Compromise

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Seamus, now that you've covered the theoretical details do you have any ideas on how the contemporary 'cult of compromise' arose, at least in American history?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For example, this paper's introduction (I haven't read the full thing) suggests the author argues the Founders had a sense of compromise that was substantially similar to the modern sense, something I'm dubious of.

The founders certainly viewed compromise as a tool of governance within a legislature. They were classically trained debaters who wanted an issue argued over, judged on the merits, and voted up or down. Where no clear cut decision coalesced in the minds of the representatives, then compromises would be bruited until one achieved enough support. That is compromise as a tool OF governance, not as an end state. Thoughts to mull over:

These governance structures were designed without accounting for political parties. I don't think our Founders were idealistic enough to assume there would never be political parties, but I do NOT think they thought we would recreate the then extant English two-party system here in the USA. I suspect they viewed something more like the Knesset -- smaller interest groups shifting support issue by issue -- would develop. Instead, Hamilton managed to instill political parties despite the huge distances involved between New Hampshire and Georgia, and the stop Hamilton group that followed begat our two party approach.


Compromise would have been understood on a more intimate level by most of society. The early USA was largely moneyless -- not poor, but literally short on specie. Many transactions throughout the economy were done on a bartering/haggling basis with both parties suggesting alternatives until a workable deal had resulted or both parties refused to deal. Some of this was quite collaborative, others -- particularly on tangible things -- were compromises. Culturally, there was a strong tradition that once you had shaken hands on a deal, you were obliged to stick by your end of it, even if you had been "taken." This even led to 'horse-trading' competitions with people trying to out-do one another to trade the worst possible horse as a form of entertainment. Lincoln's story about the saw horse was one example of the frolic this was. Our culture was, therefore, more "in tune" with the use of compromise AND the concept that once a deal had been struck you moved forward from there (and did not simply re-fight the same fight 6 weeks later if you thought your power position had changed).


During the period of our founding, anybody who was really ticked off with the whole political situation could (and in quite a few instances did) opt out and head West. The open frontier (well, open in the sense that the Amerinds didn't have the population density or tech base to hold it) was an outlet for frustration and malcontents for decades. This served to bleed off steam politically in the short term, even as it led to future involvements and political questions.


Our Founders, however amazing they were (and I am a fan), were not perfect. They kicked the can down the road on slavery, they failed to address the likelihood of political parties, they crafted a budge cycle that was far too short term (in part they wanted the fed government limited by the budget cycle, but they were a little too tight on the timing to promote stability and they did not obviate deficit spending in peace time right from the outset, which allowed for the growth of government they mostly didn't want), and they did not set out the judiciary system with the clarity they had put into the executive and legislative. For good (and for ill) they allowed it to self-define.

I like that you brought this up because I think it is entirely appropriate as a component of replacing a compromise-as-ideology approach, implied by the deficits thereof. To be concrete, I perceive the modern Democratic party's great sins to have been overemphasizing narrow positions, striking up a pretense of competition, and preemptively compromising in the service of centrally-contrived narratives (policy becoming secondary to strategic optics). With complicity in the following process:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I found the cartoon amusing, and certainly that kind of process DOES result from shifting latitudes of rejection and acceptance over time (that's classic SJT), but as a student of history yourself, you are aware that the pendulum inevitably hits a point where it swings backwards and re-centers.


I think you make a great point about the Dems as a source for this stronger reactionary tone in US politics. When the Dems were in the ascendency, they did so by championing the working 'class.' Their shift towards leftism and towards marginalized voters beginning in the 1950s was a double edged sword. They did shift African Americans from a strong and sometimes unthinking support for the 'Party of Lincoln' into a near lock-step support for the Dems, but in doing so they focused more and more on identity politics and crusades against injustice....without remembering the working class voter (mostly white) upon which their party success had been built. Had they kept those voters and added the marginalized groups we would have a different political story today. Since Reagan, the working class has very often been willing to vote GOP if they thought it would mean jobs and a bit of national pride.

...As for Old vs. New Left, why not both dot jpeg? Of course the kind of "identity politics" salient today (which are really just in addition to the religious, ethnic, and mode-of-life identity politics in the rest of the country's history) must be coupled with (economic) class politics to reach their full development - and vice versa.

It's what they call I N T E R S E C T I O N. Seriously one of the best ideas out of feminism and critical theory, and one that should be more widely disseminated reflected upon. Because it's so obviously important once you think about it, and for once in a red moon the terminology is transparent in meaning.

The critical project has spent a lot of effort trying to reinvent itself. The Frankfurt School, Engels own feminist efforts after the death of Marx, etc. Intersectionality is just the latest wrinkle -- admittedly a more unifying rather than particularizing effort for the critical project -- in an ongoing theme.

Critical theory still excels at pointing out the failings of modernity and the culture/power structure that is but still falls short of a means to rectify it (which is why some deride it as whining and self-victimization). Still, the critique is worthwhile as it spawns other efforts, often more practical in character, to address those wrongs that are repeatedly highlighted. The Marxist criticism of capitalism did eventually beget useful oversight of financial transactions and the development of unions (which, at least in the USA, screwed up royally beginning in the 1960s, but had a hugely beneficial impact on workplace safety etc. prior to 1960). The spotlighting of persecution against those who have a same-sex orientation did eventually produce measurable results towards change. But the critical project endlessly rails for change without realizing that the change they seek MUST be established through cultural shift in values and thinking and is a multi-decades project, not something that can be accomplished by fiat. The critiques of capitalism began in earnest in the 1840s, it would be 30 years before Unions began to make an effective counter. Modern feminism can trace its trace its roots to the late 18th century, but it would be 40 years before the first "woman's issue" laws were put on the books. The Stonewall Riots occurred in 1969, but same-sex marriage wasn't legal until 2000 in the Netherlands, 2015 in the USA, and still ISN'T legalized in half the world. The critique is a worthy effort, but values and cultural norms change slowly.