First off, I'd like to apologize for going off the radar for so long. I'm presently in grad school, but that doesn't necessarily mean I've been creatively idle, either... I just haven't produced anything that I feel would be presentable or really rewarding here, and I'll admit that illustration has sort of fallen off my schedule and habits. I need to get back into it!

Anyway, that being said, I'd like to kick off the new year with yet another (hopefully) thought and insight-provoking journal! And by that, of course, I mean the actual, subconscious purpose of any journal: The reinforcement of the Self by shouting into humanity.


People constantly talk about compromise, usually in the context that it has somehow become lost or been led astray, or misplaced by the housekeeping staff. Maybe the dog ate it. We all seem to be in a desperate search for compromise as a society to the point where compromise itself has become the object of our dreams, the ideal, the way to overcome all the dire portent looming before us. Of course, like the nearsighted person searching incessantly for a pair of glasses that they are already wearing, compromise hasn't actually left us. We've just managed to trick ourselves into thinking that it's somehow gone missing.

Speaking from the perspective of an American, this compromise thing and it's apparent absence is kind of a thing right now. It's in fashion. People are talking about it, about how they miss it, and even permitting themselves to believe that it will never return. There is even a cottage industry focused around the search for the missing compromise- it's in the news, thereby selling advertisements and generating revenue for someone, somewhere, presumably. Because it's in the news so regularly, it becomes a nice little bit of cash on the side for psychologists, pundits, and those mysterious floating head people who, while disembodied, find great enjoyment out of placing themselves on book covers as though the presence of their beaming faces will sell hardcovers-- and they're right! Or, at least, I think such books must sell, cause I see them in just about every bookstore and I refuse to believe that there is some giant Chinese surplus book-buying factory complex that mulches them into a pulp and recycles them into arsenic-infused toilet tissue that forms the sole economic basis for the trendy book industry.

The question that is invariably being asked is 'where has all the compromise gone?' The answers furnished try to answer this question, and the answers aren't baseless. Some say that the polarization of the electorate is the foundation upon which the polarized Congress is currently built, a vast sea of Gerrymandered congressional districts from sea to shining sea, each one pandering to a clique of wingnuts. Others say that this is a cultural problem and a sort of collective illness based upon generations of grown up babies who have yet to be weaned from entitlements, an entire nation of children incapable of dealing with confrontation in any format other than throwing a tantrum. Most of the answers to this question paint one side or the other of this polarized nation as something childish, if not subhuman-- In the process of trying to answer this question, we have collectively been reduced to an unthinking, irrational force of nature that cannot be refuted. In other words, the compromise is gone now and there's no way to bring it back, as any individual attempt to do so will be swept away by the tidal wave of 'stupid people'.

Of course, this all supposes that everyone is asking the right question to begin with. Anyone familiar with Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has to chuckle a bit at this part, cause they've heard it before. To those who aren't familiar, a hyperintelligent race with access to vast resources builds an extraordinary computer called Deep Thought to answer the question: "What is the secret to life, the universe, and everything?" After millions of years, Deep Thought produces an answer that is both underwhelming and unbelievably disappointing, but chastises its creators by telling them that they should have asked a different question if they wanted a better answer.

First off, if it's not clear by now, compromise never 'left the building' hot on the heels of Elvis. It couldn't leave us even if it wanted to. Supposing again that most democratically elected governments are staffed by human beings and not brain-devouring Dyson vacuum space alien people in disguise, it is also safe to say that compromise is still with us as a primordial part of our psychology. Has our ability to compromise suddenly shriveled up into a laughable cerebral vestige, like T-Rex arms for our mind? No! It's alive and well, and in everyday use. How can I prove this? Anyone who's had to settle for something inferior to what they wanted, but sufficient to meet their basic need threshold, has engaged in compromise-- which is everyone, by the way, down to infants.

Whew. Now that that's out of the way, we can look at the next problem. If compromise is alive and well, why is it treating us so poorly right now? This, I think, is where psychology starts to work against us. Our brains are familiar with compromise- but we don't like to think of it as an ideal. By definition, a compromise is ideal for no one... Yet we are examining it as an ideal solution. This, in my opinion, is precisely the problem our government is butting heads with time and again. Both sides of the political ideology agree- compromise is necessary, vital even, to confronting the major problems facing us. Excellent, now let's get compromising! Sounds great! Wait... you mean I have to give all this up? Hold on, now, I said we should compromise, not bend over, drop our drawers, and hand you the Vaseline!

