I hear many people lamenting the lack of willingness to seek compromise, especially in the political realm. I’m one of them. But like most things, I suspect these people, myself included, haven’t completely thought things through. Is a compromise even desirable, let alone possible? As usual the answer is: it depends.
For starters, most of us, when it comes to compromise, aren’t really serious about it. What we really want is for the other side to compromise. And by “compromise” we really mean “surrender.” That’s the current environment regarding Planned Parenthood and the recent undercover videos that have part of the population up in arms and the other part manning the walls. What would true compromise look like here, and would either side be satisfied with it? Would the Pro-Planned Parenthood faction be willing to accept only partial defunding, or for that funding to be reallocated to improve female health coverage under Obamacare? Would the Anti-Planned Parenthood faction be willing to accept a promise that no aborted fetuses will be sold or given to any party, but destroyed within a certain brief period?
We’ll never know, because ultimately neither side seems remotely interesting in anything resembling true compromise. We simply want the other side to fold. This stems from an ongoing insistence that this particular issue is just too important to accept anything short of complete victory. They feel it’s like asking Israel to compromise and let ISIS kill only half their population.
Another problem with compromise is that we can be extremely myopic about issues. If it’s not important to us it doesn’t exist or isn’t legitimate. And if it’s an illegitimate concern, what reason is there for compromise? Who freakin’ cares if Hillary Clinton broke the rules and used her own off-site mail server to send official Secretary of State emails, many including classified information? There are more important issues at stake here, like whether we can get her elected President of the United States? What is there to compromise on?
Or why do we need to worry about police overreach? If you don’t want to get abused by the police don’t commit crimes, or don’t talk back and get aggressive with them when they’re just doing their job. Clearly they’ve got a tough job, and if you’d just give them the respect they deserve there’d be no problem. Right? What’s there to compromise on?
We all get pretty good at ignoring that another side to the issue even exists, let alone acknowledge an opportunity to compromise. Tempest in a teapot, and all that.
What’s more, we seem to completely forget that before compromise can even occur, two sides actually have to come together and negotiate in good faith. How often is that going to happen in today’s poisonous environment? How can you expect someone to negotiate in good faith with you if you were just broadcasting to everyone that you feel their faction is comprised of moronic baboons who have no heart, no soul, no merit, and no legitimacy? You don’t sound very approachable. Demonizing, denigrating, dehumanizing or devaluing your opponents does not lay groundwork for compromise. It just confirms in the minds of your opposition that everything they thought about you is true and there’s no point in trying to reach out. Victory or death.
Compromise is a moderate position, requiring a moderate approach. Our political climate is increasingly becoming “Miyagi-land”: Walk left side of road, okay. Walk right side of road, okay. Walk middle of the road? Squish. Like grape. We don’t like moderates. They’re the annoying “Yeah, but…” people. They’re not the cool kids. They’re not the edgey, hip “take no prisoners” types like the rest of us. Best to ignore them and hope they go away. Or better yet, marginalize them, call them “out of touch”, sell-outs, traitors, “Uncle Toms”, or anything else we can think of to justify our not taking them seriously.
If we really, truly want compromise then we have to be the ones to push for it. How often do we contact our Congressperson and voice our support for compromise? Or do we just (re)post on Facebook in support of our side only, giving no credence to the other side, and making no mention of the need for compromise? How often do we make moderate statements that would give support and hope to moderates leaning the other way that we’re open to compromise and might be sensible enough to make it worth reaching out to us? How often do we seek out and support moderate candidates, even if they only exist on the other side in that particular race?
My experience has been that we slap down moderates, and hard, lest their crazy lack of clarity infect the rest of us. Any candidate that runs as a moderate we immediately distrust. They might cave on the issues that really matter most and sell the farm out from under us. The latin saying “the translator is a traitor” is alive and well today. Anyone who would claim to understand both sides well enough to represent the one to the other, and vice versa, is someone not to be trusted. You can’t count on them to do the right thing.
Compromise might be a great thing–might even be essential to our survival as a nation–but if we really wanted it as badly as we claim, we probably wouldn’t be in the position we’re in. We want to cling (not unjustifiably in some cases) to our side of the issue and hope the other side will step up and compromise. We’ll take a little now so that we can get the rest from them later. That’s our idea of compromise: make the other side surrender their position, be it slowly or all at once–it’s all good, so long as we get our way.
If we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got. It’s time for something different. Moderates of the world, time to work in roughly the same direction for a somewhat common cause!
What do we want? Compromise! When do we want it? When’s good for you?
Compromise, like apologies, are things that happen to other people.