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Al Swift's Commentary:
In Defense of Compromise
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James Michener, in his book “Poland,” makes the point that the Polish people so protected their freedom that they were enslaved most of their history.
If memory serves, he observed that, when free, Poles so jealously guarded their own individual freedoms that they found it difficult to forge the compromises needed for cooperative efforts. This led to weakness, indecisiveness and instability. Soon, an alien power dominated them once again and they lost their freedom altogether.
There is not even a word for “compromise” in the Polish language. At least, that is my recollection of what Michener wrote.
There is a parallel with America these days. The concept of compromise is so distrusted in our society – generally assumed to be without principle and corrupt – that, when using it one has to modify it: ?honest compromise.?
Yet, I would argue that one cannot have a viable democracy without compromise; rather than avoid it, it is essential to embrace it.
Look at it this way. If we are to have 250 million people in the United States – all free to believe as they wish – we know the result will be a crazy quilt of differing ideas. Yet we face problems that must be addressed if our society is to thrive and prosper. Compromise is essential if, on the one hand we want to preserve the right of every citizen to believe as he or she chooses and, yet, make the decisions needed to get things done.
Today, America is almost equally split between what the media has dubbed the Red and the Blue – conservatives and liberals. Our political life is characterized by intense partisanship and gridlock. Just look at what Congress has not done in these last two years.
Yet, China is growing very strong economically. (Ironically, it has achieved this in large measure by compromising between Mao’s rigid communist economic philosophy and free enterprise.) Europe is burying the hatchet on centuries of distrust and suspicion between its nations. The Arab world is exploding – not in unity – but in the kind of chaos that requires a unified response.
Now is a very good time to recognize that our country was founded in compromise. The Constitution itself if full of compromises made by men who – having fought a successful revolution together – then found they had to resolve very real differences in order to found a stable nation.
It is also true that America almost disintegrated a hundred years later when it could not forge compromises. Brother fought brother and opened wounds that are not completely healed even today.
Which model from our very own history should we strive to emulate today?
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