Ayn Rand, on Pages 79 and 80 of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, writes essay 7. Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?: “A compromise is an adjustment of conflicting claims by mutual concessions. This means both parties to a compromise have sone valid claim and some value to offer each other. And this means that both parties agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a base for their deal.”
My response: My moderate ethics urge that people work to resolve conflicts, compromising on minor concessions on both sides where they can. If it is a matter of basic principle that cannot be compromised without a loss of honor, then one or both of the parties cannot compromise. It would be hoped that they can agree to disagree and not go to war or violence as an option, because violent resolutions to impasses usually is not satisfactory to the losers and makes the whole impasses evil and fanatical. War should be avoided if possible. If two parties cannot agree, maybe they can agree to disagree, and just coexist peacefully, sometimes even that does not work and war will occur. If two conflicting parties negotiate in good faith, common ground can be found sometimes on part maybe even all of the impasse.
Rand: “It is only in regard to concrete or particulars, implementing a mutually accepted basic principle, that one may compromise. For instance, one may bargain with a buyer over the price one wants to receive for one’s product, and agree on a sum somewhere between one’s demand and his offer. The mutually accepted basic principle, in such case is the principle of trade, namely: the buyer must pay the seller for his product. But if one wanted to be paid and the alleged buyer wanted to obtain one’s product for nothing, no compromise, agreement or discussion would be possible, only the total surrender of one or the other.
There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one’s property. What value or concession did the burglar offer in return? And once the principle of unilateral concessions is accepted as the base of a relationship by both parties, it is only a matter of time before the burglar would seize the rest. As an example of this process, observe the present foreign policy of the United States.
There is no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept ‘just a few controls’ is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government’s unlimited arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement. As an example of this process, observe the present domestic policy of the United States.”
My response: Leftists have been playing the battle against Republican fence-straddlers and RINOS forever, and the dishonorable compromise by the conservatives, diluting capitalism growing tyranny, growing big government, and greatly reducing right and liberty in the name of going along to get along and for the sake of bipartisanship has led us to our present state of Marxist tyranny in the Biden Administration. Surrendering all of one’s rights dishonorably is not smart, desirable, or good negotiating; this type of despicable surrender and compromise is abject capitulation to fanatical enemies not bending a bit and demanding and getting everything all the time.
Rand: “There can be no compromise on basic principles or fundamental issues. What would you regard as a ‘compromise’ between life and death? Or between truth and falsehood? Or between reason and irrationality.”
My response: there are issues like abortion that so divide society that there is not compromise possible unless we agree to let each state decide for itself, and no federal abortion bill passes. Many issues in life are gray, not black-and-white, so refusing to compromise about wha tis not so clearly self-evident can be risky and damaging. We must proceed carefully.
Rand: “Today, however, when people speak of ‘compromise,’ what they mean is not a legitimate mutual concession or a trade, but precisely the betrayal of one’s principles—the unilateral surrender to any groundless, irrational claim. The root of this doctrine is ethical subjectivism, which holds that a desire or whim is an irreducible moral primary, that everyman is entitled to any desire he might feel like asserting, that all desires have equal moral validity, and the only way men can get along together is by giving in to anything and ‘compromising’ with anyone. It is not hard to see who would profit and who would lose by such a doctrine.”
My response: I agree.
Rand on pages 80 and 81: “The immorality of this doctrine—and the reason why the term ‘compromise’ implies, in today’s general usage, an act of moral treason—lies in the fact that it requires men to accept ethical subjectivism as the basic principle superseding all principles in human relationships and to sacrifice anything as a concession to another’s whims.
The question ‘Doesn’t life require compromise?’ is usually asked by those who fail to differentiate between a basic principle and some, concrete specific wish. Accepting a lesser job than one wanted is not a ‘compromise.’ Taking orders from one’s employer on how to do the work for which one is hired, is not a ‘compromise.’ Failing to have cake after one has eaten it , is not a ‘compromise.’
Integrity does not consist of loyalty to one’s subjective whims, but of loyalty to rational principles. A ‘compromise’ (in the unprincipled sense of that word) is not a breach of one’s comfort, but a breach of one’s convictions. A ‘compromise’ does not consist of doing something one dislikes, but of doing something one knows to be evil. Accompanying one’s husband or wife to a concert, when one does not care for the music is not a ‘compromise,’ surrendering to his or her irrational demands for social conformity, for pretended religious observance or for generosity towards boorish in-laws, is. Working for an employer who does not share one’s ideas, is not a ‘compromise;’ pretending to share his ideas is. Accepting a publisher’s suggestions to make changes in one’s manuscript, when one sees the rational validity of his suggestions, is not a ‘compromise;’ making such changes in order to please him or to please the ‘public,’ against one’s own judgment and standards, is.
There are times in life when we can compromise and it is not dishonorable to do so, and compromise for Rand here seems to have morphed into dishonorable surrender, a self-betrayal of one’s principles. And that would be wrong, but some compromise is honorable and not at the expense of one’s core principles.”
My response: Now the Founding Fathers, some of them owned slaves, and knew that slavery was wrong, but went along with some slavery in some states in order to get all of the 13 colonies on board to get our federal, constitutional republic, the best government the world has ever see. They got the good settled for it rather than holding out for perfection and getting nothing and 80 years later the civil war was fought to rid the land of this menace. Rand would be an abolitionist with no compromise and no common ground could be established. Her purist fanaticism would get nothing done, and a partial victory and more incrementally over tie, may the best we can get for now, and if that is compromising with evil, well it is not a perfect world, and not perfect people so we have to live with things. I do not much care about abortion outside of saving the mother's life or in case of rape or incest, but Republican single-issue fanatics may cost conservative the 2024 election by offending educated and suburban women that we need to get Trump elected. I am not a corrupt compromiser, a traitor or hypocrite selling out the unborn. If we cannot separate the liberals from the leftists and get us to join us from the center, we will never rule in this country again, to get done all the good cultural counter-revoltuonary things that we need to accomplish.
Gun rights for example, no compromise is possible, for they incrementally are taking away our 2 a rights so not more slow surrenders to these freedom haters.
Rand: “The excuse, given in all such cases, is that the ‘compromise’ is only temporary and one will reclaim integrity at some indeterminate future date. But one cannot correct a husband’s or wife’s irrationality by giving into it and encouraging it to grow. One cannot achieve the victory of one’s ideas by helping to propagate their opposite. One cannot offer a literary masterpiece, ‘when one has become rich and famous,’ to a following one has acquired by writing trash. If one found it difficult to maintain loyalty to one’s own convictions at the start, a succession of betrayals—which helped to augment the power of the evil one lacked the courage to fight—will not make it easier at a later date but will make it virtually impossible.”
My response: this is an eloquent defense of the dangers and irreversiblity of selling out one’s principles for temporary gain.
Rand: “There can be no compromise on moral principles. ‘In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, only evil can profit.” The answer is that that is precisely what life forbids—if one wishes to achieve anything but a stretch of tortured years spent in progressive self-destruction.”
My response: It it is clear what is evil and what is good and one is on the side of the good then compromise should be rare and a hard line is usually the way to respond.
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