Editorial 1.9, September 1999, by Deirdre Helfferich Idiots and Public Life The ancient Greeks had a word for the selfishly private person, the person who did not participate in public life, who didn’t vote, didn’t serve on the local PTA or the road commission or even the local park work crews. The Greeks felt rather strongly about the duty of an individual to participate in their community, and the word they used to describe one who would avoid this responsibility has come down through the millenia virtually unchanged in the modern form: idiot. I have a firm belief in the value of motivated altruism. The chap who sits at home watching TV rather than getting up and going out to help someone else learn how to read, or planting flowers on the median strip, or picking up garbage on Clean-Up Day, thinking to himself "What’s in it for me?" has entirely missed the boat. What’s in it for him? Literate neighbors. A nice place to live. A fit self. Not to mention the sense of good deeds done and a hand in one’s own destiny (very satisfactory feelings). These are things that can be very motivating, and the results are good for everybody. I believe that this same idea extends directly to voting. Listening to the disgruntled opinions of people who no longer vote, I get the impression that for lack of real alternatives, they got tired of it and gave it all up as a raw deal, thinking that it didn’t matter if they voted or not anyway. Hogwash. The only vote thrown away is the vote that is never cast. Ester is blessed with a lot of civic-minded people. We frequently have the highest voter turnout in the Interior, and sometimes in the state. We show up to clean up the park, to talk at Borough Assembly meetings, to pick up trash, to vote. We’re a loud and obstreperous bunch, we let the world know what we think about things, and we make an effort to get out there and do something about it. And because of this, things get done. Even voting for the lesser of two evils is better than not voting at all. But why limit yourself to this? I voted for years in favor of the less obnoxious candidate, and not for the candidate who really stood for what I believed in, because the mildly irritating was better than the absolutely dreadful, and I thought that the former had a chance at getting in office, while the guy I really wanted to vote for never would. Well, guess what? I got tired of being a hypocrite. I got tired of seeing even these compromise candidates lose. And then in the last presidential election, the light dawned: in Alaska, the vote doesn’t ever go the way I’d like it to anyway, so why not vote my conscience and feel good about it, instead of voting as though I was at the racetrack and feeling stupid every time, when the horse I bet on lost again? I’d rather vote for than vote against. I’m not voting to vote for the winner, to be on the winning team. That’s silly. It’s a secret ballot. Nobody knows who you voted for, and even if you tell them, there’s no way anybody could verify it. So why not vote for what you really think is right? An election isn’t a football game. It isn’t just a civic duty, either. It’s altruism in action, with the added benefit of self-determination. So get out there and put your two cents’ worth into the public forum. Don’t put somebody else’s opinion above your own, just because you think they might be listened to more. Stand up for your own ideals. Vote, and vote your conscience. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a democracy at all? | ||
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