Respect is Not a Zero Sum Game

In a zero-sum game, there are winners and there are losers.  There is one pie, and if my piece is bigger, yours is smaller.  In a zero-sum game, it can make some sense to grab as much as you can before others can grab.  If you don’t, you will end up with less, and you might end up with nothing

A zero-sum game mentality can lead to a situation called “the tragedy of the commons.”  This arises when there is an asset owned by no one, or by “the Public”, and each member of the society is able to use that asset as much as he can, without restrictions.  Examples include grazing fields, which may be used by so many herdsmen that the grass is wiped out.  Or the cod fisheries, which have been so over fished that the cod population was on the verge of not being able to sustain itself.

It also has been suggested that the air and water suffer from the tragedy of the commons, as firms can dump their waste (smog, effluent) into the air or water at little or no cost to them, but an arguably tremendous cost to the populace at large.

The topic of this blog is tolerance.  It seems as if some folks feel that giving other folks (“the minorities”) rights will diminish their own rights.  Tolerance, and respect, is not a zero-sum game.  In fact, it is likely just the opposite.  The more the rights of minorities are guaranteed, the safer my rights will be.

Calls to mind another axiom:  Enlightened self-interest.

You help other people not only because it is the right thing to do, but because you will or may benefit as well.

I posted Martin Niemoeller’s poem about “when they came for me, there was nobody left to speak up” on January 24.  That is the extreme example, but sometimes it’s wise to consider worst-case scenarios. 

The moral of that story is, of course, that I stand up for the rights of others so that my rights may be more secure. 

It seems so logical to me that I have a hard time visioning an argument to the contrary….