ShareThis
~ “Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.” ~ C.S. Lewis, 1942
~ “There are two sides to every issue : one is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.” ~ Ayn Rand, 1957
~ “When passions come upon men in strength beyond due measure, their gift is neither glory nor greatness. May temperance befriend me, god’s most lovely gift.”
~ Euripides, 431 B.C.
~ “The middle path makes me wary. But in the middle of my life, I am coming to see the middle path as a walk with wisdom where conversation of complexity can be found. The middle path is the path of movement. In the right and left worlds, the stories are largely set. We become missionaries for a position, practitioners of the missionary position. Variety is lost. Diversity is lost. Creativity is lost in our inability to make love with the world.” ~ Terry Tempest Williams, 2001
~ “The ancient Christians knew very well that this world is ruled by demons, that he who meddles with politics, who in other words makes use of the instruments of power and violence, concludes a pact with the infernal powers” ~ Max Weber, 1919
~ “It’s the terror of knowing what this world’s about. Watching some friends screaming “Let me out”. ~ David Bowie song “Under Pressure”, 1981.
~ “The divine manifests itself in many forms. And many things come to pass against our expectations. What we thought would happen remains unfulfilled. While god has found a way to accomplish the unexpected.” ~ Euripides, 405 B.C.
~ “Justice inclines her scales so wisdom comes at the price of suffering.”
~ Aeschylus, 458 B.C
Looking back, the past year has been a rather bruising and challenging time, both here in the U.S.A. and abroad. There can be little doubt we live in a time of mounting change and political and economic disorder, even though no single major conflict casts its shadow across the world. Coming out of the 2009 Great Recession, economic growth has gradually come back but still not recovered – either here in the U.S.A. or elsewhere. If anything, America has fared better than other developed regions, such as Europe or Japan. U.S. growth has recovered to above 3.5%, unemployment has fallen but is still high at 7%, household debt has dropped, banks have been restructured, and the housing market is seemingly recovering.
Yet, poverty and income inequality are rising here as in other nations. Globalization – that brings the benefit of cheaper goods and stronger flows of capital and information – has also brought lower wages for the less skilled. Public spending to write off private bank debt after the Great Crash has caused massive cuts in public investment – in education, infrastructure, research – all vital for our long-term future prosperity. Meanwhile rising political instability affects major regions of the world – from the Middle East to South-East Asia.
In face of these challenges, as elsewhere, in America politicians in both major parties are practicing a dysfunctional politics of extreme division and inability to work together. This has led to gridlock: stalemate in many pressing areas where action and progress are badly needed. Yet, even the recent two year budget agreement reached just before Christmas between Democrats and Republicans hardly constitutes progress. Rather it is an uneasy truce that buys time for further negotiations. This has led many commentators to bemoan the lack of that most political art of compromise. Competing sides, we are told, must come together and pool their best ideas for the common good. But is compromise really such a panacea? Or does it bring with it its own pitfalls?
In his fine recent novel “Watcher in the Shadows”, Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón portrays a toymaker who sells his “shadow” – his soul – for the ability to make totally innovative android toys that come to life, only for them to take over his world and bring tragedy to his family. It takes strong principled youth coming from outside to end the cycle of menace and violence. As Zafón’s fairy tale novel shows, fateful compromises – pacts with the devil, as Max Weber calls them – can have potentially disastrous long-term consequences. And American and world history are replete with such cases in real life.
Key Questions: What does history tell us about the uses and pitfalls of compromise? What are the hidden drawbacks of compromise and how can we recognize them early on? What are major challenges faced by America and the world today where compromise needs to be principled consensus to avoid locking in major future problems ?
