The Fiscal Cliff is looming, and Congress will not reach a deal that involves compromise. (Talk Radio News Service, Creative Commons)

That is the question my mother spent years of my childhood making sure I would remember, as I got older. She made sure I understood that arguments, disagreements and negotiations are not all about winning. In the end, it doesn’t matter how handily you've won the negotiation if you've embarrassed the other person in the process. In the end, it doesn’t matter how convincingly you won the argument if it means the other person never wants to talk to you again.

This is a column about the fiscal cliff, over the edge of which our toes are currently curled. It is likely not the first column you have read on the subject. Whether you believe that there really is a fiscal cliff, or you think the "cliff" is more of a slope, or whether you believe that the President is doing everything he can to make a deal or that he is purposefully not giving the House good deals to divide the Republican Party, there is one thing we all seem to agree on at this point: a deal is not going to be made before we're forced to fall off this cliff.

When our elected officials take us by the hand and lead us over the cliff or down the slope, many of us will want to blame President Obama. Even more of us will want to blame the House of Representatives, and the Republicans within it, to be more specific. While on the surface those two groups are in fact responsible for a deal not being made, there is something much larger at work here.

I grew up playing sports, a place where winning and losing, while still important, are secondary to “fun” in every list your coach made that was titled “why do we play?” Winning has always been important in sports, since there is no other way to judge success on the field, pitch or court. My problem is not with the concepts of winning and losing, as they are natural and necessary. My problem is with their application.

The media in this country (yes, I do realize that by writing this I must include myself amongst that group) has taken a concept from sports and applied it to politics. No longer do we just look at the results of a deal, or the facts of a negotiation. Now, we must declare a winner and a loser in every scenario. This lends itself naturally to some things, such as an election. To others, such as a fiscal cliff, it is crippling any chance this country has of coming together and compromising.

Imagine you are a Republican congressman (or woman); you are up for reelection in two years. You have just compromised with President Obama and agreed to raise taxes on people making more than 250k a year. Imagine you are President Obama; you have just compromised with the Republicans in the House and agreed to have public employees pay more into their own retirement funds. Imagine turning on the television and being told you are a loser. That is what will happen if either of these scenarios comes true.

If the Republicans in the house are seen to have compromised more than the President, FOX News and CNN will spend days declaring them losers. Now imagine you are a voter in that congressman’s home state. You voted for them last time, but now must make a choice as to whether or not you will vote for them again in two years. You have agreed with most of what the congressman has done for you in his time as an elected official, but now…you recognize that you voted for a loser. As a voter, would you rather vote again for someone who in a previous term was viewed as holding firm to their beliefs, even to the point of refusing to compromise, or would you rather vote again for someone who was viewed as a loser? The former.

This has become a problem in American politics. It is easy to just say that our problem is polarization, and that neither party respects the other. For too long, we have been making statements like that while nothing has changed. For too long, we have failed to examine what is creating an aversion to compromise. The lack of compromise in this country stems from the media’s perpetual need to declare a winner and a loser in every negotiation. Unfortunately for you, the reader, the media only do things they know their viewers want to see them do. We as Americans need to see a winner and a loser in every situation, and we need to criticize someone for respecting rather than outdoing an opposing viewpoint.

Our elected officials know they will never hold their positions if they compromise with their opponents, and are subsequently painted as losers. Our elected officials are being held hostage, even though compromise is part of their job - especially when a compromise is in the interest of the good of the nation. They are being held hostage by the media and by us, the media's audience. So I ask you, as you stare down over that cliff: would you rather win, or would you rather be happy?

Reach Contributor Calum Hayes here; follow him here.