Through our lifestyles and opinions, we express our individuality. Yet we are more than our choices and opinions. Greater knowledge, and a better understanding of the science, history, literature and art about the ways in which we divide ourselves can help us live more ethically, more fully, and shape a better world. Diversity is the bedrock on which the richness…
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Value for Saturday of Week 18 in the season of Growth
Being Scrupulous, Yet Flexible
Ideals frequently are in conflict with practical realities. Try as we might to hold fast to our principles, there are times for compromise and flexibility.
- There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires. [Jawaharlal Nehru, The Unity of India: Collected Writings 1937-1940; later quoted by Nelson Mandela.]
- Politics is the art of the possible [attributed to Otto von Bismarck]
Nelson Mandela in 1937
Which is better: steadfast scrupulousness or flexible compromise? The question defies a definitive answer. Without Nelson Mandela’s unwillingness to yield to the injustice he experienced, over decades in prison, South African apartheid might not have been dismantled when it was. On the other hand, Barack Obama presided over the passage of national health care legislation in the United States, producing legislation that was less ambitious than could have been achieved a generation earlier through compromise.
Choosing between steadfastness and flexibility requires wisdom, the ability to read people and situations, and a solid set of values. These two virtues, which are also shortcomings in some situations, must be considered together.
Real
True Narratives
The political battle over slavery in the United States is often cited as an example of principle versus compromise.
- Fergus M. Bordewich, America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union (Simon & Schuster, 2012): “The final resolution of the twin problems of slavery and nationhood would not come until it was written in blood.”
- Allen C. Guelzo, Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2012): “With standoffs looming on several fronts, we cannot know at present whether meaningful compromise can be reached, and whether reason or passion will win the day.”
Most of the works by and about Nelson Mandela illustrate steadfastness but the book by John Carlin shows how Mandela became a crafty political leader who understood and practiced the value of compromise.
- Nelson Mandela, No Easy Walk to Freedom (1973).
- Barry Denenberg, Nelson Mandela: No Easy Walk to Freedom (Turtleback, 1991).
- Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (Little, Brown and Company, 1994).
- Tom Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (Oxford University Press, 2006).
- Anthony Sampson, Mandela: The Authorized Autobiography (Knopf, 1999).
- Nelson Mandela, Conversations with Myself (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010).
- David James Smith, Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years (Little, Brown and Company, 2010).
- John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation (Penguin Press, HC, 2008).
Examples of compromise:
- Sean Wilentz, The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016). “His thesis is easily stated: Politicians serve the country best when the learn the art of compromise through party-building and not when they stand, prophet-like, outside the fray delivering secular, and sometimes overtly religious, sermons.”
- John Avlon, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace (Simon &. Schuster, 2022): “In this elegant, almost conversational, exposition of Lincoln the ‘soulful centrist,’ the 16th president appears as the reconciler in chief, who not only saved democracy from destruction in war but also pointed the way to saving it from inertia and futility in peace.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
On compromise:
- Alin Fumurescu, Compromise: A Political and Philosophical History (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
- Richard Bellamy, Liberalism and Pluralism: Towards a Politics of Compromise (Routledge, 1999).
- Martin Benjamin, Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics (University Press of Kansas, 1990).
- Alan Boye, Sustainable Compromises: A Yurt, a Straw Bale House, and Ecological Living (University of Nebraska Press, 2014).
- Jennifer Wolak, Compromise in an Age of Party Polarization (Oxford University Press, 2020).
- Steven Andrew Light & Kathryn R.L. Rand, Indian Gaming and Tribal Sovereignty: The Casino Compromise (University Press of Kansas, 2005).
- Laura J. Olson & Svetlana Adonyeva, The Worlds of Russian Village Women: Tradition, Transgression, Compromise (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012).
- David M. O'Brien, Justice Robert H. Jackson's Unpublished Opinion in Brown v. Board: Conflict, Compromise, and Constitutional Interpretation (University Press of Kansas, 2017).
- Ian Taylor, China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise (Routledge, 2007).
- Ralph Stacey & Douglas Griffin, eds., Complexity and the Experience of Values, Conflict and Compromise in Organizations (Routledge, 2008).
- Christian Rostboll & Theresa Scavenius, eds., Compromise and Disagreement in Contemporary Political Theory (Routledge, 2018).
On rotten compromises:
- Avishai Margalit, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises (Princeton University Press, 2010).
- Chiara Lepora & Robert E. Goodin, On Complicity and Compromise (Oxford University Press, 2013).
- Roger L. Ransom, Conflict and Compromise: The Political Economy of Slavery, Emancipation and the American Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
- Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America (University of North Carolina Press, 2007).
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Novels:
- Sir Walter Scott, Old Mortality (1816): “The story takes place in Scotland in 1679 during a time of political turmoil, when the dissenting Covenanters were up in arms against the English King Charles II. The main character, Henry Morton, is a moderate who is compelled to support the Covenanters when he learns that some of his relatives are among the dissenters. Representing Scott’s own ambiguous feelings toward his native Scotland, Morton is essentially a peacemaker, and his marriage to the granddaughter of a Royalist at the end of the novel symbolizes the hope for a union between the two countries.”
