#12 - Politician: My opponents argue that the future of our city

[WarnerHuntingtonIII]

THE QUESTION:
"Politician: My opponents argue that the future of our city depends on..." [admin note: full text of question removed due to LSAC copyright regulations.]

MY ISSUE:
I had a feeling that the correct term was C, compromise, but I could not figure out how to correctly interpret the word "misleading." The way I see it, once the politician misuses the word "principles," he is misleading listeners when he uses the term "betrays" and the word "compromise." Even "principles" can be seen as misleading. How does "compromise" mislead compared to the others?

[Adam Tyson]

"Compromise" is a word that the LSAT loves to toss around, Warner (love the username, btw) because it has two primary meanings, one of which is a little lesser known than the other, and it's that shifting use of the term that is at the heart of this question.

On the one hand, compromise means to come to an agreement that is acceptable to all sides even though not everyone gets exactly what they want. It means finding common ground, coming to the middle, setting aside some differences in order to achieve some good. Generally speaking, compromise is, in this context, a positive thing.

On the other hand, compromise means to weaken something, like how using inferior materials can compromise the structural integrity of a bridge, or sharing classified information with people who aren't supposed to have it can undermine the safety and security of personnel and materiel in a military conflict. This is pretty obviously a negative connotation.

What the author is doing here is equating the first type - leaders compromising to achieve common goals - with the second type - undermining or betraying their core principles. Allowing that meaning to shift over the course of the argument is a classic LSAT flaw!

Meanwhile, the principles cited in the argument remain the same and refer just to the basic, bedrock rules and guidelines that the charter was based upon. The author never uses that term in any other way, so that answer is not being used to mislead.

[dshen123]

So the politician has interpreted both compromise to mean “work together” ? Such misuse assume that “the differences among the city’s leaders are differences of principle “ ?

[Adam Tyson]

The politician has used the term compromise in both of the ways I described earlier in this thread, dshen123. At first, they use it to refer to putting aside differences and working together, which is generally a good thing. But then, when they discuss the principles underlying the charter and state that "anyone who compromises those principles" are betraying them, they are talking about the other kind of compromise, the negative kind. Compromising some principles doesn't mean working together and finding common ground; it means not following the foundational rules. it means caving in and not doing what you're supposed to do.