Compromise

Compromise is a part of every relationship. Usually I think when people imagine compromise, they imagine some magical solution that everyone is 100% happy with. But that's not what compromise is. It's more likely that at least one of the parties will be distinctly unhappy with a portion of the compromise.

People don't like to hear that. In politics, voters don't appear to understand compromise. They see that their politician has betrayed them and their interests. And unfortunately, this is where compromise would be really helpful. Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity (link here, embedding messed up my formatting) is based on the idea that 70-85% of the population could live with the compromises that politicians could probably come up with, but they are too busy having "shit to do" that they are not as vocal as the other 15-30%, thus, compromise never happens. I really hope that's the truth.



I'm always reminded of the Genital Nicking Controversy when I think of compromise. The article I found to link to actually puts scare quotes around the word "Controversy" in the title, underscoring how people feel about this. Ritual genital cutting is horrible, in many many ways. One of the most apparent ways is that it endangers the life and good health of women who undergo it. As a way of minimizing that particular risk, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggested back in May of 2010 that American Doctors perform a "ritual nick" in safe and sanitary conditions that would not permanently harm the good (physical) health of the girl, so as to prevent them from being shipped overseas to have a full genital mutilation done in less sanitary conditions. This provoked outrage.

As is the way with these things, the doctors in their ernest attempts to be culturally sensitive failed to take into account how everyone else would initially take the announcement, not having been involved in what I am sure was lengthy and in-depth back and forth discussions on the issue. I recall hearing at the time that families at risk of shipping their daughters away to have a full genital mutilation were actually quite amenable to the compromise. But theirs is not the only culture that would become embroiled in this controversy. Americans of all stripes were concerned about this, and it led to the AAP rescinding the policy and the controversy dying away. Meanwhile, it is illegal to perform this procedure in America, and we have effectively driven it underground or overseas.

I don't know about compromising morals. I do find the ideology behind female genital mutilation immoral and appalling. But if some Americans could have compromised their morals, it's possible that lives could have been saved. It's a tricky situation. And the dispassionate person in me (I bet you didn't think I had one, did you?) thinks if we could have taken the AAP's suggestion, that would have been a first step in the right direction. Maybe compromise isn't the right work. Maybe dissensus is more accurate. That certainly sounds more like how it feels to live in the chaos.