these rituals in this society whose conventional structures are decaying ? In this paper Loïc VIEILLARD-BARON is trying to deal with all these questions. He gives a general description of the competitions, explaining how they work, attracting the attention on some likenesses appearing, in his opinion, with the religions and the world of labour. He shows also that, if there are winners, there are no losers and that people become in sympathy with each other through the confrontation. Is that a dream ?