Of Voting in 2024 (Part I of III): On Voting One's "Self-Interest"

By Drew Maglio

These days, I find myself attempting to stay adjacent to contemporary politics, but I feel compelled to share some thoughts on the topic of voting. The urge to write on the subject has no doubt been spurred on by being constantly bombarded with low-rent vulgar political advertisements in recent weeks and months, which have made political engagement almost unavoidable. I guess the latter is not surprising: for it was Orwell who told us that as a society becomes increasingly totalitarian—as ours undoubtedly has in recent years and decades—political engagement in the most colloquially menial way, becomes ubiquitously incessant, and therefore almost unavoidable.

These days, meaningless political slogans and tropes are everywhere.

The first vulgarity that has grown increasingly distasteful to me, is the entire concept of voting based on one’s so-called and perceived, “self-interest”—as if the average human being could even know what such a nebulous thing would consist of if made manifest; such a concept has become so synonymous with the act of voting itself that people, particularly those on the left, have turned the former—i.e. that it’s one’s sacred “right and duty”, to exercise one’s “right to vote” in one’s “own interest”—into something of a maxim: if an implicit one. Of course, such a concept is—at its core—utterly misinformed and even immoral for a multitude of reasons. 

First and foremost, voting one’s “own interest” based on material, class, and socioeconomic conditions at the expense of others and the state at large, is—quite obviously, I think—myopic and selfish in the most menial of ways; I would further suggest that if such "logic" of voting on one's "self-interest" is extended outwardly as a general principle of democratic society, the result itself becomes morally reprehensible. I firmly believe the so-called “right (and duty) to vote” is wayward and misconstrued—especially when pleas for others to vote are being made by the most meanly average people being placed before us unsolicitedly, front-and-center, to bemoan what they perceive would happen to them, if candidate x, y, or z is, or isn’t elected. To them I say: stop the pedantic doom and gloom and understand: no matter who is (or isn’t) elected, it is very unlikely that things will change in any discernible or tangibly meaningful way! Has the inertia of modern, post-industrial society truly changed since 2020? Or 2016? Or 2008? It seems to me the non-digitized world pre-2008 has been abolished; and it seems completely obvious that it will not be coming back so it is no use seeking to superimpose the past upon the present and future—tempting as that proposition may be for the working class.

Political theater; and pleas by "actors":

Before getting hot and bothered, please understand more intelligibly what I do here mean: the machinery of government, administered in the current mode, is so vast and inter-connectedly entangled, that almost nothing but an organized upwelling of the masses—who, for the first time in history were suddenly so constituted and comprised, by mostly wise, decent, and skillfully virtuous individuals—from below could stop its headlong inertia. We are ruled, extensively by effect, yes—but impotently and inefficiently—by a giant leviathan, consisting of hoards of unelected and unaccounted-for professional bureaucrats, which in actuality constitutes the fourth branch of government operating within the United States’ umbrella of influence. It seems to me such members are almost interchangeable, and thus have no true names or faces that may be dealt with through suffrage (as we convince ourselves we do with politicians).

The current state of American governmental bureaucracy: good luck deciphering such a levianthic behemoth, with its oft entangled and overlapping jurisdictive authority.

If such a state of affairs is granted as more or less true, how then is a bombastic show of democracy, front-and-center, going to disentangle and uproot such entrenched institutions with their own vast and convoluted agendas and institutional interests?—many of which, we can’t even be well aware of with truly deep study. Suffice it to say, the monster standing before us is simply so vast, intricate, and complicated that even people who (presumably, if we take them at their word) attempt to join its legions of public officials, to subvert and reform it from within, can but understand it little and accomplish still less—and in most cases, such idealistic actors are soon consumed themselves by the former's serpentine trappings. Do we expect such a hydra to go out without a fight each passing election cycle?

Excuse me for unbelieving, when an illusioned and unthinking working-class "actor" is placed before us—perceivably to relate and relay the many blights which are affecting the modern American worker—so that we may resonate with them and their deeply-held conviction for "solution-based action", which is inherently simplistic and reductive in nature; and is therefore, incapable of understanding any singular issue with great acuity—much less solving one of an infinite multiplicity. We are then—against our will—bombarded with "brain-rotting" sloganistic messaging (and its implicit dichotomous thinking) from such agents of naive unknowing—who sincerely wish for simple-thinking (that befits their level of capacity) to prevail in the political arena: the latter of which, as a result it should be noted, has devolved to the level of a circus stage.

