At it's core, is an article about the structure of political behavior. I know, excitement abounds, but I'm writing it because too many people on all sides of our political spectrum seem not to understand some of the rules of the game they're playing; They argue over everything wrong with United States politics without ever examining the underlying structure in any detail.
Politics is a high stakes game. If you think back to when you first learned of Euchre or Monopoly, the first thing you asked when introduced to it was "What's the rules?" I mean how can you possibly play any game without an understanding of the foundation of how it's played. In politics, however, people grasp only the most basic aspects of the system and then pretend they know everything. They argue over the outcomes of whether we should be on Chance or Community Chest without ever learning how many dice to roll or what the turn order is.
Structure, to me, is everything. I've always been fascinated by the patterns and rules that govern behavior and systems of control. So all of the above drives me batshit crazy. I'm hoping to use my blog to explore some commonly misunderstood parts of the rules system and hopefully create a little more common ground from which to discuss our country and political future.
This article is about voting, or lack thereof.
Introducing the ice creme cart! This cart is very simple and sells vanilla and chocolate ice creme. No other flavors. The cart represents how we, as Americans, are taught about choices and participation. We walk outside and we're greeted with someone offering us a choice, in this case, between two popular ice creme flavors.
But there is a third choice. We can choose chocolate, we can choose vanilla, but we can also choose not to buy at all. This third choice is important because either of the first two require us to give some of our resources, in this case money, while the third retains that value for ourselves. So while the surface choice is X or Y, the actual choice is X, Y, or Z.
This 'third choice' is extremely important. It resides in the alternative to the truth that either flavor supports, endorses and promotes the cart. The cart owner wins if you pick either flavor and loses if you abstain. Throughout our lives, this implied additional choice has a massive impact on how we understand everything we do. When we disagree with a cause or company or product, we boycott by promising to make the 'third' choice. When we believe in someone or want to show support, we engage in the opposite, shunning the 'third' choice or even contributing financial value even without making a choice. Our psyches are wired to believe that every choice we make is endorsement, contribution, and participation in a marketplace structure and every refusal to do so is likewise an negative impact on whatever it is we decline. Market theory defines the success of ideas based on participation because participation allocates resources and therefore tangible, concrete support or lack thereof creating what amounts to an economic democracy among targeted demographics.
Throughout your life "Yea, I won't have anything to do with that." has been equated with depriving 'that' of value, power, or influence; it's a statement of the 'third' choice in action.
This example is based on a series of classic moral dilemmas, but is useful for my topic as well.
You're standing near the tracks of a San Francisco trolly. The trolly is out of control and flying down the tracks at a terrifying speed. The tracks split near the bottom to two possible paths. Next to you is a lever. The lever shifts the switch on the tracks determining where the runaway trolly will go. On sub track A, 5 older people with families are tied up, helpless, and should the car go down THIS path, they will die. On track B, 5 much younger but single people are tied up, and likewise, if that track is selected, they will die. The lever you stand near shifts the switch between track A and track B.
Horrible choice, right?
Fortunately, I'm not asking you to make it, just appreciate how it works.
This choice is fundamentally different than the market choices we make. There is no third choice. There is no option to walk away from the vendor and in so doing deprive that vendor of endorsement or gain. You can't boycott the outcome. The lever sits on either A or B and your failure to pull it chooses an outcome as absolutely as if you did.
The trolly dilemma requires a few things for that volitional responsibility to lie with you. First, you must be aware of it. Second, you must be reasonably able to pull the lever. If both of these things are true, it is not possible to refuse to be a part of the outcome.
In this structure, there is no cumulative resource being gathered that can be denied to the system by refusing to act. There is only outcome A or outcome B with the lever sitting on one side or the other. Not moving the lever picks where the lever resides. Moving the lever also picks where the lever resides. These are the only options available and walking away picks where the lever currently is. No matter what you do in a trolly style situation, you are locked into being a part of the outcome if you are aware of it and able to act on it.
Voting is not the marketplace.
Voting is the runaway trolly.
