Man's search For ethical cleanliness
11/07 2020
The current election in the U.S. should in my opinion be reason enough to see the importance in voting. The fact that a country as large as the U.S. - at the time of writing - seems to be decided by a few thousands, even hundreds of votes speak to the power inherent in the individual in a democracy. But many people don't feel that way. Instead they see a world drenched hopelessly in sin, in-salvageable from the Devil's final judgment. The way I see it voter apathy, or apathy about politics in general, can be tracked down to two things: 1) the refusal to vote for the lesser of two evils 2) vehement distrust in the entire political system (or internalized pessimism).
The refusal to vote for the lesser of two evils has its grounding in a perversion of ethical frameworks. This perversion is something that I think has its roots in the binary-model of thinking about societal problems. Bad events either happen or they don't. In the case of politics one can always point to cases where the 'elites'1 are doing bad things. It doesn't matter that we are living in times of unprecedented individual power, where we have ended official segregation in the U.S.2, or that we are - albeit slowly - amending the divide between the genders and making it better for many people through the means of politics. There is still corruption in politics and therefore it is futile to even try as an individual to bring forth any change. You can't control the human desire for power. Nothing short of complete systemic revamp of the political system will ever be good enough, and even then the human condition will remain the same. If one sorts these things, corruption & evil in the political elite, into binaries then every act short of literally extinguishing all of these things will ever be good enough. So, one might agree with you that these things are evil, only they aren't problems to be solved but facts of life. So, on to the common argument 'I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils'. This argument, on closer inspection, is not a good argument. At least not in consequentialist terms. The logical choice is to mitigate the damage, even if that involves voting for someone that you do not fully agree with; however this is never how it feels. It seems that doing nothing is the ethical option, because doing otherwise will leave an "evil" stain on our souls that we never can wash off. This is - obviously - not true. We are the cause of the problems of this world and we have the power to fix them. Only that might involve us doing some things that might feel very counter-intuitive.
There is a nihilist response to this, saying that it is worthless to vote or to engage in any type of politics because the system is inherently corrupt and incapable of any change. In essence, again, that mankind's essential properties cannot be changed. I think this is such a weird fatalistic argument, because it assumes that me as an individual is incapable of change and learning. Which I refuse to believe in. I believe that who we are is a result of the millions of conscious and unconscious processes taking place in our minds as we grow up. Formed by the people that we love, that we look up to. Formed by the groups we associate with, the ones that we want to associate with. Formed, fundamentally, by our culture and the laws & norms that govern that society. Denying that change comes from the bottom up is denying that change ever can flow from the top to the bottom as well. It denies the only fundamental part of life: time passes and things change.
These two arguments provide an almost complete picture, a portrait of a deeply pessimistic, fatalistic worldview of hopelessness. The only thing missing, I think, is describing the pessimism part of that description. I think that pessimism about the impact that you can have is little more than a justification for doing nothing. If you have no impact, there is no reason to try. If you don't try you can't fail. If you don't try you can't perform a sin. You remain ethically clean. This is an attitude that I find deeply troubling, because it is in a sense, losing sight of what it means to be human. The ability to change, to change one's perspective on what one is currently going through and making an effort to change that. Perhaps it can best be summed up, and ended in a quote from Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell:
"I hear my father-in-law's response. 'Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam. But don't tell me about justice! Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the red-necks that they are merely white-washed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell 'em their imperial slaves' rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium's! Oh, you'll grow hoarse, poor & grey in caucuses! You'll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified! Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!'
Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?