When rivalry between opponents in any matter
intensifies and sinks to the most trivial, nit-picking, inane and embarrassingly immaterial level it becomes "compettytive" or infinitesimally petty. In such cases it is common to up the ante in an endless race toward utter nonsense and possible humiliation. AND against all rationality, the stakes can be ridiculously high.
BACKGROUND: The origins of this sort of struggle is a bastardization of G.W. F. Hegel's
description of the Master-Slave dialectic, outlined in his "
Phenomenology of Spirit" as an encounter between two subjects "who engage in a 'struggle to the death' before one enslaves the other, only to find that this does not give him the control over the world he has sought." (Wikipedia).
Rumor has it that in order to gain a seat in Congress, LBJ sunk to unethical compettytive depths in 1949 by accusing his wealthy and favored pig-farming opponent of having "routine carnal
knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and
children."
