Refuting “Conflict can only be resolved when both parties are prepared to compromise”
Date: 2020-12-16
Humans are naturally inclined to seek
compromise (Baume & Novak, 2020, pp. 70–71), which is a well-studied
psychological condition (Radosavljevic, Andelkovic, & Panagopoulos, 2014). Because
of the imperative to belong, many of us simply believe that the truth must lie
somewhere between or in the middle of two arguments (Wendt, 2014, pp. 475–480).
Yet, the commonly held belief that compromise can exist between all positions
is held in error. In democracies, for instance, a balance of ideas can be
arrived at through a consensus-based process. Truth and science are not
democratic processes. In 1610, Galileo wrote a treatise noting that an
explanation of the solar system placing the sun in the centre, rather than
relying on the prevailing method of calculating a convoluted path of mixed
planetary convolutions, allowed for a simple near-circular product that made an
analysis of planetary positions far simpler. Galileo was compelled under
torture to repudiate his assertions that the earth circled the sun, instead of
the converse. E pur si muove, or, “still it moves”, is
reported (Hawking, 2002, p. 396) to be Galileo’s final recalcitrance on the
same point.
Just as choosing to believe that the world
is flat and that the sun circles the earth would be erroneous if many people
argued it, assuming that the interest is somewhere in the middle or the golden
mean remains equally false. Truth is not determined by popular belief. Although
none of us can achieve any result that perfects truth, we can get close. Both
philosophical logic and modern scientific analysis allow us to look at a
variety of separate premises and to find answers that come closer and closer to
the truth. Science is a method. It does not answer all questions; more
importantly, it merely approximates the reality we seek to explain. Yet again,
over time, as we improve our techniques and gain more evidence, the scientific
method allows us to get closer and closer to the truth. Some, such as Thomas
Kuhn, have argued along similar lines, believing that science changes in
paradigm shifts (1962/1970). A system as proposed by Kuhn would allow science
to exist within a reality based on compromise. But, Kuhn’s concept of science
was self-refuting, and has been repudiated by his own statements. One example
would include relativity. Kuhn argued that structures such as relativistic
physics had been introduced through a process of generational change, but the
evidence stands against him. It was not paradigm changes and the shift of
generational weight that brought in support for Einstein’s theory of relativity;
it was the weight of evidence when experimental results demonstrated the theory
to be sound (Rovelli, 2019).
It has become popular to argue that no
truth exists, or rather, that we each have an individual truth (Marsh &
Furlong, 2002). In a world without truth, it is argued that we cannot deal
without compromise. And it has been argued that those who fail to compromise or
to meet in the middle are obstinate and recalcitrant, seeking not the best for
society (Gutmann & Thompson, 2014), but to promote themselves. Such a
position would seem to put diversity above all else. Should we consider blind obeisance
to conciliation and harmony at all costs? Where, through little more than a
lamentably flawed argument to the contrary, the path to appeasement overrides
knowledge and science and all of the values that have created the only enduring
golden age in human history, should we compromise? We live in a time of
unrivalled prosperity, freedom, and growth; all of it comes with conflict.
A more critical question that is begged through the promise of avoiding conflict at any cost lies in deciding whether a conflict is an ultimate evil that must be avoided no matter what the consequence. It was such a position that was held by Prime Minister Chamberlain in the 1930s. When Chamberlain flew to negotiate with Hitler in Berchtesgaden, the creation of the Munich Agreement was a direct result of seeking compromise above all else (McDonough, 1998). If Neville Chamberlain had opposed the German expansion into the Rhineland, World War II would have been abated (Phillips, 2019). With all that occurred, and with the knowledge of the atrocities that occurred, and of the spiralling nature of what could have remained a small but containable conflict, some would revisit the actions of Chamberlain and then, later, Churchill (Bech, 1989). After World War II, appeasement became a dirty word (Lord Strang in Lanyi, 1963). It seems we have forgotten the past, and, in deviating from the lessons of history, seek to make a compromise at any cost, even when it is far from what can be considered respectable.
The argument that conflict may only be
resolved if both parties are prepared to compromise is one that contains a
logically flawed premise. The idea is itself an absolute, yet it is an
unquestionable view proposed by some (Golding, 1979) that acts in opposition to
the nature of absolute truth. The juxtaposition of an unequivocal statement
refuting the existence of absolutes is logically inconsistent. As Pauli put it,
it is not right; “it is not even wrong” (Peierls, 1960).
As was introduced above, another word for
unilateral compromise is appeasement. Placation is not something that
leads to security, but is instead a slow corruption that eats at the heart of
powerful nations and makes them weak. It is not merely nations but corporations
and even individuals that lose out through compromise and appeasement. We may
not always know the truth, but truth does not compromise. If Galileo, in the
full understanding and knowledge of the penalty for heretics, and with a sense
that he could face retribution, had not written his treatise, much of the
growth attributed to modern society may have stalled. There is a distinction
between being stubborn and standing for what is right. We should all be open to
new evidence. We should be available for reviewing and testing our knowledge.