Guess what. Compromise isn't easy, and even though we think we know how to do it, everyone's got their own idea on how to compromise. The most common and ancient method of compromise is the good old Bargain. For a bargain to work, both parties have to hold something that the other values, and both sides will try to obtain the highest gains possible with the least cost. Pretty basic stuff, right?

Plus, it's not like things can't be bargained in the United States. True, we don't haggle over a head of lettuce or a T-shirt except in the most informal markets, but when it comes to major purchases and deals bargaining happens all the time. Politicians are also familiar with bargaining processes- hell, we specifically put them up their to bargain for the best outcome they can get for our constituencies. Every time Congress arrives at loggerheads, a flurry of bargaining begins. Yet right now, it seems, the mechanisms of bargaining aren't working.

Senators, Congressmen, and the U.S. President himself are all elected to satisfy promises. For Senators and the President, these promises can be pretty broad and flexible, primarily because the constituencies that elect them are (surprise!) broad and flexible. They have enough prestige and power to fall short in some areas and still emerge with a political career.

Congressmen do not have that luxury.

Congressmen in the U.S. have two-year terms, a short mandate by most standards. A surprising number of congressmen and women are not independently wealthy, and their ability to fund a campaign is limited. They can't spread money around everywhere and make all kinds of promises to all kinds of people. Even with generous support from their political party, a Congressperson cannot overwhelm all local opposition with money alone. They cannot ignore the promises they make to their constituents and expect to make a career out of politics. What kind of promises can individual congresspeople make to cement their careers? Generally, it is some kind of federally funded job-generating mechanism-- roads, military bases, prisons, etc.

A Congressman or woman places extreme value on one or two things that usually soak up federal dollars. To lose these things is to lose their careers. To the President, it seems obvious- to cut spending, we need to stop building bridges to nowhere and get rid of shipyards in Utah. To senators, it seems obvious- these projects are a waste of money, and losing the jobs and public support from one or two won't get me kicked out of office. To congressmen and women, however, this bridge to nowhere or this useless shipyard is a vital lynchpin for re-election, and the only way to bargain with such a thing is to replace it with another money sink of more or less equal value.

This cuts to the heart of why compromise isn't working on matters of federal spending, and the intractability of these fights is rubbing off in other areas, painting politicians and even entire parties as being irrational, impossible to work with. The word 'compromise' starts getting thrown around- as an ideal, yes, but also a weapon. It becomes a word that people identify with themselves as a sign of thoughtfulness, understanding, justice, peace, and superior morality-- and people without this ability to compromise, of course, are portrayed as lacking all of those qualities. Compromise becomes the shining beacon of awesomesauce to which all must aspire. Those standing in the way of compromise are irritating social lemmings fixated on suicide. The compromise must hold- clearly. It is what must be done, right?

Wrong. Cue Admiral Akbar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVnArp9ZE0

Compromise is not the end all, be all objective of politics- not in America, not anywhere. Compromise, by its very nature, is actually pretty disappointing. Never mind that compromise is mediocrity- it's that the human psychology doesn't like to feel like it's losing all the time, or at least engaging in counterproductive activity.

Perhaps, then, what we should be asking of our government right now is not so much what to cut, but how to better spend the same amount of money. We spend a lot of money on prisons, but prisons neither enrich nor grow communities or the nation. We spend a lot of money on road infrastructure when we already know that larger investments in freight infrastructure pay higher dividends than building new roads and lanes every which way. We spend a lot of money on military bases with little or no strategic value when the same money could be spent in the same constituency on actual productive activities. We spend a lot of money on massive schools that unfailingly transform children into statistics and, provided they don't run away, do not teach them how to survive. This is an entrepreneurial nation. People will understand, and maybe even applaud if more dollars are put to work instead of simply sitting around.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done, but it's a start, isn't it? The majority of American voters (and a lot of nonvoters) will put in the hours if it means that they don't feel impotent and hopeless about their future. Politicians would be well served, believe it or not, by abandoning the dream of compromise and converting existing federal funding into production and/or development. It's less like compromise and more like gambling, and while it carries its own serious risks I think it is much more hopeful and effective than asking Congressmen and women to basically sacrifice their political careers, something that they quite understandably will vote against time and time again.

Then again, this could all be nonsense. What do you think?