The way I see it, we are poised before the alternatives of agon and agony. Whatever the etymological connection between the terms, they can be construed in direct opposition. Agon is the ancient Greek term for an athletic or artistic competition, such as their Olympic games and theatrical festivals, events which lay at the center of their political and religious culture. Sacred competitions staged in honor of their gods. To participate in an agon therefore had culturally productive value, whether one lost or not. Both winners and losers served to elicit future blessings upon their communities. Defeat in an agon was far from a tumble into the agony of defeat.
Yet agon, especially more recently, also relates to the contentious production of ideas and policies. Aesthetically, Harold Bloom (I know, I know, for those who know who he is) employs it to describe the struggle of a writer with his antecedents, the productive capacity of the anxious conflict with one's influences. But it can also be used to describe a productive political dialectic between opposing ideologies and their communities. The agon, however, which is supposed to bring social benefit, as with the ancients, and spur creativity in art and letters, requires a basic respect for that against which one contends. It unites competition and cooperation.