We think of the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter of right vs. wrong. Former Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired from the Court in 2022, made the following statement in 2011 while speaking at the Kansas City Public Library:
Many of our cases, the most difficult ones, are not about right vs. wrong. They are about right vs. right.
Former Justice Stephen Breyer. The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Therein lies the challenge of American democracy. Which side of a political argument is right? Which side is wrong? Justice Breyer tells us that looking at democracy through the lens of right vs. wrong is not the best framing.
He tells us that the framing should be right vs. right.
With this framing, we can understand the importance of “bisociated compromise” discussed in The Art of the Compromise. When we accept that both sides of an argument are right–rather than one side being right and the other wrong–we can see the need to find a win-win agreement.
Recall the US Constitution and the string of compromises that the Founders assembled to create the most important document in the history of human democracies. The large states were right and the small states were right–neither was wrong–and we have the Great Compromise and our bicameral legislature.