Such actors appear onstage to: lament, bemoan, and otherwise implore us, about what the raise or lowering in this or that tax, increase or decrease in wholly-inefficient state-sponsored welfare programs, increase or decrease in the surge of migrants, etc. will personally (on the grounds of a mere uncritical and unfiltered perception) mean to them; I admittedly, but empathetically, think most of these wayward and partially-informed "characters" (for who in such an age of cacophonic, decontextualized information can truly be informed of all valid perspectives on any single issue—much less all issues, which is what would be truly necessary, I think, to cast an informed vote) in such commercials that are, it should be noted, advertising a political "product"—and bad ones at that; I do not think it elitist to simply acknowledge, that most people who are consumed by the political arena in the current age, are indeed incapable of comprehending what is facing us and them alike: and such people should therefore, abstain from speaking with such dogmatic certainty and callousness, to avoid further denigrating an already troubled "public sphere".

For instance, consider those visceral admonishments—mostly by white-collar working women, who have fallen quite non-perspicaciously, to the unholy alliance of state and corporate power working upon their minds in unison (and largely without their knowledge)—that certain candidates intend to do away with the “hallowed and sacred right” of women to maintain autonomous will over “their bodies” (wherein it is conveniently omitted that they house “clumps of cells” which will soon be soulfully-animated, and in a wholly-separate body no-less); what such proponents of "choice" actually mean: they wish to maintain, the unnatural and unholy power that Western women have enjoyed—over budding life, to bring about death if so desired—since the middle of the previous century; and such a power, i.e. the ability to end life before it fully blooms, is conveniently called (in a true maneuver of Orwellian doublespeak) the “right to choose”—whether to abort or keep—their co-created offspring. Such women of our modern progressive age have misunderstood that having and raising children of their own—if done gleefully and with the support of a loving and giving partner—is far more fulfilling than almost any conceivable career in the soulless corporate world, where everyone is mere fodder and therefore replaceable; to the contrary, what good mother (or father) may be replaced? Further, if people cease to have children (as is already happening), who will raise and rear the next generation?

Therefore, if it is the devil’s work to everywhere scheme to maintain, and persevere for individual life, then I suppose I be his henchman—if a reluctant one: for who dares oppose ascendent modern woman?; scorn her (in her eyes), or merely tell her she is "wrong", and everywhere face the social consequences: that is the reality of life in 2024, where men and women alike have chosen—for their own willful purposes—to constantly make war with nature and seek to evade the consequences.

Consider to the contrary: that perhaps such anti-abortion advocates aim at protecting the “sanctity of life” for those who are in that wholly-dependent state of nascence, whereby they are too weak and impotent—and are in a sense symbiotic organisms, united as one with their birth mother (with measurable psycho-spiritual and material benefits granted to both beings)—to defend themselves and their corporeally-embodied existence! No matter where you personally stand on such a gravely serious issue, can we at least acknowledge the disgustingly disingenuous nature of such grotesque advertisements?; advertisements which dichotomize and reduce, a serious issue of life-and-death, to mere trope and triviality—an issue about which perhaps, volumes arguing either side and everywhere in-between, could be written? The latter, i.e. the disingenuous nature of most modern political discourse, is my real point: as political advertisements targeting the female voter base, with what amounts to emotionality-charged propaganda, to argue for or against allowing individual states to determine abortion policy within their jurisdictive borders, is not only absurd, but immoral—and is doing all American men, women, and fetuses alike a great disservice in misrepresenting and hyperbolizing the true issue(s) at stake. But what is to be expected when politics have become mere “show business”, as Neil Postman once told us?—in 1985 in fact: decades before the phenomenon of Trump and "reality" politics.

Many "real" issues remain largely hidden—and are therefore, seldom discussed.

We are now beginning to understand the true danger of our current socio-political devolution: which is to say, more important than the many distractive issues being everywhere discussed, consider we live in a world where satisfactory housing, healthcare, and nutritious, non-toxic food are prohibitively expensive for most citizens; where vast sums of private consumer debt (and an ascendent public debt) is the norm, not the exception; where retirement is becoming a relic of the past; where the social fabric is seemingly disintegrating and basic human decency—i.e. demonstrable care and concern for others in word and deed—is rarer than ever; where community is virtual, which is to say: unreal; where citizens sometimes target police, and police, sometimes exorcize inner torments outwardly through predatory and unnecessary acts of violence against citizens of the increasingly and dully legalistic, but all-encompassing (as in it controls, regulates, and otherwise oversees) nearly every aspect of our lives, “nanny” state. Where college straps students with legions of debt and wastes—unless a student be pursuing a genuine education (as in that which is pursued for its own sake and rich psycho-spiritual, intangible benefits) or highly-specialized and worthwhile profession of their choosing—many prime years of their lives that may be better spent elsewhere: for college, unlike yesteryear, no longer promises even a decent job within a reasonable timeframe after graduation, as studies show.

