Winning vs Being the Best

I didn't watch Survivor this past season. I used to watch it faithfully because I love to see the interpersonal dynamics and the sociological and psychological principals that play out during the show. Last fall I had Spanish class during the time slot and I never actually got back into watching it even after the class ended. I still keep up with the game though, even if I'm not watching, through various internet recaps and analyses.

This year after the finale it struck me that as in many of the previous shows, the best competitor didn't win. There seems to be a difference between what we would at first glance define as "the best" and what actually wins the game. The best at Survivor draws the votes of the other competitors. The object is to go to the final vote with people that are worse than you so essentially the winner tends to be the best of the worst. It seems like it pays to be mediocre - work kind of hard, play kind of well, be a good friend and don't draw too much attention to yourself. If you play too well in challenges or in wheeling and dealing you get voted off as a threat. Get to the finals on the mediocre plan and you can honestly say I played a pretty good game and I played fair. There's very likely to be someone there with you who tried too hard to be the best and made enemies as a result.

I wonder how many people in other venues "win" using that same strategy? In many cases the superstars tend to draw our attention when they make the news due to some sort of crash and burn (relationship woes, legal woes, drug woes, tax woes). So maybe the best, strongest, smartest, whateverest aren't the winners after all, maybe it's better to just be pretty good?