To negotiate or not to negotiate is a bullshit question. If someone had bested me, had me on the ground, and was about to break my neck, I think I would negotiate until I was dead. I wouldn't care what label you held: Arch Bishop of Canterbury, Mafia Don, Ex-Best Friend, Emperor Hirohito, Lover, or radical Islamist Terrorists. The real question is: when, how, why, and what do we negotiate?
We understand that negotiation is necessary when the person who bests someone else is a loved one, a neighbor, a fellow American, a foreigner, or a complete stranger. However, it is easy to rationalize doing nothing when the situation of being beheaded, bombed, or starved to death is happening to someone else – one of “them.” And yes, sometimes there is a good reason to let the opposition call your bluff – when you decline to negotiate at all, or stick to a position in the negotiation.
Still, it’s a bullshit question. President Reagan negotiated to give the Iranians arms in the 1980s. (Remember the Iran-Contra affair? President Obama settled a case to give Iran back its own money, plus some interest. Big darn deal.)
Everything we do is a “negotiation,” whether its refraining to negotiate, continuing to fight, withdrawing our economic commerce, flipping the bird, or dying silently without comment or hesitation with one’s head held high. It’s all a matter for whom one is negotiating – oneself, another, or for posterity.
Loren M. Lambert © August 11, 2016
We understand that negotiation is necessary when the person who bests someone else is a loved one, a neighbor, a fellow American, a foreigner, or a complete stranger. However, it is easy to rationalize doing nothing when the situation of being beheaded, bombed, or starved to death is happening to someone else – one of “them.” And yes, sometimes there is a good reason to let the opposition call your bluff – when you decline to negotiate at all, or stick to a position in the negotiation.
Still, it’s a bullshit question. President Reagan negotiated to give the Iranians arms in the 1980s. (Remember the Iran-Contra affair? President Obama settled a case to give Iran back its own money, plus some interest. Big darn deal.)
Everything we do is a “negotiation,” whether its refraining to negotiate, continuing to fight, withdrawing our economic commerce, flipping the bird, or dying silently without comment or hesitation with one’s head held high. It’s all a matter for whom one is negotiating – oneself, another, or for posterity.
Loren M. Lambert © August 11, 2016
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