"You don't really live your live in black and white do you?" I was just listening to "The Virtue of Selfishness" by Ayn Rand and this topic came up. I will not be quoting her, because I am only using her thoughts to kick off this discussion, but I wanted to give credit to her for winding me up and pointing me in the right direction.
The issue is compromise. So many people these days sing the praises of compromise and it is looked at as a necessity in order to exist in our current society. I want to turn that notion on it's ear. The problem with compromise is that in order to compromise, someone must win and the other must lose. Think about it: it is impossible for our lives to just be shades of gray. After all, gray is made up of black and white and therefore cannot exist without them. Gray also cannot exist without changing the true black or true white.
If morality is compromised, it does so at the loss of morality and the victory of evil. If truth is compromised, un-truth wins. You cannot compromise absolutes. If there are no absolutes, than man is free to do what he wants, wherever he wants, whenever he wants. Would you want to compromise between life and death? Would you want to compromise between love and hate? How about law and crime?
Compromise is not a win for both parties, because you are either right or you are wrong. You cannot be partially of half right, because by that very definition you are wrong. Think about it this way. Say there are 9 experts in Engineering sitting around a table and they have come up with a plan for a project, and then a 10th person sits at the table who has no experience in Engineering at all. This 10th person insists that their opinion is not only heard, but immediately implemented, does this make the plan better or worse? If you include a bad idea with a good idea, it then becomes a bad idea. There is no way around that.
You will face all kinds of situation in this life in which you are tempted to compromise. Just remember that in compromise there is no winner. We need men and woman today that stand on absolute, un-wavering truths and principles and refuse to blur the line for anyone or anything. We need people who are not willing to compromise their morals, their ethics, or their principles.
Will you be that man or woman?
I agree largely with this - if we are talking about areas of absolutes. Truth is absolute, as are the moral guidelines in the Bible, yet there are some areas where the best way is not clear - for example, the need to reduce the current national debt - in those instances we need to not base our decision on rigid dogmatism, but on the Godly principles of love, mercy and justice - the principles cannot be compromised, yet the methodology of implementing them are open to debate.
ReplyDeleteJust my two-penneth worth...