It is not a compromise to admit that evidence shows us when we are wrong. It is
also not a compromise to change our position after being presented with better
evidence than we initially had. It is not a compromise to make a win-win deal
that is demonstrated to be economically rational. To compromise is merely to
give up one’s position based on appeasement. It is the cowardice that leads to
seeking peace in the immediate time frame in abeyance of all consideration of
what may come.
When one party is willing to compromise, it
is the unreasonable person who wins. It takes two people to debate a position,
yet it only requires one to compromise. As in the situation of Chamberlain,
when one party remains immovable, and the other is willing to compromise, there
is no meeting in the middle. Compromise is not based on fact. It is not based
on evidence. A willingness to re-evaluate a position through an analysis of
fact is rational and laudable, which is not the same as to compromise. There
are times when it would seem a compromise could achieve gains. Yet such gains lie
not in the compromise, but are instead the result of trading positions and
negotiating a settlement that favours all parties. There are scenarios where
win-win outcomes are possible, yet to believe that all conflict should be
avoided and that compromise is always necessary is to fall into the fallacy of
the golden mean (Lambdin, 2006). Whether we call it *argument from middle
ground, the continuum fallacy, or the fallacy of gray*, the
argument to moderation or argumentum ad temperantiam is the trap that has
been set and that we in the West, in our pluralistic civilisation, have fallen
into—without knowing our plight (Bukovsky, 1990). As we face intransient
opponents who are recalcitrant and firm in their conviction even when faced
with evidence refuting their position, our way of life is slowly eroded. Each
time we compromise and seemingly appease those with ideas that would once be
considered abhorrent, such that we now allow for diversity, we erode the very
foundations of liberal society. It is possible to have liberal views and allow
freedom while still ensuring that we are open to being convinced of another
path. But, being persuaded must necessitate evidence, and not mere compromise.
Perchance, diversity has gone too far. It seems
compromise at all expense in exchange for truth is not a fair trade. Those who
argue we must change the meaning and use of language, and who ignore literary
hermeneutics in exchange for a post-modern reinterpretation of what they seek
to say people had said, are not seeking to compromise. Those whose
fundamentalist ideals and religious dogma oppose Western values and freedom,
yet cry “oppression” whenever their atrocities are stopped, cannot be
compromised with and cannot negotiate. For, where a party will not accept
evidence and will not openly discuss alternatives based on fact, we end merely
in appeasement. Compromise does not resolve conflict; it only kicks the can
down the road, and as it does, so increases the eventual force of the
antagonism that must necessarily ensue.
References
Baume, S., & Novak, S. (Eds.).
(2020). Compromises in Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan.
Beck, R. J. (1989). Munich’s Lessons Reconsidered. *International
Security, 14*(2), 161–191. doi:10.2307/2538858
Golding, M. P. (1979). The nature of
compromise: A preliminary inquiry. Nomos, 21, 3–25.
Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. F.
(2014). *The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and
Campaigning Undermines It – Updated Edition*. Princeton University Press.
Hawking, S. (2002). *On the Shoulders
of Giants* (pp. 396–398). Running Press.
Kuhn, T. (1970). *The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions* (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work
published 1962)
Lambdin, C. (2006). Fallacy. Skeptic
[Altadena, CA], 12(4), 10.
Lanyi, G. (1963). The Problem of
Appeasement. World Politics, 15(2), 316–328.
doi:10.2307/2009378
Marsh, D., & Furlong, P. (2002). A Skin
Not a Sweater: Ontology and Epistemology in Political Science. *Theory
and Methods in Political Science, 2*, 17–41.
McDonough, F. (1998). *Neville
Chamberlain, appeasement, and the British road to war*. Manchester University
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Pauli, 1900–1958. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 5,
174–192. doi):10.1098/rsbm.1960.0014
Phillips, A. (2019). *Fighting
Churchill, Appeasing Hitler: How a British Civil Servant Helped Cause the
Second World War*. Biteback Publishing.
Radosavljevic, D., Andelkovic, A., &
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Management. No. 10 Int’l J. Econ. & L., 4, 95.
Rovelli, C. (2019). The dangers of non-empirical
confirmation (Dardashti, R., Dawid, R., & Thebault, K., Eds.). *Why
Trust a Theory? – Epistemology of Fundamental Physics*, Cambridge University
Press.
Bukovsky, V. K. (1990). *The Wind
Returns. Letters by Russian Traveler (Russian edition, Буковский В.
К. И возвращается ветер. Письма русского путешественника*). Moscow, Russia.
Wendt, F. (Ed.). (2014). *Compromising
on Justice*. Routledge.
Image: Galileo Galilei: Galileo Galilei at his trial at the Inquisi; see page for author, CC BY 4.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, Wikimedia Commons]
Thesis statement:
Compromise is merely appeasement, and does
not take evidence into account. It is a fallacy of the golden mean, and allows
the recalcitrant fundamentalist to ignore evidence and fact entirely. To
compromise is not to alter one’s position based on new evidence, but is instead
to seek appeasement at any cost.