There is no 'third choice' in a vote. You do not actually contribute anything to a pool of resources by participating nor do you deprive the system of anything by abstaining. The position of the switch turns on numerous micro-pulls by voters in particular directions prior to the trolly's arrival. Voting, as a whole, picks the lever's position.
Failure to vote does exactly the same thing. It is a deliberate, conscious decision to leave the lever in whatever position it is in at the time. It is indifference, but it is not abstinence. A choice is made and the decision to leave the lever where it is has just as much participatory and volitional value as moving the lever into a specific new position of choice.
This difference is extremely hard for many people to wrap their minds around. In day to day life, we are so used to the idea that conscious volition in a given direction is endorsement because of the market realities we deal with 95% of the time, when we encounter a runaway trolly we mistakenly ascribe it the 'third choice' by default.
It is this misunderstanding of the underlying structure of voting that is often mistakenly used by so many to remain apathetic election to election. They believe they are withholding support, boycotting, or otherwise refraining from a broken system. But that only works in markets. That only works when a resource can be withheld that is required for the vendor to succeed. In the trolly situation, staring at the lever sitting a 'A' and saying "I am not participating" by refusing to flip the switch to 'B' is exactly the same as the lever sitting at 'B' and the person actively pulling the lever to 'A'.
Each and every voter needs to understand that they vote each and every time. The trolly comes regularly, and whether we like it, like the candidates, or like any of the outcomes (I mean come on, the trolly is always killing someone...) the time to oppose the political realities is NOT during an election. By then it's too late. Elections are the tip of the iceberg and the most obvious expression of political exercise, but between them are huge expanses of time in which people have the ability to work at how the next trolly will arrive. Motivated voters can spend this time changing the tracks, removing people from the rails, adjusting how the trolly moves and where it goes and who might be conducting, but once the trolly is on its way, nobody gets to turn their back on the lever and say 'I'm not participating'.
Yes. Yes you are. And your choice is as real in denial as it would be at the ballot box, so until the system itself is changed we have a responsibility for each and every outcome in every election we can vote. Acceptance of this structural reality and the inability to abstain is the start to a sense of urgency for necessary for real political change.
Politics is a high stakes game. If you think back to when you first learned of Euchre or Monopoly, the first thing you asked when introduced to it was "What's the rules?" I mean how can you possibly play any game without an understanding of the foundation of how it's played. In politics, however, people grasp only the most basic aspects of the system and then pretend they know everything. They argue over the outcomes of whether we should be on Chance or Community Chest without ever learning how many dice to roll or what the turn order is.
Structure, to me, is everything. I've always been fascinated by the patterns and rules that govern behavior and systems of control. So all of the above drives me batshit crazy. I'm hoping to use my blog to explore some commonly misunderstood parts of the rules system and hopefully create a little more common ground from which to discuss our country and political future.
This article is about voting, or lack thereof.
The Third Choice
Introducing the ice creme cart! This cart is very simple and sells vanilla and chocolate ice creme. No other flavors. The cart represents how we, as Americans, are taught about choices and participation. We walk outside and we're greeted with someone offering us a choice, in this case, between two popular ice creme flavors.
But there is a third choice. We can choose chocolate, we can choose vanilla, but we can also choose not to buy at all. This third choice is important because either of the first two require us to give some of our resources, in this case money, while the third retains that value for ourselves. So while the surface choice is X or Y, the actual choice is X, Y, or Z.
This 'third choice' is extremely important. It resides in the alternative to the truth that either flavor supports, endorses and promotes the cart. The cart owner wins if you pick either flavor and loses if you abstain. Throughout our lives, this implied additional choice has a massive impact on how we understand everything we do. When we disagree with a cause or company or product, we boycott by promising to make the 'third' choice. When we believe in someone or want to show support, we engage in the opposite, shunning the 'third' choice or even contributing financial value even without making a choice. Our psyches are wired to believe that every choice we make is endorsement, contribution, and participation in a marketplace structure and every refusal to do so is likewise an negative impact on whatever it is we decline. Market theory defines the success of ideas based on participation because participation allocates resources and therefore tangible, concrete support or lack thereof creating what amounts to an economic democracy among targeted demographics.
