[TRG] On Compromise

Day 2,850, 18:25 • Published in USA USA • by J.A. Lake
On Compromise

This is an essential question for any leftist. Is it more practical to revolt and force change, or to gamble on the gullibility or the simple-mindedness of the bourgeoisie?

Perhaps that is an unfair treatment of reformism. This idea is very well-intentioned, of that there is no doubt. It is a cleaner, prettier form of transition. To change things without any hard feelings, any violence, any force.

These are not ignoble goals. However, nobility always has a sort of naivete attached to it.

If the idea is to play nice with the bourgeoisie to remain in their good graces, then our cause is lost. The corrosive influence of reformist ideas will certainly wear away any revolutionary aims between the millstones of bureaucracy and compromise. We will have lived long enough to see ourselves become the villain.

How is bureaucracy bad?

This is the easier of the two millstones to elaborate on. The eUS bureaucracy operates with a fair degree of success within game mechanics. Supplies are disbursed with relative frequency, those with the drive can get money and gold as well.

What should be avoided is the out-of-game bureaucracy. Any effort to change the country must first march headlong into a toxic cloud of groupthink and circle-jerkery, whereupon it will be disassembled if granted the dignity of a discussion. Those driving the change will very likely be exhausted or exasperated by the trolling and the personal attacks.

In the end of the day, this alone could be devastating. Far more insidious is bureaucracy's partner millstone.

Compromise.

This is not all it's cracked up to be, least of all for revolutionaries. Compromise is asking for a PB&J sandwich and instead being given a peanut, with the promise of another few peanuts if you be good.

Working for peanuts is all very fine...

Much worse than that is that compromise promotes a feeling of false accomplishment. If your goal is to get a $15/hr minimum wage and you settle for $10/hr, sure you achieved something: you got your peanut. Those you compromised with walked off with that sandwich, though.

But you still got a peanut, right? Isn't that worth something?

Surely it is, but what is it truly worth? A million compromises may one day bring change. A thousand may as well. Each one takes time, and each time the goal posts are moved somewhere else. No amount of compromise will ever truly suffice, because in the time you hammer that out, the game will have changed in some subtle enough way that you can't really ever claim victory.

Worse still, the bourgeoisie will always be at the table. They can never be excluded from a reformist approach, because you will be working with them to work against them.

Interestingly there's another definition to compromise, one that is just as applicable to this discussion:

n. an endangering, especially of reputation; exposure to danger, suspicion, etc.

To compromise is to compromise ourselves. In compromise we expose ourselves to suspicion, to endangering our reputation as revolutionary. Already we have seen some push-back claiming this, and we haven't had our first month in Congress. What will happen when we start working with the very people we've been railing against, all for meager gains and the hope that maybe someday we'll get our chance at change?

Our role should be to take charge of this languid country, to give it an identity and give people a reason to play, an interest in fighting. As a country we can lead a global revolution, we can bring socialism to the e-world as we have for so long endeavored to bring it to the eUSA.

An opportunity has been handed to us, a sizable portion of the population has demonstrated their faith in us and our ability to spearhead change and bring real discourse and direction to the country. This is not a promise we can fulfill from the bargaining table.

Compromise is not the best available route to change, not here. One thing trolls understand is force of will and it should be up to us, the self-proclaimed champions of the people, to show it to them.

Resist! Revolt! Rejoice!