THE 3 C’s: COMPASSION, COMPROMISE & CAPITULATION

By Vincent Lyn

Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to help the physical, mental, or emotional pains of another and themselves. Compassion is often regarded as having sensitivity, which is an emotional aspect too suffering. Though, when based on cerebral notions such as fairness, justice, and interdependence, it may be considered rational in nature and its application understood as an activity also based on sound judgment. There is also an aspect of equal dimension, such that an individual’s compassion is often given a property of “depth”, “vigor”, or “passion”. The etymology of “compassion” is Latin, meaning “co-suffering.” Compassion involves “feeling for another” and is a precursor to empathy, the “feeling as another” capacity for better person-centered acts of active compassion; in common parlance active compassion is the desire to alleviate another’s suffering.

Compassion involves allowing ourselves to be moved by suffering and experiencing the motivation to help alleviate and prevent it. An act of compassion is defined by its helpfulness. Qualities of compassion are patience and wisdom; kindness and perseverance; warmth and resolve. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component in what manifests in the social context as altruism. Expression of compassion is prone to be hierarchical, paternalistic and controlling in responses. Difference between sympathy and compassion is that the former responds to suffering with sorrow and concern while the latter responds with warmth and care.

In my own personal experience Capitulation is the act of surrendering or yielding; in relationship terms, capitulation often means simply giving in or giving up in a negotiation or confrontational situation for the sake of ending the conflict as quickly as possible, whether you have achieved the desired results or not (and generally the party who capitulates is the party who “gives up” the most, in exchange for early termination of a tense situation). In Capitulation, one party gets what is desired, and the other party generally does not. Individuals with a history of low self-esteem or a low threshold for conflict are more likely to capitulate on a position than defend a line; this could be for any number of reasons, most commonly out of one form of fear or another: fear of abandonment is a big one, in which non-capitulation will cost someone the relationships/he wants to maintain, even if it largely toxic. Teenage girls are particularly susceptible to this, but it’s a pattern that manifests in both men and women, often learned very early in the family of origin as a need to please one’s parents or caregivers.

Compromise is consent reached by mutual concessions; everyone gives up something in order to achieve a tolerable closure to a negotiation or confrontation. Unlike Capitulation, compromise often means that neither party gets exactly what is desired, but both sides can usually accept the sacrifices made on the personal level to gain some degree of acceptable overall closure or balance. Compromise represents a common-ground approach to relational conflict management in particular, as the nature of the power struggle generally involves someone driving for either a clear “victory” (such as might be achieved if one partner forces another’s capitulation) or a sense of “parity”, in which each partner must give up something in order for one or both partners to feel a sense of equality or “balance of fairness”. A previous lover used to describe this state as “No-one gets whats/he wants, but at least everybody gets something they can live with.” It’s often the less-tactful way of establishing peace, but often as a zero-sum game in which both parties have to *lose* something in order to gain something else.

Unfortunately, in both capitulation and compromise, when there is *any* sense that someone has to sacrifice a want or a need in order to achieve balance and the impression of peace, that state of calm is inevitably temporary at best. When core needs in particular are being sacrificed, there is often a subtle biofeedback loop that gets set in motion, because we all constantly move to get our needs and wants met, whether we realize it or not. I have been documenting for many years my battles with my own inner weasels, which are the anthropomorphic versions of those internal motivations, the little voices that urge me to do things I rationally know I should not do, but find myself acting on anyway. In following my weasels, I would? Compromise myself, giving up a moral high ground for a short term immoral or amoral itch-scratching. I would often find myself in this kind of situation, as so many of us do, because I have compromised myself elsewhere in a relationship, giving up something I wanted (for better or for worse) because my wanting that thing somehow upset my partner and introduced conflict and tension. So I would have either capitulation or compromised in order to end the conflict, without necessarily finding out whether those decision models were the most effective choice for my situation within the relationship.

Which brings me to an alternate 4th C: Collaboration, a joint process shared by two or more people to examine all the known or discoverable needs in any given situation, the known or discoverable options available for addressing those needs, and discussing how each of those outcomes addresses or affects the needs in question. In theory (and with practice) the discussions will yield increased understanding and trust that make mutual Agreement and Buy-in to any jointly-designed proposal not only possible, but likely. Both (all) parties must be equally involved in the process of examining and proposing solutions, must stay Present while discussing needs, and be honest about their buy-in, for any solution to be truly collaborative. Unlike Capitulation or Compromise, the result of collaborative solutions is all parties feeling like they have achieved what they wanted, that their individual Needs have been met, and the results support and sustain the relationship.”

For collaboration to work effectively in relationships, it requires a lot of things from the participants:

• self-awareness (you can’t collaborate effectively unless you know your own wants and needs, and understand what you have to offer),
• vulnerability (a willingness to engage the process in good faith and to put your own needs on the table without subterfuge or manipulation),
• compassion and empathy (the willing engagement of your partner’s needs and wants as they are presented to you in good faith),
• an authentic desire to find collaborative solutions (this isn’t about forcing someone to capitulate to your fears just because their needs may provoke your internal fears; “sacrifice” is NOT the initial intent in collaboration),
• and full presence in the engagement (being willing to stay focused on the process work, and not go haring off into fearful blame-storming or aggression; this isn’t about you, this isn’t about me, this is about the “us” of the relationship).

Collaboration is most likely the best means of achieving “together decisions”, because by their very nature, collaborations require partners to work together to achieve something that brings value to them and to the relationship, not decreases the perceived sense of value, nor diminishes individual position(s) within the relationship. True collaboration requires authentic buy-in from both parties to the belief that all needs are being respected, not lip-service to an agreement that actually disregards or fails to meet identified needs from the outset.

Vincent Lyn

CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children

Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization

Economic & Social Council at United Nations

Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency

Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts