is it really so wrong for me not to vote?

[Mr. Tea]

Are you calling yourself out there? Not good form.

No, I was replying to you. I thought that was pretty clear.

 

[Mr. Tea]

anyway, its got fuck all to do with cleverness. It's merely doing my civic duty. All right, I will fucking vote, I will vote with the absolute requisite enthusiasm and no more, just to shut you up. and then you can't call me out for not voting when you are proven wrong. Wholly utilitarian, you see.

But who is this "you"? Who is actually giving you a hard time for not voting, or would do so if you didn't vote?

 

[WashYourHands]

Know what you should be able to vote on? Bonfire Night fireworks in the fuckin rain. Cue news of kids getting blinded

Vote on 4 bangers in a glass bottle rolled into the underpass. That’s parenting

 

[thirdform]

It’s this demographic and those immediately below that have been hit hardest by Covid and as such have the capacity to politically glass Britain ruthlessly in the proceeding years, something you may rejoice in, something much much worse than Brexit and the “Tories”.

Correct. Boris is the most revolutionary tory, he is doing the utmost for the union to break up. Chaos and madness is the first step to changing everything. It might be painful for us, but history is a demanding mistress.

 

[thirdform]

But who is this "you"? Who is actually giving you a hard time for not voting, or would do so if you didn't vote?

I mean I don't want to say people like you, because I think we've sufficiently domesticated you, but your social circle at Oxford, if you will.

 

[thirdform]

I hate England too for different reasons, but this mantra you have about a coddled mass of blow hards who couldn’t give a fuck because the third world can twerk it is tawdry. It plays to a warped worldview held by the very culprits you despise. Not everyone is an apathetic or dismissive cunt incapable of grasping the greater game. Not even close and we all have to negotiate the shadows of empires, whether present, fallen or rising

Well that was in reference to working class conservatism. I don't think working class tories are thick. I don't agree with their politics, but their desires to escape the dull, deadening, compulsive alienation of a job which pays very little is admirable. There is something potentially explosive there, even if the by and large middle class left cannot see it. Don't forget it is the middle classes who are rightly or wrongly the most self-effacing — there are of course material explanations for that, as you highlighted upthread.

 

[version]

But there's none of that canvassing, campaigning, political investment. You vote, and then go back home, and are unlikely to make a big deal about it on social media, because for all intents and purposes its a purely practical choice (not an ethico-political one.)

This is essentially what I was saying. That practical choice is an incentive to vote.

 

[thirdform]

This is essentially what I was saying. That practical choice is an incentive to vote.

Only on the most immediate level, not to remain committed.

 

[version]

Only on the most immediate level, not to remain committed.

Yeah, I'm not arguing for any sort of commitment. I'm talking purely on an election-by-election basis.

 

[thirdform]

Yeah, I'm not arguing for any sort of commitment. I'm talking purely on an election-by-election basis.

Right. That in and of itself is a refutation of voting ideology though. voting not as self-assertion but as self-preservation.

 

[version]

Right. That in and of itself is a refutation of voting ideology though. voting not as self-assertion but as self-preservation.

I think that's where I'm at at present. There was a brief period where I think I felt some sense of civic responsibility and would vote at every opportunity, albeit purely to try to unseat the Tories and not out of any passion or commitment to any particular party or politics, but now, if I vote at all, it's just an attempt at damage limitation.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I mean I don't want to say people like you, because I think we've sufficiently domesticated you, but your social circle at Oxford, if you will.

You're such an extreme professional cynic, especially about democracy (it's the same as Stalinism, etc.), that I always assumed you'd never voted. And I don't think I've ever called you a dickhead on that particular front.

 

[thirdform]

You're such an extreme professional cynic, especially about democracy (it's the same as Stalinism, etc.), that I always assumed you'd never voted. And I don't think I've ever called you a dickhead on that particular front.

Granted. However dissensus is receptive to my cynicism, whereas most of society is not. so you nod along politely, then you tell them that voting is not what its cracked up to be, and bam! the pitchforks are out. How could you, you must be nothing but an adolescent nihilist, please go and quote ralph nader 20 times a day for 20 years before you come back!

 

[thirdform]

my position is simply this. Left to my own devices I will not vote. however if Toby and Arabella are screaming at me, I will treat it like a piss in a public urinal, pub style. get the job done, feel relieved and continue drinking the pints.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Granted. However dissensus is receptive to my cynicism, whereas most of society is not. so you nod along politely, then you tell them that voting is not what its cracked up to be, and bam! the pitchforks are out. How could you, you must be nothing but an adolescent nihilist, please go and quote ralph nader 20 times a day for 20 years before you come back!

Haha, Ralph Nader. Now there's a blast from the past.