Beer, Lace and Compromise

Everyone in Belgium seems convinced that compromise is their saving characteristic. I've been told this many times by Belgians, like it's a textbook item. Primary exports consist of Beer, Lace and Compromise. Numerous chats over a beer about the art of compromise, none about salvation. Except when I bring up how much I appreciate not being preached at here in Belgium by the queer hating radical right. To their credit as a nation – no Belgian has ever suggested with me that I should compromise with Taliban-ese nuts who drove us to life and marriage in the Low Countries. Apparently the art of compromise requires a rational and science based view of the world. One far less confining that the 6000 year Reader's Digest Condensed Version from the New World.

The really striking thing is that I find myself making so few compromises to live here. There's not a whole lot to complain about here. Most every thing about daily life which drove me crazy P.B. (pre-Belgium) isn't here: (it's missing? – no one ever heard of such a thing? – where did you get such an idea?). Like a went off here. The special kind which only eliminates the bad stuff – not the good stuff. Compromise with what? The harshest thing you could say is that they like their beer. But they have great beer – really great beer.

Belgians themselves can recite a long list of things that bend them out of shape. A long list of thing upon which they expect to compromise. My long list is a lot like theirs. But it's a lot shorter here than P.B. And being American I hadn't ever considered the whole compromise approach. It's a refreshing attitude in some ways. Like Noam Chomsky already being famous here.

You don't expect it, that the person next to you on the bus looking like a proper Flemish lady is a heretic. She believes in global warming and knows a fascist when she sees one in all likely hood. They are comforting people to live around.