Opportunism is taking advantage of an opportunity without concern for others, often seen negatively. Positive manifestations exist but require ignoring honor or principle. Politics is a key area where opportunism emerges.
Opportunism generally describes taking advantage of an opportunity without concern for how it might affect others, especially when there is great risk of a negative consequence. Usually when people talk about opportunism, they mean it in a very negative sense. Positive manifestations of opportunism can occur and are often a matter of perspective and context.
When people act opportunistically, they are often required to ignore any kind of honor or principle in their behavior. Corporations tend to create rules of conduct, but rules can make things more difficult to achieve. In fact, some rules are actually created so that everyone faces the same difficulties, which creates a level playing field. Sometimes, if someone deviates from these rules, he can gain a huge advantage over others who follow them, and this is a prime example of opportunism.
Some people tend to overuse the word opportunism by associating it with any kind of opportunity: just because people are taking advantage of an opportunity, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re doing something overtly selfish, and that’s not the context in which opportunism was generally thought of. to be used. For example, when a person calls and applies for a great job, she is taking advantage of an opportunity, but it doesn’t become opportunism unless the act itself has an obvious potential to negatively affect another person. An example of opportunism that might contrast with the previous example would be if one person spreads negative information about another person to steal their job. Even if the negative information is true, its dissemination would generally be considered opportunistic, especially if the information was acquired in a private context.
Politics is one of the main areas where the concept of opportunism emerges. In many cases, politicians face situations where they can use some sort of opportunity to hurt their political opponents and increase their power. Sometimes these are legitimate benefits, sometimes they can be ethically questionable. In some contexts, politicians are expected to be opportunists, especially by their most fervent supporters, and may even be criticized for being unwilling to use opportunities to hurt their opponents. Politicians who shy away from being opportunists may find themselves at a significant disadvantage against those who indulge, and some argue that being too careful in this area is actually unethical because it slows progress on important policy agendas.
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