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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Thor's Day: Politics and religion

Thursday of the week is devoted to airing out religion and religions. The column’s title, “Thor’s Day,” comes from the etymology of the word Thursday, literally “Thor’s Day.”

It’s ungodly, all the politics in the air now. The commentary on one of last Friday’s fish provoked the thought that presidential politics in America is a lot like religion. And not just in the obvious sense that one of the commenters pointed out, that “being religious” is a sine qua non for running for president. Rather, a candidate has to be nominally something, something mainstream, and in America that generally means something Christian—even Mormon, which the Latter-Day Saints certainly consider themselves to be.
But there are things more cripplingly religious about our politics than that. So much is taken on faith, you see.
Many Americans still take it on faith that the candidate who is more their own color is (for just that reason) more desirable than the other one (or other ones, but not this year).
It is generally conceded by pollsters that most voters have already made up their mind. And apparently the basis on which many of those voters made up their mind was…faith. Faith in Obama’s or Romney’s image, or in Obama’s or Romney’s party. Faith, in many cases, learned from their parents, right along with their church religion.
Or faith that their preferred party’s candidate has a plan, and faith that he will be able to act on it and it will make things all better, if not for the common good, then at least for the voters involved.
It’s faith because, if their candidate has a plan, they don’t know what it is.
It’s faith because no “plan” (singular) is going to address everything that will come up.
Plus the daily faith in the truth of the TV ads they’re watching—that is, the ones for their candidate, supplied by himself, his party, or their PACs. Voters avoid watching the other guy’s ads, except when they feel the need for a jolt of outrage to energize them.
Barring "something's happening(like income tax evasion’s being revealed by an examination of Romney’s tax returns, after he finally releases them the Sunday evening prior to the election; or the release of an authenticated videotape showing Obama praying toward Mecca during Ramadan), the pollsters already think they know which states’ electoral votes will go to Obama and which to Romney.
It is said, probably rightly in terms of statistics, that this November’s election will be decided by the swing voters in a handful of states. Most of the other voters have made up their minds (largely based on faith), so their votes can be considered already counted. That is, the states where one candidate’s presumed voters significantly (in statistical terms) outnumber his opponent’s are already decided. Barring "something's happening."
Notice one other thing. One candidate’s side must be very much more “religious” than the other one’s side. Sound strange to you?
I use “must” in the logical sense that the conclusion follows from a line of reasoning. Here’s the argument:
In terms of logical necessity, one of the presidential candidates is, objectively speaking, the better choice for America—probably the much better choice, because the two candidates’ and their parties’ philosophies are so different. Voters who decide objectively by careful research and analysis whom to vote for are probably in a minority—perhaps a very small one. (Oh, let’s be honest: they are definitely in a very small minority.) If they are truly objective, then they will all vote for the same candidate—the objectively much better candidate (and party).
Now, both sides have voters who aren’t objective, who vote on faith. (Both sides have many such voters, and each side hopes to secure these “faith voters” by hammering home the side’s talking points.) But one side—the side whose candidate is the objectively inferior choice for America—must logically have nothing but faith voters, because every voter originally on that side who voted objectively (that is, did their research and analysis and concluded that the other side’s candidate was the better choice) had to change sides in order to vote for the better candidate. The only voters left on the inferior candidate’s side are faith voters.
Ergo: The inferior candidate’s side is much more religious than the other side’s candidate.
But the better candidate doesn’t necessarily win elections in America. America desperately needs less religion in its politics.

17 comments:

  1. Seems to me that this post has many errors in it. It's almost a case of "What's Wrong With This Picture," the old pastime of noticing the clock with no hands and the kid wearing one slipper and one boot. Here's what I notice:

    * "Faith" doesn't identify the same psychological state in all the contexts where the word appears. For example, my faith in God and my faith in my spouse's fidelity are very different phenomena and have vastly different requirements for rational support. This obvious observation is by itself enough to undermine the "logic" of the post.

    * The election is extraordinarily close, and no pollster worthy of our attention would dare to call it now. The election could easily be decided by a relatively small thing. Suppose, for example, that the last jobs report before the election shows a substantial gain in hiring. That could be enough to do it. Even misspeaking at a rally a week before election day could be decisive.

    * The largest voting bloc in the country belongs to the people who prefer no party. Most of them were reared in Democratic or Republican households. Their independence as adults means that they have broken away from their roots, either a bit or a great deal. Childhood conditioning isn't driving them, at least not politically.

    * Most behavior has a "rational basis." This is not the same a saying that most behavior is "rational." It's only saying that practically anyone you might meet can offer what he conceives to be well-consider reasons for his opinions. The poster, though, considers that he is objective and those in disagreement are not; they must not be using logic. In millennia past, the gods would never tolerate such hubris.

