Sympathetic Magic

[billroper]

catalana mentioned that one of the topics they're covering in her classes this semester is why someone should bother to vote in a population with a large number of eligible voters, given the vanishingly small chance that one vote will make a difference. Since this came up at about the moment that she was getting out at the train station, I didn't get a chance to hear the reasonable explanation of why a person should vote.

My unreasonable explanation for why I vote is that I view it as a form of sympathetic magic. If I bother to go out and vote for a candidate or issue that I care about, other voters who agree with me may somehow be stimulated to do the same thing.

Of course, living in Cook County, I have a problem finding voters who agree with me, but that's a different problem altogether. :)

Comments

[andpuff.livejournal.com]

Me, I work on the 'if you don't vote, you don't get to bitch' theory and I refuse to give up my right to bitch.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not so much that we covered it this semester (although I think it came up as an example with Kant and the Categorical Imperative...and, now that I think of it, as an argument for rule-utilitarianism), but it's a spiel I give every fall that there are elections.

Essentially, it is a lovely illustration of problems about universalizing actions. Suppose I think "Oh, it doesn't matter if I vote - one vote won't make a difference. I might as well go to the movies."

Okay, so few national elections are decided by one vote, true. But what if everyone starts reasoning like that? Sure, maybe it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things if one person doesn't vote...but it certainly matters if *no one* votes.

(Plus, of course, lots of local elections are decided on much smaller margins.)

This isn't exactly an illustration of a slippery slope fallacy, but it's a similar kind of problem; one person not voting doesn't destroy the system. But everyone not voting does...and figuring out exactly where to draw that line is hard. (Much as losing one hair doesn't make you bald, but losing all of them does; we may not know where to draw the line between bald and not-bald, but it's certainly possible to pass from one state to the other!)

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Living in Cook County is why you need to vote. If you lived in a state where your side was in the majority, it would make less difference. As it is, you're the fly in the ointment or some such allusion.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

Or the other way around, one person dumping waste into Lake Michigan doesn't matter. Everyone in Chicago doing so, does. A lot of harm in the world is the sum of teensy-weensy harms times six billion times 365. The quantity of harm observed is evidence that people have a really hard time thinking this way.

[madfilkentist]

As far as I understand Kant, he would object to the idea that the effect of an action on other people's motivation can be part of a moral argument. By calling it a "categorical" imperative, he was saying that the obligation to act on universalizable principles is prior to any if-then arguments.

Reasonable explanations

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, the "If you didn't vote you have no right to bitch about the results" reason. I want to feel I have the moral right to bitch.

There's also the greedy motive. My vote is actually worth a greater percent if I vote and you don't. If my vote is nominally worth X% but there's only a 50% turnout, my vote is really worth 2X%. If there's only a 33% turnout, my vote is really worth 3X%. There aren't a lot of things in life where you can get more than your fair share and be praised for doing it.

And while there is often a shortage of people and propositions worth voting FOR,, there are almost always people and propositions worth voting AGAINST. This is especially true in California with all the voter-sponsored initiatives that are put on the ballot - but it was true as well in the other states I've lived in. While this doesn't directly address the question of "Will my vote make a difference?", there is something inherently satisfying about having made ones wishes known (however futile the cause).

On a personal note, voting is comparable to a sampling procedure, and in general the sample size compared to the population is high enough to make this reflect the population with reasonable accuracy. But I've been in Quality Engineering (Hardware) long enough to have seen bizarre results from small samples. Doing an audit of parts at a supplier, I reached into a bin of a few hundred parts, pulled out a single part and checked all measurements. It failed. They remeasured all the other parts (I supervised), not a single one was out of tolerance. The next month I did the same thing with a different part - and got the same result. I managed to snag, purely at random, the one bad part out of a bin of hundreds. Their process was in control, their sampling plan was fine, their inspections had not turned up any problems - but in a small enough sample, anything can happen. The lower the turnout of voters, the greater the chance for an odd result because voters are NOT random samples - they are self-selecting. If general support for a proposition is 67%, but the FORs get only 50% turnout while your AGAINSTs get 100% turnout, you can carry the day.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Kant says we should act in such a way that its maxim is universalizable. The proposition "Vote unless you think it won't matter" isn't universalizable because of the consequences on society (and, possibly more importantly, because it would in a sense render "democracy" senseless; you can't have a democracy where no one votes.)

