Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
I’ve witnessed countless occurrences of people observing debates and disagreements, political and otherwise, that cleave to this belief, and that presume that compromise and the middle ground are the only solutions that are acceptable and rational. This belief is wrong.
Imagine you and a friend are in a canoe heading towards Niagara Falls. You figure, based on maps, knowledge of the currents and your review of past canoe trips, that you have 5 minutes to get to the riverbank. Your friend, based on his “gut” and armed with the certainty that he’s smarter than you, tells you that you have 15 minutes. Do you compromise at 10 minutes? Do you gain anything by meeting him half way? Or do you still go over the falls and plummet to certain death?
This is the notion that pops into my head when people call for compromise for its own sake, or when they default to a solution is somewhere in the middle bit of sophistry. Of course, I don’t presume to say that compromise is not a valuable and often-used tool for resolving disagreements or disputes. But, there must be some validity to the compromise position – one cannot survive being halfway down the waterfall. One cannot compromise with someone who declares that the sky is yellow and settle on agreeing that the sky is green. Sometimes, one side is right and the other side is wrong.
Yet, too often, observers of a debate think that the solution is for both sides to give in a bit, to sit down and say “well, I think you’re wrong about this but I’ll meet you half way just because that’s the adult and fair thing to do.” Would these observers have agreed with Solomon’s edict to split the baby? I don’t think so. What I do believe is going in there is that the observers aren’t sufficiently engaged, or sufficiently interested in becoming engaged, to fathom the underlying premises and consider the root facts of the arguments in the debate. It’s shallow thinking. Combine shallow thinking with sophomorism and the current societal meme of entitlement and “everyone’s a winner,” and you end up with people who “know” after just a hint of exposure to a disagreement that the “extremists” on both sides should meet somewhere in the middle.
That middle ground (sounds so soothing and fair, doesn’t it?) must be the more sensible solution. After all, it makes a little bit of a winner out of both disputing parties, and lets everyone walk away with head held high. Or at least that’s what the reflexive middle-grounder wants to believe. But, if one party believes the sky is blue and another yellow, how can the middle-grounder insist that the blue sky party be happy with a green sky compromise?
Many, if not most, political debates are negotiations. Each party has a desired outcome and an acceptable outcome. There will be must-haves, want-to-haves and throwaways in those positions, and the process of negotiation will lead to a conclusion. In theory, if both parties get their must-haves, an agreement can be reached. Where the balance of the remaining wants lands is what the art of negotiation is about. But, if there isn’t enough common ground for both parties to get their “must haves,” what then? Do we go down the democratic path, and incorporate majority rule? Do we go down the limited government path, and apply the framework of rules and restrictions set forth in the Constitution? Do we let the debate continue, and see how time affects things? Or do we “force” the compromise, despite one party’s certainty that the compromise leads over the waterfall?
Is it sensible to compromise with someone who is just flat-out wrong?
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
— Barry Goldwater
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