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Better, Not the Absolute Best

Bismark called politics "the art of the possible".  That is to say, you cannot always get what you want.

John Kenneth Galbraith was a little grubbier.  He said, "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.


In either case, the politics is not war, demanding unconditional surrender.  Politics assumes compromise, or the less-than-perfect.  That is why the current rhetoric of our politicians about the evil of compromise is so disastrous.  A knife fight in an alley is not compromise.  Arguing about ideas is.  


Ever since Plato--probably long before Plato, but we don't know what we don't know--we have spoken of the good, and the true, and the beautiful.  Today, we might call those things morals and ethics, science or facts, and art.  


If we assume that there is an absolute truth, there can be no compromise.  That is equally true of an absolute good.  It would be criminal to compromise what is absolutely good.   We worry less about what is absolutely beautiful.  In art, our differences of opinion about what is beautiful are more common, but there are people who find certain kinds of music, for instance, objectionable, or even ugly.  


One of our problems, today, is that there are people who think they have the absolute truth.  Most often, they think God told it to them, but there are less grand versions of the attitude, too.  Evolution is obvious to some people, and simply false for others.  


But it is not just truths that are elevated to absolutes.  So are what is good, or preferable.  Some people think of certain economic systems as absolutely good, or absolutely evil while, to others, they are simply preferences.  A lot of political decisions have not so much to do with what is true or not true, but what is good, or not good.  Health care, social security, birth control:  if those things seem absolutely good, or absolutely evil, it is not likely you will compromise on legislation about them.  


Most value systems fall short of being absolute but, of course, are more strongly, or less fervently supported, or disliked.  So we do not compromise easily.  But if we hold some things to be absolutely good, or absolutely bad, compromise will be nearly impossible, and thus, politically impossible to manage.  We are uncomfortably close to that.  


It is more nuanced to hold that most issues fall along a continuum, from the indifferent, or trivial, to the really important.   For most of us, the value of human life is really important, but actually not an absolute.  We are willing to go to war, and to execute mass murderers or psychopaths.  We allow the police, and even homeowners, to shoot to protect themselves.  We speak of self-defense.  We understand that for some people, the pain of staying alive is worse than just staying alive.  We value life very highly, but not absolutely.  


So strongly held beliefs, or values, make sense.  But when they are made absolute, compromise is impossible.  Politics becomes impossible.  All we can do, then, is to sort ourselves out into denominations.  


Most religious groups are very comfortable with absolutes.  Each of them believes it has the absolute truth, and knows what is absolutely good.  


But politics should be an argument, not a knife-fight.  




   

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