Throughout your life "Yea, I won't have anything to do with that." has been equated with depriving 'that' of value, power, or influence; it's a statement of the 'third' choice in action.
The Runaway Trolly
You're standing near the tracks of a San Francisco trolly. The trolly is out of control and flying down the tracks at a terrifying speed. The tracks split near the bottom to two possible paths. Next to you is a lever. The lever shifts the switch on the tracks determining where the runaway trolly will go. On sub track A, 5 older people with families are tied up, helpless, and should the car go down THIS path, they will die. On track B, 5 much younger but single people are tied up, and likewise, if that track is selected, they will die. The lever you stand near shifts the switch between track A and track B.
Horrible choice, right?
Fortunately, I'm not asking you to make it, just appreciate how it works.
This choice is fundamentally different than the market choices we make. There is no third choice. There is no option to walk away from the vendor and in so doing deprive that vendor of endorsement or gain. You can't boycott the outcome. The lever sits on either A or B and your failure to pull it chooses an outcome as absolutely as if you did.
The trolly dilemma requires a few things for that volitional responsibility to lie with you. First, you must be aware of it. Second, you must be reasonably able to pull the lever. If both of these things are true, it is not possible to refuse to be a part of the outcome.
In this structure, there is no cumulative resource being gathered that can be denied to the system by refusing to act. There is only outcome A or outcome B with the lever sitting on one side or the other. Not moving the lever picks where the lever resides. Moving the lever also picks where the lever resides. These are the only options available and walking away picks where the lever currently is. No matter what you do in a trolly style situation, you are locked into being a part of the outcome if you are aware of it and able to act on it.
Voting
Voting is not the marketplace.
Voting is the runaway trolly.
There is no 'third choice' in a vote. You do not actually contribute anything to a pool of resources by participating nor do you deprive the system of anything by abstaining. The position of the switch turns on numerous micro-pulls by voters in particular directions prior to the trolly's arrival. Voting, as a whole, picks the lever's position.
Failure to vote does exactly the same thing. It is a deliberate, conscious decision to leave the lever in whatever position it is in at the time. It is indifference, but it is not abstinence. A choice is made and the decision to leave the lever where it is has just as much participatory and volitional value as moving the lever into a specific new position of choice.
This difference is extremely hard for many people to wrap their minds around. In day to day life, we are so used to the idea that conscious volition in a given direction is endorsement because of the market realities we deal with 95% of the time, when we encounter a runaway trolly we mistakenly ascribe it the 'third choice' by default.
It is this misunderstanding of the underlying structure of voting that is often mistakenly used by so many to remain apathetic election to election. They believe they are withholding support, boycotting, or otherwise refraining from a broken system. But that only works in markets. That only works when a resource can be withheld that is required for the vendor to succeed. In the trolly situation, staring at the lever sitting a 'A' and saying "I am not participating" by refusing to flip the switch to 'B' is exactly the same as the lever sitting at 'B' and the person actively pulling the lever to 'A'.
Each and every voter needs to understand that they vote each and every time. The trolly comes regularly, and whether we like it, like the candidates, or like any of the outcomes (I mean come on, the trolly is always killing someone...) the time to oppose the political realities is NOT during an election. By then it's too late. Elections are the tip of the iceberg and the most obvious expression of political exercise, but between them are huge expanses of time in which people have the ability to work at how the next trolly will arrive. Motivated voters can spend this time changing the tracks, removing people from the rails, adjusting how the trolly moves and where it goes and who might be conducting, but once the trolly is on its way, nobody gets to turn their back on the lever and say 'I'm not participating'.
Yes. Yes you are. And your choice is as real in denial as it would be at the ballot box, so until the system itself is changed we have a responsibility for each and every outcome in every election we can vote. Acceptance of this structural reality and the inability to abstain is the start to a sense of urgency for necessary for real political change.
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