Standing Your Ground in the Shifting Middle
How best efforts at compromise shift the Overton Window
An old friend reached out to me recently after nearly two decades of no communication.
He wrote to comment on one of my articles, specifically, this one, an in-depth article about our addiction to duality consciousness and the need for unity consciousness.
Part of what he said was this:
“No one is preaching the middle even though that is where the majority stand (I hope!). What can you believe when the narrative that “there is no middle only black and white” is being thrown at you from every direction.”
Here’s the thing. That sounds reasonable. The easiest response for me to have made, the one that was probably expected, would be something along the lines of, “You’re so right! Sigh. Why can’t we all just find the middle ground?”
I know I have aunts and uncles and friends and strangers who would say to me, “Just agree and move on.”
It wasn’t all that long ago I had a contractor overstaying his welcome in my home and going on about the state of the world. He, too, suggested that most of us were somewhere in the middle and why oh why couldn’t we just meet there? In that case, I decided that sure, the easiest route to getting him to leave was to smile and agree. Women do this kind of compromising all the time. I wish we didn’t have to.
But with an email, well, I had a few more choices.
I could’ve gone with a “You’re so right why didn’t I think of that?” response. He would’ve liked that, I think. Maybe he would’ve given me a thumbs up or some other approving sign for showing such willingness to compromise.
Another choice would be to respond without commenting on that part of his message at all. Just a friendly, “Thanks for your comments!” would’ve sufficed.
But I chose a third option. Let me explain.
Have you ever heard the story of the Shifting Middle? It goes like this:
A con man says to you, “Let’s meet in the middle.”
For the sake of compromise, you take a step closer.
He moves further away. He says, “Let’s meet in the middle.”
Before you know it, you find yourself justifying behavior and ways of being that do not align with who you are. Suddenly, you realize you have traded away pieces of yourself to please someone who is still not pleased. Someone who will never be satisfied. Suddenly, compromise really meant settling for something less than you deserve or believe.
The con man was never intending to compromise with you. It was always just a manipulation tactic, to make you think you were working from a place of collaboration when really, you were being swindled into betraying yourself.
When does negotiation become a tool of normalization?
At what point is a concession a surrender?
You know what they say: If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
No Halfway
The idea that compromise is always virtuous and healthy is a dangerous myth.
Growing up, my brothers and I had to learn to compromise by taking turns sitting in the front seat. When there was only one rice krispee bar left, we had to share it. Good times.
But women’s bodily rights are not a rice krispee bar. They cannot be cut in half and be considered a compromise. You either have them or you don’t.
I didn’t get the best view when I had to sit in the backseat on family road trips as a kid. But none of us will get a view at all if we don’t enact a non-compromised climate policy.
To compromise on clean drinking water would mean that your first glass is clean, but your second could kill you. Sound okay? Make everyone happy?
To settle in the middle regarding asbestos or lead paint would mean that we have these toxins in half of our home, but not the other half. Who gets the bedroom with asbestos? Should we do rock, paper, scissors, like my brothers and I did when we chose our childhood bedrooms?
Compromise might work in some situations. But it should not apply to our ethics, morals, and principles. It should not come into play when fighting for human rights, dignity, or the ability to make a decent living.
“Going along to get along” is a great principle when you are debating with friends over taking a hike or a bike ride. But when it comes to human rights and policies that affect our health, our bodies, our very lives and those of others, compromise is complacency and acquiescence. Moreover, it is a tool of a clever oppressor who is using your goodwill to obscure behavior or policies you would have previously rejected outright.
Every concession not only removes you further from your own center. It shifts the Overton Window.
The Overton Window
The Overton Window is the spectrum of acceptability in a society. It is the range of the status quo—that which is normalized and allowed. It shifts strategically to maintain power. As Noam Chomsky says “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
The Overton window can move in a politically leftward direction, but more often, it’s an authoritarian’s tool to force a society of people to normalize and accept a loss of rights, heightened surveillance, broken transportation systems, unlivable wages, and so on.
In order for Donald Trump to become president in 2016, the Overton Window responded to make acceptable in political discourse that which had been previously unconscionable: casual boasting of sexual assault, name-calling of political opponents, dehumanizing comments on immigrants, or calls for violence.
Today, we see the results. Few bat an eye at the lack of decorum, and we don’t even bother holding (right-wing) politicians to the truth anymore. We know they’re going to lie. And we let them. Meanwhile, journalists are chomping at the bit to learn what new nickname Trump might give his opponents.
These days, it is easy to lose the ground of our integrity and morals in the name of making others feel more comfortable (or ourselves, frankly). Soon, we scoff at our old selves for what we used to think was possible, rather than realize that we’ve allowed ourselves to forget our dreams.
When the nation’s temperature is as high as it is, it is all too easy to acquiesce to power or give a little of our own (or scapegoat someone else) to temporarily appease someone. But as the con man reminds us, there is never a point where the demands will cease. They will take and take and take until you don’t know who you are anymore.
It is critical, now more than ever, to know who you are.
To stay moored to your principles.
Buoyed to your integrity.
And anchored in your sovereignty.
In these times, it’s critical to hold our line, remember your foundational truths, and refuse to let the Overton Window redefine your values.
You have to know what you believe and what matters to you most, while you continue to root out the myths and propaganda that fester in our culture.
To stay vigilant and awake during times of crisis, you must recommit to your ethics and morals such that you will never trade or downgrade them for some notion of “meeting in the middle.”
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.” — The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
Oh! And if you’re curious, here is a snippet of what I did choose to write back to my old friend, something that felt true to who I am, and that challenged without insulting. It’s the best I can do right now.
“So for me, the middle ground feels like acquiescence. Like, what’s the middle ground for women’s rights to their own bodily decisions? Or having safe drinking water? Or approaches to climate change? Or having a democracy?”
