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About a year ago, I was drawn in, like much of America, to a TV show called Feud from producer Ryan Murphy.

It was all about a real-life rivalry between actresses Betty Davis and Joan Crawford

centered around their time filming their classic, whatever happened to Baby Jane.

It made for some riveting watching, not only because the acting was superior, but because

the story was just so painfully fascinating.

It spoke of how two women who could have been friends and could have supported each other,

guided each other, in the cutthroat world of Hollywood, were instead pitted against one

another, not only in their own minds, but in that of the greater public,

and even the Hollywood system that declared them rivals in the first place.

In the aftermath of this feud, I found myself asking, could these actors have gotten bigger

and better at their work if they have worked together instead of just tangentially?

Rivalries are inherently fascinating to me, because they typically affect not only the individual

rivals themselves, but also a whole ecosystem that can grow up around a rivalry, spurring

it on and enabling it.

Rivalries in many ways can actually be good.

They can enhance a sport team's motivation, for example,

and cause a bond to form between those who support a particular faction.

...