It's a distraction
An election season essay. Plus a brief announcement.
Hi friends,
A quick aside before we jump into this issue. You may have noticed a changing of name and branding on here. Robbie Rambles is now SONAR, a newsletter exploring the intersections of faith, technology, philosophy, and society. This one is heavy on the “society” piece, with a fair bit of “faith”, but I look forward to writing to you next week about a less tendentious topic. Stay well my friends.
Robbie
I generally dislike contemporary American partisan politics. But, seeing as we’re coming up on an election and our senses are assaulted with a cacophony of demands on our attention, I thought I’d try to add some signal in the midst of the noise.
You’ve no doubt already heard that this is the most important election of your lifetime. That democracy itself is on the ballot. That if candidate-of-choice does not win, this will be the last election of your lifetime. And, if you’re religious, that a vote for the other candidate is, in fact, a sin.
I’m writing to say it’s a distraction.
Because here’s the thing — regardless of your persuasion, you’ve probably heard these sentiments. I’ve been inclined towards both major partisan positions at various times and they seem to be equally vociferous in their assertions. And I’ve even seen progressive partisans adopt a degree of religious fearmongering on behalf of their preferred candidate that’s akin to the neocon fundamentalism of the early 2000s. These assertions are meant to instill fear. And fear is distracting.
It distracts us from the world as it actually is. It hijacks our most base neurobiology that was developed to respond to immediate physical threats. It distorts our perceptions of good and evil. It deliberately obfuscates and elides. It’s meant to undermine your agency by channeling your energy toward an activity that is mostly inconsequential at best. Time that could be spent creating, cultivating, or caring is spent stewing in a mess of fear and bitterness.
The grand ideological conflicts of history may have the appearance of resurfacing, but the reality is that global technological capitalism has become such an enveloping force that it mostly doesn’t matter who is elected. They’re not even pawns, because that would imply the existence of a human player with intent. The currents of power are beyond any one person. Agency over scale is something that we may desire, but is illusory. It’s a desire that’s stoked in order to turn us against our neighbor. But we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
I will not tell you how to vote. I will not even tell you to vote. Because I ultimately believe our agency is best put to use by tending to one another in more immediate ways. It’s best put to use by figuring out how to carve out space and build something good, true, and beautiful in the midst of evil, lies, and ugliness.
And for my Christian readers, I will say this. Your vote may be sinful. Your non-vote may be sinful — it’s hard to say since our religion wasn’t birthed in a liberal democracy. Either way, your sin is also forgiven. And so is the sin of those who voted for the other guy. God will judge us all. And God forgives us all.