Some Thoughts On The Death Of Compromise

We've all heard the news:  Compromise is dead.

Something that most of the people eulogizing Compromise won't say:  it wasn't a natural death. Compromise was killed: little by little by enemies on all sides, by poisons slowly accumulating and a thousand small cuts.  Before Compromise died, it was a shell of its former self.

In those last days, when Compromise was too feeble to object, people called things Compromise that were nothing like the old Compromise from when it was active and healthy.   This is a typical example:

1.         Side A makes a series of demands for concessions from Side B.

2.         Side A proceeds to call Side B obstructive for refusing to accede.

3.         Side A offers to give up on some of their demands “in the Spirit of Compromise.”

4.         Side A calling Side B obstructive if it didn’t “Compromise.”

Sometimes, the side calling for Compromise would stop after making the demands and saying the other side had to Compromise, by which they meant accept the demands or be called obstructive.  When this led to any sort of agreement, the side that got what they wanted usually came back later to demand the things they didn’t get the last time and a couple more besides; lather, rinse repeat.

That sort of behavior was nothing but an attempt to slowly whittle down the other side - whoever that might be, whatever the issue - masqueraded as Compromise.  

Compromise required some degree of mutual respect and a realization that the other side might have some valid concerns, even if one heartily disagreed with their ideas for a solution.

Those things have become artifacts of the past.  

Even in its heyday, there were situations where Compromise was inappropriate.

There are principles on which there could be no Compromise, but people stopped recognizing that the other side *could* also have principles that could not be Compromised and examining whether they were claiming too much territory for their own inviolate principles.  

There could also be no Compromise when one side saw an agreement as nothing more than a step on the road to quashing the other side.  Realizing when it was one's own side intending to undo the other, and realizing when only a few extremists on the other side really wanted to see one's side undone was never easy either.   Making it harder, there was a lot of dishonesty in this - people lying to each other and even to themselves about their real goals.  

Not that I, and probably most of us, weren’t guilty of some of these offenses against Compromise. 

But I guess that none of this really matters now.   Compromise is dead.