The recent political situation here in the United States involves heated debate over raising the debt ceiling. Both sides are treating compromise as a dirty word, which is just downright foolish. They could take some tips from us musicians (how often do we get to say that) who are used to working together to making a product that is better than the sum of its parts. I even saw a poll about whether politicians should stick to their ideology regardless of the consequences. An alarming number of participants, though thankfully not a majority, said that ideology should not be compromised. Let me introduce you to the real world.
Compromise is not something to fear nor something to shy away from. It is a way for more people to get a piece of what they want, so more people can benefit. Speaking from an artistic point of view, ideology is a wonderful place to start. A starting point - that’s all. Ideology exists in a vacuum. All bets are off once an idea enters reality. In the immortal words of Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan ’til they get punched in the mouth.”
Once an idea enters the real world, it undergoes a whirlwind process of adjusting, editing, refining and yes, compromising to turn the idea into reality. The stronger we believe in the idea, the more refinement is necessary. Compromise is a way to get things right.
It seems that American politicians have never learned what musicians have known for hundreds of years: if we refuse to work with others, we will be lonely and our work will suffer. When we refuse to move forward because the solutions don’t completely represent our original ideology, we find ourselves with nothing to show.
This is the brother of option paralysis (where we have too many options and can’t choose). Call it Ideological Paralysis. The neighborhood kids don’t want to play your game, so you sit on the front steps rather than play something else.
No comments:
Post a Comment