While on the topic of work, or the lack thereof, consider that sustaining jobs have become a rarity—and meaningfully-fruitful work, a luxury; almost all jobs are posted on job sites and use discriminatory, AI-driven, “applicant tracking systems” to sift through hundreds of depersonalized applications. As a result, so-called ghost jobs (i.e. jobs that don’t actually exist) have proliferated on nearly all job posting sites; and worse still for our youth: moms usually have to work (even if they don’t want to)—since wages are so stagnant (in terms of purchasing power) most households cannot meet basic needs without two sources of full-time income. Worse still is the epidemic of fatherlessness and disintegration of the nuclear family—which is to say nothing of the ongoing social conflict between generations—wherein the young blame the old, and the old blame the young for the country’s perceived disintegration: such a generational conflict increasingly governs interactions between family members of different generations, tearing them apart in all but formality; in tougher times, we need to lean on family more, not less—but that is not what is being witnessed in the world today, in the age of globalization, where families are as fragmented and disconnected from one another as ever before. 

If we hope to avoid such plights as those which have befallen our forebears, it is high time we, for instance, disallow our government to send foreign aid to and fro, while allowing its own citizens—whose rights and well-being it is their sworn duty to serve and protect—to either perish or wallow in the mires of a squalid mediocrity; we should talk openly and see if we can first understand, and thereafter invent "solutions", to any number of our many and varied blights: from mass homelessness and rancorous inner city slums, to incessant inflationary economic troubles—both of which have been spurred on and exacerbated no doubt, by the unbounded and heedlessly wasteful sucking of the public teat by the few, at the expense of the many: 2008 was the primer for the corporate-welfare state—2020 was, for all intents and purposes, its sequel. How do we behead such an entrenched hydra?—or ought we, as individuals, simply (and disillusionedly) deal with the effects of such an established and seemingly unchangeable "order"? I might sound (and be) a bit defeatist, but I would suggest the latter: taking responsible control of one's life, means accepting—if begrudgingly—those things which are beyond the pale of individual control and agency.

The disastrous effects of the current socio-political arrangement:

Consequently, the state and its ideologues raise our children and teach them its inhuman “values”; in short, everywhere we can see the disastrous results of such an arrangement of our work life, which dominates our “culture” (and daily lives). We do not so much work for corporations and the bloated bureaucratic welfare state—who often legally own the rights to the fruits of our labors, and increasingly infiltrate many other aspects of our lives—as we so imagine, but are instead possessed and owned by such a united, twofold but sacrilegious, marriage of power: who knew the "separation of church and state" would entail the supplantation of the church by the "joint-stock company"?, i.e. multinational corporation. Who in this modern age is truly free?—by which I mean acts as a self-determining and willful agent, whose time is spent pursuing those higher things which are most dear and fruitful to it (and its individually derived and prescribed purpose)? Of course, I am aware life has always been mean—in the sense that it has, and always must be, first oriented towards survival and propagation; but something has seriously changed since the new millennia and things are not the way they used to be: that much is clearer than ever.

We do not so much work for corporations and the bloated bureaucratic welfare state as we so imagine—who often legally own the rights to the fruits of our labors, and increasingly infiltrate many other aspects of our lives—but are instead possessed and owned by such a united—twofold but sacrilegious—marriage of power: who knew the "separation of church and state" would entail the supplantation of the church by the "joint-stock company", i.e. multinational corporation? Who in this modern age is truly free?—by which I mean acts as a self-determining and willful agent, whose time is spent pursuing those higher things which are most dear to it?

