compromise........................

 Compromise is another word that carries shades of weakness, vacillation, betrayal of ideals, surrender of moral principles.  In the old culture, when virginity was a virtue, one referred to a woman's being "compromised."  The work is generally regarded as ethically unsavory and ugly. . . .

     A free and open society is an on-going conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises—which then become the start for the continuation of conflict, compromise, and on ad infinitum.  Control of power is based on compromise in our Congress and among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.  A society devoid of compromise is totalitarian.  If I had to define a free and open society in one word, the word would be "compromise."

-Saul D. Alinsky