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I'm currently having a debate with my dad.He asserts that voting is a civic duty, and that if you don't vote you can't complain about outcomes.
I disagree with both halves:
voting is commendable, but supererogatory, and in practice futile compared to lobbying and coalition-building
it's obviously viable to hold an opinion on how a leader you didn't vote for is acting. Flippantly, it's like atheism: you didn't vote for every other pol, why is the one in power different somehow? Practically, we don't say you can't hold an opinion about your driver falling asleep if you're a passenger.
There's mutual incomprehension, here, and frankly he doesn't seem sophisticated in his thinking; it's just repeating a slogan with the vehemence of a moral axiom, pure meme replication, pure social force on force. Can someone steelman his side for me? Mind read if you need to. Can someone steelman my side for me?
You should vote because it is a holy ritual that strengthens your household and girds your soul. You are not voting just for yourself, but you are linking the fire of American democracy, from your father to his father unto infinitum. As the Romans would say, it is a matter of religion, not politics. All the votes are rigged anyway, the candidates pre-selected, but that doesn't change the necessity of the act. So as long as you vote, the sacred institutions of the republic are preserved.
This is too much of a defense, IMO. I'd rather argue that, while voting is generally important, there are definite issues. We are supposed to be rationalist, and while principles are important, it is still valid and good to have doubts, to be forced into alertness by those doubts, and to begin asking questions. I won't go as far as Capital_Room, I won't proclaim that the scales have fallen from my eyes or that I can see through the Matrix here, but I think the OP is doing something important with their question and getting all these arguments in defense.
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The contrary of that is that it’s designed to psychologically convince you to accept the legitimacy of the system. Democracy is at least partially a pacification mechanism— it convinces people that because they and everyone else voted for the government that’s doing this or that bad thing, or that preselects candidates that it must be legitimate. And really, it works quite well. No matter what actually happens, most people barely bother to complain, let alone protest no matter what.
Well, of course it is.
But your non-participation only entitles and empowers a potential Caesar, who similarly believes that the systems and institutions are a corrupt sham and shell. And when you go to hide behind said institutions, suddenly made aware of its values, it will collapse upon itself. You will be left naked and trembling before a new, populist God.
Unless, of course, that is your desired end goal.
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I mean I can do that, but some other lunk who is casting a vote because Taylor Swift said to can cast theirs and entirely cancel out the effect of mine.
Hard to be enthusiastic about the "institutions of the republic" under those conditions.
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But at this point, are they really still "sacred," or have they been profaned beyond recovery; and should they be preserved at all?
Let me make an analogy.
One prays to God, not out of a naive desire for divine intervention to manifest one's wishes, but as an affirmative call to one's own virtuous goals. Whether or not it comes to good or ill is divided into two parts: the mortal - which is in our control - and in the divine - which is ineffable.
Which is to say, go vote, because it is good for the soul, and then do the necessary things in your community anyway.
Atheist materialist here. There is only "the mortal." There is no ineffable, no soul. So I don't see how to apply this analogy.
And if there were a soul, voting would be bad for it. Voting is bad. "Democracy" is a sham, "democracy" is evil, "democracy" must be destroyed!
You don't need to believe in democracy, only give sacrifice to the civic gods. The Roman analogy is apt. I'm not asking you to sacrifice a fatted calf or a firstborn child: I'm asking you to stand in a line for two hours in some public place. It doesn't matter what you believe or what you think is true, only that the proper forms are observed.
Why does "observing the proper forms" matter, then?
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