[billroper]

Ok, that makes sense.

[tattercoats.livejournal.com]

Bill, thank you for putting clearly something I've struggled to convey for years. Yes. Sympathetic magic indeed; I apply this to recycling, putting rubbish in bins, any kind of action which would benefir from wider practice. A sort of 'If I do it, I somehow represent all the other people who may make the same decision / try that bit harder' concept.

But you put it better anyway, so I'll stop there. Thank you!

[callylevy.livejournal.com]

And sometimes it directly encourages other people to do likewise! *grins*

C x (in an increasingly green home)

[madfilkentist]

Fallacy of begging the question. Your argument implicitly assumes that "no one thinks it matters" is an accepted premise of the debate. If some people think their vote matters (the correctness of their view is irrelevant here) and they follow the proposition "Vote unless you think it won't matter," then they will vote.

[hms42]

Hmm... I think the proof is in the reason why the 2005 NASFiC went to Seatle vs Charlotte... 420 (roughly) voters for the convention at Torcon 3. Attendance was around 3000-4000 people. The vote went Seatle by 6 (six) votes. The original rumor at the con had said 5 votes. I was at that business meeting, so yes, your vote DOES count.

I have also heard about local school budgets failing or passing by just a few votes a few times here in NY.

I vote because I want my voice heard.

Harold

[fireskin.livejournal.com]

I'm right behind you on that one. If you're not willing to do anything about it, you can't complain.

[fireskin.livejournal.com]

As a firm believer in Karma (having witnessed it in action in a big way over the years) I think the sympathetic magic idea is a lot more right on than perhaps may be at first apparent.

On the other foot...

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with the principle utterly. I thought I'd better get that on the table first. We've lived here for fifteen years, for ten in London before that, and we vote every time.

But...

We've always lived in an area where the other side was very safely in the majority. Our votes have gone into the total for the guy (or gal) who came second, every single time. Judging by the demographic for the area, it looks as though they always will. If we didn't vote, it would in practice change absolutely nothing (because even if we changed sides, we'd only add to an already far too healthy majority).

There will never be a democracy where no-one votes. There will always be a democracy where not enough people vote, because that's human nature. And from someone's point of view, they'll always be the wrong people. And people will bitch, whether we think they have the right to or not: our disapproval won't affect them in the least.

I'm leaving aside the whole question of whether the electorate's votes actually have any influence on which half of the gang gets to rule and which half gets to throw rocks, because that's another can of sandworms and my tin opener isn't big enough. Suffice to say that democracy is a process which divides any country into three parts: Those who win, those who waste their effort, and those who don't bother. As life members of the second group, I think we can be forgiven for looking at the third group and wondering if they know something we don't.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

I always vote in national elections and state elections. My record is spottier on the smaller, local elections (e.g., school board), and I find that slightly embarrassing. Prior to the election, I try to do some research, so I can walk into the voting booth with some idea of what I'm doing.

Why do I do these things? For the same reason that I will always report for jury duty, unless there's a truly real and compelling reason for me to ask to be excused. It's part of the responsibility I take on by choosing to remain a citizen of the United States. I'm holding up my end of the social contract.

I do think that who or what I vote for (or against) can be subject to considerations of how other people are or aren't voting. For instance, there's the question of what to do if you think the best candidate is the one from a third party, the one that has no real chance of winning. But when it comes to the basic question of whether or not to vote at all, no, I don't worry about my odds of making a difference.

Voting

[bschilli.livejournal.com]

I almost always vote. There have been some effectively uncontested elections where I didn't. Those are usually local elections where there's only candidate on the ballot. I was very unhappy one year when I didn't get to vote because I'd moved one day too late.

Ben