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    1. Ken, I wish I'd scheduled today's post to publish at 3 a.m. Eastern rather than at midnight. Maybe, then, you'd have gone to bed beforehand out there on the West Coast and not been able to comment so quickly, alerting my less critical readers that there's some "logical" hanky-panky going on here.
          When I put the finishing touches on the article last night, I noticed that I had earlier included the label "humor," and deleted it prior to final scheduling. But there had to have been a reason why I had attached that label, and now I remember what it was.
          I fully own the intentional, very inclusive use of "faith" and make no apology for it. It's a wonderful rhetorical technique.
          Anyway, I heartily concur with your second point, and I shouldn't have qualified something's happening to affect the election's outcome as "really big." Good point, and I've amended the article. Full credit to you, with heartfelt thanks.
          Does the largest voting bloc really consist of "no party" voters? I didn't realize that.
          Your final point detects the most daring postulate my article assumed in order to try to cast a rational spell for the sake of a strong conclusion. Bravo!
          I've restored the "humor" label, now that you've blown the whistle.
          But thought-provoking, no? Maybe I need to introduce a new label.

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    2. Yes, thought-provoking, and with a rational basis that is sufficiently strong to veil the humor. I missed it completely.

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    3. Ha, I'll have to remember to weaken my rational bases for future humor pieces so as to be less obscure about it. Or maybe I do need to start setting humor in Comic Sans MS or some other less-than-serious font.
          Or maybe continuing to veil my humor in a cloak of utter seriousness (insofar as I am able to attain it) is the way to continue to go. Humor clearly labeled as such probably couldn't be as provocative, and I'm actually more interested in provoking than humoring. (I don't think I realized that until this moment; thanks for facilitating the insight, if that's what it is.)

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  2. Moristotle, when you say the election will be decided in a handful of states, are you referencing Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia? Or do you reach out further, to the supposed 10 states some pollsters mention? Have you pondered the possibility that the fate of 300 million people in the most powerful country in the world, and therefore the fate of millions of others around the world, could be decided by an untimely trailer truck wreck blocking access to a crucial polling station in...Iowa?

    How ironic would that be, since Romney's "win" in the Iowa caucuses is what gave him the momentum his challengers could never overcome even after it was discovered he didn't even win Iowa?

    One can make a viable argument that Romney will become the Republican nominee, and may very well become president, mainly because of a 34-vote miscount that gave him a win in Iowa, and crucial early momentum, that should have gone to Rick Santorum. If so, that will be a fitting sequel to the voting debacle in Florida that helped George W. Bush win his first presidential election, and the irregularities in Ohio that helped him win his second.

    You make some wide ranging points about faith. Can anyone's faith, whether it be in religion, commerce...or cats, for that matter...actually be strong enough to overcome this country's inability to figure out a way to accurately count votes?

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    1. Motomynd, I haven't pondered the possibilities you mention, I think because I don't have the stomach for it and couldn't stand the oppressive burden that doing so would lower onto my meager spirit to get through the day with some modicum of joy.
          No, that's an exaggeration. In fact, those possibilities are cause for wonder and fascination at how real things can work out. The butterfly's wing-flap of chaos theory....(Don't assume that I know all about that; I just read James Gleick's book about it twenty or thirty years ago.)
          What is disspiriting, however, is how close this election is believed to be, how divided the population of this country seems to be as between (and I'm not even sure what the best way to characterize the sides is) "liberal" and "conservative" or whatever, how partisan we've become. I have to say "we" in honesty for I've felt personally unable to vote for any Republican since MoveOn.org was founded during the Clinton impeachment thing to protest the use the Republicans were making of it to defeat his policies. (I don't understand all of that either, and I hope that you and/or Ken—or someone else—can provide some thoughtful commentary on it.)

      But I probably could "make a viable argument about Romney's becoming the nominee" (as you describe it in your third paragraph)—if I used "logical" techniques similar to those I used for today's article. Or maybe it would be possible for someone more knowledgeable and patient with research than I am to make the argument seriously.
          Please reformulate your concluding question. My immediate answer is NO, no one's faith can be strong enough to overcome what you say. But the apparent obviousness of that answer makes me think that I don't understand your question. (In clarifying it, if you would be willing to do so, could you perhaps work in what's going on these days with efforts to limit who can vote by putting up requirements about voter IDs, and so on? I think this is relevant, because it has to do with counting votes—votes in this case that were prevented from being cast in the first place. Also, do you think that the side that is putting up these roadblocks to voting has a valid point about voter fraud?)

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  3. The problem of accuracy in counting votes doesn't interest me much, and the problem of voter fraud is a micro-issue, which makes it a fake issue. The big downer for me is the fact that the 2012 election is about bad versus worse, not about good versus bad or — oh what a thought! — good versus better.

