Unless you have been on a remote tropical island somewhere in the South China Sea, you have probably heard of the CBS series Survivor staged on such an island. The premise of the show begins with sixteen people, ranging in age from 22 to 72, organized into two tribes of eight. Each week, votes in a "tribal council" determine who will be banished from the island. The lone survivor of this relentless winnowing process wins a million dollars. The stage is set for intrigue as transient alliances and cabals assemble, dissolve, and reassemble to force certain people off the island. The show is best described as Niccolo Machiavelli meets Gilligan's Island.
The tribes and individuals vie in competitions, seeing who can collect the most mud on their bodies or who can balance the longest on a set of boards suspended in the surf. Winners of the competition can win temporary immunity from banishment. The competitions impose a random element on the personal political machinations that determine who survives and who does not.
In the end, Richard Hatch eked out Kelly Wiglesworth (yes that's her name) for the million dollars. The winner was not the most athletic. The winner was not the one who won the most competitions. The winner was not the most well liked. If personal loyalty were the measure, Rudy Boesch, the 72-year old ex-Navy seal would have won. If pure man-versus-nature survivor skills were the measure, wild animal-stalking Greg Buis or former US Air Force survivor trainer, Gretchen Cordy, would have emerged victorious. The winner was the most ruthless, single-mindedly manipulative person who was able to plot and scheme his way through the tangle of personal associations and loyalties. The message of the show is that nice guys do not win, a message that eats away as a moth on the social fabric.
The process of selection devised by Survivor's producers would not have been so disappointing if some more acceptable measure of merit had been used. Instead, the show was contrived as a zero sum game where cooperation, honesty and loyalty were ultimately disadvantages. In realty, Machiavellian schemes sometimes win, but other more positive values do as well. The abilities to lead and find common solutions where everyone gains are often critical. In Survivor II, the lessons from the first series will be learned and we will likely see more ruthless behavior in an effort to gain the million-dollar prize.
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