Can you compromise on a binary decision?
- Thread starter Jon
- Start date
Of course there will always be winners and losers. However the aim should be to try to come up with a solution that is the most palatable. Let's take Brexit:
The vote was split roughly 52% leave and 48% remain. Those of you with an awareness of stats will know that the % split was based on the number of people who voted, so in real terms, the 52% is more like 27% of the population eligble to vote. However, for these purposes, I am ignoring that and taking the results as absolutes. So, 52% voted to leave and 48% voted to remain. Immediately that presents us with a binary outcome.
However, the reasons for voting in this manner may not be so binary. There will be people who feel marginalised, disenfranchised, used their vote to protest against the government. There will be people who think all immigration is bad and foreigners should be sent back. There will be people who think economically the EU is poor value, and they'd prefer a different trade deal. There will be people who voted to remain because they don't want change, or to have their freedom of movement curtailed. There will be 1,000 other reasons as to why people voted and most people will have voted for a combination of those reasons. This is important because although the voting outcome is binary, it would be possible to plot the reasons people voted the way they did on a scattergram, which in turn may enable analysis of the key reasons for voting leave.
Armed with that information, it becomes easier to understand where the hotspots are in any negotiation, and therefore more likely that with time, effort, and some creative problem-solving it should be possible to find a solution that is, if not exactly welcome, then at least workable.
There will STILL be winners and losers. But problem-solving isn't about winning. And for those who say this is a naive or Utopian idea, Mo Mowlem (not Tony Blair as some people think) did it with the Good Friday Agreement. That was one political problem that no-one ever, ever thought could be resolved peaceably.
The vote was split roughly 52% leave and 48% remain. Those of you with an awareness of stats will know that the % split was based on the number of people who voted, so in real terms, the 52% is more like 27% of the population eligble to vote. However, for these purposes, I am ignoring that and taking the results as absolutes. So, 52% voted to leave and 48% voted to remain. Immediately that presents us with a binary outcome.
However, the reasons for voting in this manner may not be so binary. There will be people who feel marginalised, disenfranchised, used their vote to protest against the government. There will be people who think all immigration is bad and foreigners should be sent back. There will be people who think economically the EU is poor value, and they'd prefer a different trade deal. There will be people who voted to remain because they don't want change, or to have their freedom of movement curtailed. There will be 1,000 other reasons as to why people voted and most people will have voted for a combination of those reasons. This is important because although the voting outcome is binary, it would be possible to plot the reasons people voted the way they did on a scattergram, which in turn may enable analysis of the key reasons for voting leave.
Armed with that information, it becomes easier to understand where the hotspots are in any negotiation, and therefore more likely that with time, effort, and some creative problem-solving it should be possible to find a solution that is, if not exactly welcome, then at least workable.
There will STILL be winners and losers. But problem-solving isn't about winning. And for those who say this is a naive or Utopian idea, Mo Mowlem (not Tony Blair as some people think) did it with the Good Friday Agreement. That was one political problem that no-one ever, ever thought could be resolved peaceably.
All decisions, binary or not, produce winners and losers because the very act of saying "win/lose" is itself a binary designation. Compromise situations mean people get some of what they want so you have to talk about "partial win" or "getting some benefit" or "not being totally trampled." The language you use governs the perception of the results on decisions, whether binary, ternary, quaternary, or higher -aries, or even for continuums.
It is partly about mindset and partly about the language affecting the mindset. I'm convinced that the divisive politics in the USA is at least partly due to the "winner take all" mindset where if the Democrats or Republicans don't get everything they want, they see to it that NOBODY gets anything. It is the mindset of the little boy who happens to have the only football in the neighborhood. And if nobody lets him play, he takes his ball home with him so that NOBODY plays.