- Daniel Kehlmann, The Director: A Novel (S & S/Summit Books, 2025): “How to Make Art Under the Nazis (Without Losing Your Soul) - A new novel considers the perplexing life and times of G.W. Pabst, the Austrian filmmaker who worked in the shadow of the Reich.”
Poetry
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Along with others, swing-era jazz trumpeter Buck Clayton earned the title “mainstreamer” by straddling the line between swing revival and modernism. He in particular struck this balance creatively and intelligently. He created a large body of work.
Felix Weingartner “revealed with precision and clarity the musical architecture of the works which he conducted. This was achieved through an ability to settle upon what seemed to be the most appropriate tempo. ‘There is only one tempo: the right one’, he would frequently declare.” Here is a link to his playlists.
Richard Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos, Op. 60, TrV 228a (1912, rev. 1916) (approx. 122-140’) (libretto) (score) (list of recorded performances), consists of a prelude about staging an opera, and the opera itself. “Ariadne auf Naxos is perhaps the ultimate opera about opera. High art versus low art, lofty creative goals versus the demands of a wealthy patron, clashing divas, last-minute changes … all are encapsulated in the two and a half hours of Strauss’s prologue plus opera-within-an-opera.” The inducement to compromise – typical of Romantic opera – is romantic “love”, i.e., sex. The composer and his librettist also demonstrated the art of compromise, by “fiddl(ing) around with their creation”. “The version that premiered on Oct. 25, 1912, was actually little more than a 30-minute version to accompany a lengthy play by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. But it proved an unsatisfactory arrangement and in 1916, the composer, at the suggestion of his beloved playwright, composed a prologue for the work and the first performance got its due on Oct. 4, 1916.” Here is a link to Hofmannsthal’s play. Performances have been captured on video with Gundula, Janowitz, Gruberova, Schmidt, Berry & Kollo (Böhm); and with Jurinac, Hillebrecht, Grist, Schoffler & Thomas (Böhm). Top audio-only-recorded performances feature Reining, Noni & Seefried (Böhm) in 1944 , Schwarzkopf, Seefried & Streich (Karajan) in 1954 , Della Casa, Schock & Güden (Böhm) in 1954 , Zadec, Streich & Jurinac (Keilberth) in 1954 , Janowitz, King & Geszty (Kempe) in 1967 , Janowitz, King & Berry (Böhm) in 1976 ***, Voigt, Dessay & Heppner (Sinopoli) in 2000.
Other compositions:
- Dinos Constantinides, String Quartet No. 2, LRC 62, “Mutability” (approx. 19-22’)
- Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantata No. 201, “Geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde”, a/k/a “Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan” (The Dispute Between Phoebus and Pan), BWV 201 (1729) (approx. 47-55’) (lyrics) (list of recorded performances): after Pan and Phoebus argue about whose music is better, the resolution is that they complement each other.
- Kalevi Aho, Clarinet Concerto (2005) (approx. 28-34’) (recordings) was composed in “close collaboration with (clarinetist Martin) Fröst, who told the composer about the clarinet’s extended contemporary techniques. ‘The clarinet is a really flexible instrument, you can do lots of things with it. It doesn’t have limits, really,’ Fröst says. ‘The big composers who have survived, they have written for clarinet in a very singing way, and that’s a big difference between classical stuff and modern. You are really free to develop new sounds and sound techniques.’” “Among the orchestral forces required in Aho’s Clarinet Concerto are piccolo, E flat clarinet and bass clarinet (but no standard clarinet), contrabassoon, euphonium, harp and a large percussion section including anvil, gong, vibraphone and xylophone.”
“Mix a dose of klezmer with a pinch of jazz, add a shot of Balkan and a smidgen of Gypsy, et voilà, you’ve got the recipe for Amsterdam Klezmer Band.” The group adheres to Klezmer tradition, while bringing in other influences. They don’t seem to want to stop playing.
Albums:
- Samuel Leipold, “Viscosity” (2020) (46’) - how thick is your compromising fluid?
- Raphaël Pannier, “Faune” (2020) (65’): a jazz musician with a distinct point of view, adaptable in several genres.
- Matthew Shipp Trio, “Elastic Aspects” (2012) (49’): “. . . the program comprises a sequence of short interlinked tracks, with varying instrumental permutations.”
- Matthew Barley, “Electric” (2023) (76’): a cellist adds electronics, changing the sound, while maintaining the cello’s character and integrity. “Barley chooses to let the natural timbral imperfections of the cello jar against the clean musical lines and shapes created by the electronics.”
- Béla Fleck, Rhapsody in Blue (2024) (44’): Gershwin’s classical-jazz work on a banjo, in three styles: bluegrass, classical-jazz, and the blues.
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Fleetwood Mac, “Landslide” (lyrics)
- Coldplay, “Vida la Vida” (lyrics)
- Jason Mraz, “I’m Yours” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Umberto Boccioni, Elasticity (1912)
Film and Stage
- Sergeant York, the biographical drama about Alvin York, a conscientious objector who became the army’s most decorated soldier in World War I: some people may think pacifist and skilled killer to be incompatible ideals but apparently York saw a deeper principle in defense of country.
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence: a Western in which a political figure philosophizes on the compromises necessary to bring order to the Old West
