Monday, November 10, 2014

Voting as a Ritualistic Practice

Imagine if we lived in a society where human sacrifice was the norm. No, I don't mean sending young men and women into foreign wars piling up the civilian body count only to return in body bags or with severe mental trauma. I know, that's a stretch. I mean imagine if we lived in a society of ritual sacrifice. Let's say we performed this ritual at a  repetitive set time, a set place, in a set fashion,  and all for a specific reason or outcome we hope to happen. In the case of the Aztecs human sacrifice was performed every morning, on some alter, always the same way, and all for a better tomorrow. I know some people reading this might immediately scoff at comparing voting in a democratic society to ancient ritualistic human sacrifice as distasteful and delusional ranting but I challenge you to look at the substructure of causal thinking in both instances. Voting always occurs at a set time, usually every few years, usually in a voting booth or with absentee ballots, always choosing between two handpicked candidates from each dominant party and all in the hopes that this one will effect the future in some desirable way.
Ok, what I usually hear next is that by that logic I guess we can call any repeatable event a ritual such as waking up , getting ready, and going to work, etc. However, the difference between repeatable actions that yield the desired result and ritualistic actions that hope to  yield a desired result differ greatly. Perhaps a helpful way to visualize this is to consider irrational concepts such rain dancing. Some cultures still perform rain dances in hopes of bringing about a much needed resource such as water. When closely examined their goal is not all that irrational. It's reasonable to conclude that one needs water in order to survive and for their children to survive. Water in many places that practice ritualistic rain dancing is a necessity such as in sub-Saharan Africa. The rain dancers certainly realize this which is why they are doing what they know best to bring about rain. However, it is rather clear that the means they use to create rain is irrational. So what does this have to do with voting as a ritual? Well, its that irrational element that allows me to claim it as ritualistic.
Unlike getting ready for work every morning using practices I know will yield the same desired result every time , that is , showing up at work looking half decent at least, Voting doesn't seem to follow the formula of being a rational method of bringing about desired outcomes.
To closer examine let's look at the reason most people vote in the first place. I have rarely met anyone who votes for everything to stay exactly the same as it is now. I know my personal experience is not real evidence but I think it could be relevant food for thought. I would venture to say many others have had similar experiences. Probably the best tangible evidence are the exuberant bills of campaign financing every election cycle. Millions upon millions are spent on trying to persuade people to vote for one of two candidates ( or an incumbent) already handpicked by their respective parties. This unpopular cherry picking of candidates is a topic for another blog, though. In my experience it seems to be the case that most people vote because they desire some kind of change from the status quo. On top of that they like to feel as if they are impacting the desired change. Yet, every several years voters return to the booths because some part of the desired outcome of the last time didn't happen or why would they insist on effecting the process? Sort of like why break something if it already works? Sometimes some people do get their desired outcome though typically its those with more money and influence rather than the nine to five working individual. It's often the case that Politician Danny Democrat promises X and Politician Ricky Republican promises Y and let's say Danny wins and some people actually get X or people that wanted Y are forced to take X anyways. Or , as often is the case , they get very little or none of X or Y and wait for the next Politician D or R to remake that promise. It seems that no matter how many times voting occurs and no matter who wins D or R, people seem to always seem to be unsatisfied with the outcome and repeat the same ritual in hopes of creating some better outcome. Doesn't that fit the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Sure the outcome may be D or R but has anything really changed for the better? If so then why all the millions of campaign financing? Why the rallying on both sides for 'getting the voters out there' as to effect some desired and different outcome? And why is this the message all the time? When is the last time you heard a voting ad stating ' We aren't going to do anything different , everything will be exactly the same, everything is fine'? Who would vote for that since voting is always expecting some desired change.
For the record, I'm not trying to put down people who vote. I actually understand why people do it. Their goals make perfect sense to me but the means they use to achieve those ends seem ritualistic and irrational to me. Much like I can't fault sub Saharan African cultures for desiring rain as a survival resource but I do not put much stock into rain dancing. Sure the rains occasionally come not long after a dance is performed but could we really claim the dance is the reason? So the next question I get is what is the alternative? If I don't vote how do I change things? Well, if one accepts that the low and middle income bracket of society , which is almost everybody, effects politics very minimally, then voting is a useless ritual. Change is organic and starts one's immediate surroundings. I know I don't have enough personal influence to effect political change ( I have neither money nor recognition) but I can effect my personal relationships. I can still chose, for the most part, who I associate with freely. Talk to people about political philosophy and question every premise. Don't worry about which politician will or will not deliver on their promise because you can't control that. I don't think an intelligent person is one who has just encyclopedic knowledge facts. I think an intelligent person is one who always asks questions out of a genuine desire to understand things. This is also a topic for another blog. This blog turned out longer than I expected. I hope to remain writing on a regular basis. Thanks to you if you made it this far.

-Zeko TNWM ( formally TAM)    

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