Industrialization, and the technologies which were so derived, promised to free us (and our time) from needing to pursue primary needs holistically: as in, with our fully-fledged force of being; instead, it has enslaved us to them altogether. As such, we stand at the precipice of a (post-industrial and technological) "collectivist" neo-serfdom—where the individual and family are actively being inhibited from owning property and even their labor—which Hayek so presciently warned us about. To participate in suburbanized and sprawling modern society, we are also increasingly reliant upon—and indebted to—our own technological inventions: the smartphone, automobile, and other similar (often "connected") mechanized devices are prime examples of appendages and articles, which we must toil and contort ourselves to acquire, maintain, and sustain simply to exist and participate in modern society; for in all of the aforementioned cases, once-luxuries soon become essential indispensabilities: and that is the ensnaring (and enslaving) "trick" of modern life, which straps us to our jobs, to simply keep moving indiscriminately—perhaps getting or going nowhere—on the "hamster wheel" that seems to constitute modern man's experience of existence. Is it any wonder then, why we are in the midst of a "burnout epidemic"?

Worse still: what does all of the above aim at? In what direction do the wheels of this impersonal modern machine turn? I think it no understatement that many Americans are addicted to “work” for the sake of the production and consumption process itself—as if that process be a worthy end in itself: talk about atomization! One finds under such social conditions, people often do what they can get away with—relying on external imposition to “keep them in line” (hence the sad, but genuine, need for a more pervasively repressive police state apparatus)—rather than an internal compass of one’s own conscience, fashioned through the twofold process of proper education and habituation. Could the lack of such social functions being everywhere mal-performed, be why theft is so rampant that chandleries have to lock up razors and soap, lest they too be stolen? We have misconstrued and misunderstood that education—in the proper sense—is an essentially moral task: and in such a pluralistic and secular world that is quickly degenerating further, what shrewd and discerning parent would allow such a state to morally form their children?—if they have a choice, that is. But people (and parents) increasingly have no true choice in any meaningful way: and that is precisely the point of this essay.

We have misconstrued and misunderstood that education—in the proper sense—is an essentially moral task: and in such a pluralistic and secular world that is quickly degenerating, what shrewd and discerning parent would allow such a state to morally form their children?—if they have a choice, that is. But people (and parents) increasingly have no true choice in any meaningful way: and that is precisely the point of this essay.

The internet has allowed families to "connect" from afar; what is commonly omitted: the modern arrangement of social and work life, has also necessitated that it be so.

Hence in the modern world, we seldom find people who willingly and consciously do that which is morally right for the good of the individual and whole populace (for these usually accord on a spiritual level)—as well as for the more abstract and less tangible "goods" of state, culture and the otherwise association of people (of common heritage and values), which we have long-since called, “society”. It is in the age of incessant political engagement, pandering, invocation, and placation we find ourselves in the present predicament. What if the solution is not overarching political engagement, but “mere” brotherly love for one another, one's nation, and all decent humanity far and wide? What if we pursued work for ourselves in the best and most meaningful way?; a way which accords with our very particular nature—not as we are, but as we could be? The most damnable thing about voting is that it requires almost nothing of us but signifies consent: real change—a reordering of our lives around our most sacred and deeply-held principles—in our life mode and methodology, could require of us the contrary: nearly everything—if not the kitchen-sink! The latter is, I think, the true cost to bear for individual authenticity in the age of post-modernity; and make no mistake: all is decidedly not lost—for man is far more than the sum of the stringent and strident social conditions wherein he eventuates and thereafter awakes, having found himself made conscious in a world which ill fits his best, highest, and most aspirational nature. In many respects, the latter is the true challenge of emergent adulthood, which eventually impresses upon all of us, a farcical consummate reality—with all of its absurdity, brokenness, and otherwise imperfectability—which is so divorced from the ideal, it leads us to question the very fiber of the universe itself, and of all ontology: i.e. Being.

What if the solution is not overarching political engagement, but “mere” brotherly love for one another, one's nation, and all decent humanity far and wide? What if we pursued work for ourselves in the best and most meaningful way?; a way which accords with our very particular nature—not as we are, but as we could be? The most damnable thing about voting is that it requires almost nothing of us but signifies consent: real change—a reordering of our lives around our most sacred and deeply-held principles—in our life mode and methodology, could require of us to the contrary: nearly everything, if not the kitchen-sink!

But the "solution" is not mere disenchanted dissolution of all ideals when confronted with "real": i.e. the solution to illusion is not mere misanthropic dissociative disillusion. We must instead, reckon with the world as we find it: that is to say, as it really is; not merely to bemoan what it ought be—nor to delude ourselves with new, carefully-crafted illusioned rationalizations, that seek to merely soothe, delude, and artifice a starkly-unsettling, unveiled reality that does not accord with what we were taught within the carefully-contrived confines of our self-contained school-worlds.

Part II will explore America's nearly-ubiquitous belief in "positive democracy", which is at odds with the very ethos of her own Founders.