History’s Mixed Experiences with the Art of Compromise : ~ A fateful compromise was made in the very founding of the U.S.A. To bind together all the thirteen colonies into “one nation indivisible”, the moral shame of slavery had to be accepted. The political pressures that built up over the next eighty years led to the U.S. Civil War, one of the most violent in modern history. ~ The 1919 Versailles Treaty that ended World War I, imposed punitive sanctions upon Germany wrecking its economy through debt and causing widespread anger and unemployment, That paved the way for extreme politics of Nazism, leading to World War II – in which fifty millions died. In vain, both Keynes and Churchill warned in the early 1920s against such an outcome. ~ By contrast, the peace of 1945, by showing magnanimity and humanity to the losing peoples – though not their leaders – enabled rebuilding and peace in Europe and Japan. ~ Indian Partition in 1947 into two states – India and Pakistan – was considered unavoidable to enable Indian independence as a democracy. But it led to tens of millions of deaths in sectarian conflict and hostility, that had continued ever since. ~ On the other hand, the New Deal adopted in America under Roosevelt’s leadership in 1932-33, fundamentally redrew the pact between Americans as individuals and their society that made both feel and become more secure. ~ Containment policies between major adversaries during the 1950-90 Cold War prevented the world from lurching into global nuclear war for long enough that eventually that war ended without a shot being fired. U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s respect for Soviet leadership and avoidance of public humiliation for them eased the greatest global transition in a hundred years. ~ Conversely, the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinians foundered because of lack of shared goals for peace and unresolved underlying conflict over land, and the massive asymmetric imbalance in military power favoring the Israelis. For over a decade, Israel’s right-wing rejectionist political leadership has used that power to annex ever increasing land while casting blame upon the weakly armed Palestinians as the aggressors, as a justification never to negotiate. ~ China’s “one child” policy adopted in the late 1970s led to a major reduction in fertility rates, heading off a potential population explosion among poor peasants, and enabling eventual massive increases in prosperity for most Chinese. But it came at the cost of slowing population growth so much for so long that China’s population is now aging almost as fast as Europe’s, and its work force may decline before poverty can be eliminated.
Compromises are Not Always Principled Consensus : The eight cases I cite above are from widely differing times and societies. Some efforts at compromise and agreement succeeded. Others failed dramatically or have gone nowhere. Despite the wide differences, there are common threads suggesting the bases for success or failure. In cases that succeeded : ~ There was a genuine effort to understand and appreciate the deep needs of the other side and its broad population – even when this was implicit and not overtly expressed; ~ The key challenge was directly and effectively tackled and resolved. ~ But it was done in a way that respected and upheld the rights of (justice for) a broad cross-section of individuals and society on the other side. Even if it meant holding back from pressing home a present advantage that could create future resentment, inequality or conflict – or sense of deep injustice. ~ In short, principled consensus enabled the building of trust to sustain the agreement as being in the interests of all, or almost all. ~ There was a willingness on all sides to address the most intractable issues, but to do so with mutual regard, flexibility and sensitivity – save only that effective solutions were found. On the other hand, clearly in the cases of failure, such principles were not considered important and were not respected. Then, often the outcome was intensified conflict or societal breakdown in the long-term.
Future Challenges and How Should We Address Them? : America and the world face major challenges requiring principled consensus to find effective solutions. Empty, half-baked compromises will get nowhere. This is why no-one is convinced by such gambits as the 2011 Sequester, or the endless, on-again-off-again, Israeli-Palestinian “peace” negotiations, that are obviously going nowhere. Only an open mind – not narrowly obsessed with a particular story – can hope to take in the complexity, and diversity of human experiences. And to adapt to unexpected changes in our societies and physical world.
A couple of current challenges as examples : ~ In addressing its long-term fiscal constraints, the U.S. Government will need to ensure growth is sufficiently strong in the next 15-20 years that the burden of social safety net spending – especially for health care – can be contained. This will mean more public investment now in education, infrastructure, research as well as poverty reduction programs, not less. Ironically, somewhat larger fiscal deficits in early years may reduce the size and repayment burden of debt in later years. But entitlement programs could also be redesigned to provide more selective assistance to the truly needy, thus containing overall costs. To achieve this, both fiscal conservatives (notably Republicans) as well as fiscal liberals (notably some Democrats) will need to show greater understanding and flexibility. Principled consensus focuses flexibly on achieving long-term goals.
~ In the case of Israel-Palestine, the Israeli political elite needs to ponder that public opinion in the United States and in Europe are shifting away from unquestioning support for Israel’s security, especially as Israel continues to repress Palestinian aspirations and way of life so harshly. Reaching out now to the other side, taking a risk for peace, and negotiating in good faith a real “land for peace” deal could help better anchor Israel’s position and prosperity long-term. For this to occur, key external actors – notably the U.S. Government – would need to promote such efforts effectively.
I, for one, hope that in the New Year ahead of us, our political leaders here in the U.S.A. and around the world move in the direction of principled consensus in place of empty short-term compromise. Let them make this their resolution for 2014!
A Very Happy and Prosperous New Year to All!