    Romney/Ryen is, of course, the worse alternative. Every issue that is critical to our future will worsen: education, global competition, research, sensible business regulations, the "dis-entitlement" of the wealthy, and, most ironically, the economy and the budget deficit. But Obama/Biden is no reason to smile. The timidity that has marked that administration will continue, and its effectiveness will actually decline because it will be a lame-duck administration. Employment growth will creep along for years, prolonging the misery of millions. The deadlock with Congress will continue, and therefore the changes we need in immigration law, tax law, educational standards, energy policy, environmental protection, and government-sponsored research will continue to be pipe dreams. We are stuck with half an electorate with its head up its ass and no foreseeable means of head-extraction.

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  4. Ken, it is ironic that the "lesser of two evils principle" that U.S. leaders used to employ in deciding which corrupt or incompetent governments to support around the world, is now the same principle U.S.citizens have to use in deciding which politicians to vote for in our own country.

    While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I do question the math. Between the half of the populace that hardly ever bothers to vote, and a huge part of the electorate entrenched to vote one party line or the other, I fear that possibly 80% more of the electorate has "its head up its ass," to quote your post.

    As reviled as Ralph Nader was for his part in helping siphon votes away from Al Gore in the 2000 election, and therefore help elect George W Bush, it may be his larger point was correct. As long as people cast votes for the "least worst" every four years, then after every election cycle the "least worst" only gets worse.

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  5. Ken and Motomynd, I am saddened to be so emphatically reminded by you both that there's really little (or no) humor to be derived form our political situation. No, not saddened to be reminded, but saddened by the reality of which I am reminded.
        Reminded? Hell, I just wrote about this over the past few days, so why isn't it topmost in my mind? I guess I had successfully suppressed (or is it repressed?) it.
        Ah, I know an out. I'll just pray real hard and work to develop the faith that Obama will somehow be elected and undergo a "road to Damascus" conversion and become a dynamo of action so effective it will barrel the road-blocking Republicans over. What is faith for, if not to help one cope and feel better about a shitty situation?
        Will you pray with me, brothers?

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  6. Actually religion, or at least the pseudo profession of it in politics, is as old as the European colonial states in North America. See James A. Morone's Hellfire Nation for a tracing of this from colonial times. Intriguing but depressing reading if one assumes that there is some prospect of progress in politics.

    As for the current nonsense, it just illustrates Gore Vidal's ironic characterization that we have a single "property party with two right wings". Or perhaps Mark Twain's "all the fools on town are on our side, that's majority anywhere."

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    1. Tom, while it is agreeable to have my own views and the concurring views of the other two commenters (Ken and Motomynd) endorsed by a third commenter, it is depressing that we haven't heard from anyone yet who might prove to us that things are not so bad as we think.

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    2. Perhaps that's because anyone intelligent enough to read you is too intelligent/realistic to think that you can be fooled into believing such a thing...

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    3. AKA Doubting Thomas, you're probably right, however desperately I might like to be given a "proof" that things are not that bad.
          Of course, if all of the intelligent/realistic people understand that any such proof could work only by fooling me, then the "proof" definitely requires those quotation marks.

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  7. While I am more than happy to attempt any incantation to bring forth the mighty powers of Thor when they are obviously desperately needed, I am also giving serious thought to voting for independent candidates. My vote may not carry much weight since it won't be for or against either of the "least worst" candidates the major parties put forth, but at least I won't be encouraging them to give us even worse candidates four years from now.

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  8. I just noticed that a friend on Facebook commented there:

    A lot like religion!? I thought [politics] had become religion.

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  9. Moto, I would not fault anyone who cast his vote for a third candidate. I understand the voter who cries, "Screw the system! I've got my self-respect and I won't play this game!" I'm almost there myself. The problem is, "worse" has consequences that are real and ugly: more economic suffering, a less competitive work force, a lower standard of living, inadequate health insurance, an ever-fattening 1%, a "Drill Baby Drill" energy policy and its environmental consequences. I try to blot out these thoughts, but I'm not up to it.

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  10. Ken, you make excellent points about why we should continue to vote for the "least worse" choice instead of a possibly better third-candidate choice who stands no chance of actually being elected. Logic dictates that I vote for the "least worst" choice in 2012, for the brutally valid reasons you list, but I used that logic the last three presidential elections and look what good it did.

    So I have to wonder if it might have made a difference by 2012, or at least in 2016, or at the very least sometime in my lifetime, if I had started voting for what seemed an unelectable "better" choice in 2000. How else do we give traction to a viable third party or third-candidate movement? I'm not all that much of a Ralph Nader fan, but I will have to agree with him that continuing to vote for the "least worst" every four years always seems to beget even worse choices the next election.

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